Thomas Alva Edison, at age 15, arrived in Detroit by train like every morning. He found a crowd gathered around the newsstand: a few days earlier, the Battle of Shiloh in the American Civil War had taken place on the Tennessee River. It was, up until that point, the largest battle of the war and in the history of the United States. Thomas sensed his opportunity: he used the telegraph to notify the stations down the train that copies of the Detroit Free Press were arriving. He then bought several hundred, borrowing on faith. At the first station, he already sold 35 copies, whereas he usually sold between six and eight.
