The first edition of The War Cry was printed on December 27, 1879 in London, England. In 1880, US Salvation Army Commissioner George Scott Railton published the Salvation News, a small newsletter. He published the first American edition of The War Cry in January 1881 in St. Louis, Missouri. Between 1920 and 1970, each U.S. territory published its own individual version of The War Cry. In 1970, the Salvation Army's US National Headquarters started publishing a nationwide version of The War Cry.