Edward Alfred Pollard (27 February 1832–17 December 1872), American journalist, was born in Nelson County, Virginia, on 27 February 1832. He graduated at the University of Virginia in 1849, studied law at the College of William and Mary, and in Baltimore (where he was admitted to the bar), and was engaged in newspaper work in California until 1855. During 1857 to 1861 he was clerk of the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. By 1859 he had become an outspoken secessionist, and during the Civil War he was one of the principal editors of the Richmond Examiner (along with Robert William Hughes, which supported the Confederacy but was hostile to President Jefferson Davis.