Major General William T. Sherman became the commander of the Fifteenth Corps in Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee in January 1863. From his camp across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Sherman wrote to his father-in-law, Thomas Ewing Sr., and to his brother John, a Republican senator from Ohio, about the dangers posed by the press. In December 1861 the Cincinnati Commercial had reported Sherman to be “insane” after he was relieved from commands in Kentucky and Missouri, and in the spring of 1862 Sherman had been infuriated by sensational newspaper stories falsely claiming that his men had been bayoneted in their tents during the initial Confederate attack at Shiloh. His antagonism toward the press reached a new level after his failed assault at Chickasaw Bayou near Vicksburg on December 29, 1862. When the New York Herald printed a story highly critical of his leadership in the battle, Sherman had its author, correspondent Thomas W. Knox, court-martialed on charges of giving intelligence to the enemy, being a spy, and disobedience of orders. On February 18, 1863, the court-martial convicted Knox of the third charge and ordered him to be expelled from the Army of the Tennessee’s lines. When Knox sought Sherman’s consent to return to the army in April, Sherman wrote that he would welcome him as a soldier, but as a reporter, “my answer is Never.”
Camp before Vicksburg, Feb. 17, 1863.
Hon. Thomas Ewing
Dear Sir,
Ellen has sent me the enclosed slips from the Cincinnati Commercial. The Editor evidently seems disposed to deal fairly by me, and as I have more leisure than usual now I will illustrate by examples fresh in the memory of all, why I regard newspaper correspondents as spies, & why as a Servant of an enlightened Government I feel bound in honor and in common honesty to shape my official conduct accordingly. A spy is one who furnishes an enemy with knowledge useful to him & dangerous to us. One who bears into a Fortress or Camp a baneful influence that encourages sedition or weakens us. He need not be an enemy, is often a trader woman or Servant. Such characters are by all belligerents punished Summarily & with the extremest penalties, not because they are of themselves filled with the guilty thought & intent that makes the Madman the Burglar the Thief the Felon in civil affairs, but because he or she endangers the safety of an army a nation or the cause for which it is contending. Andre carried no intelligence back to Genl. Clinton but was the mere instrument used to corrupt the fidelity of an Officer holding an important command. Washington admitted the high & pure character of Andre but the safety of the cause demanded his punishment. It is hard to illustrate my point by reference to our past history, but I wish to convey the full idea that a nation & an army must defend its safety & existence by making acts militating against it criminal regardless of the mere interest of the instrument. We find a scout surveying our camp from a distance in noways threatening us but seeking information of the location strength & composition of our forces, we shoot him of course without asking a question. We find a stranger in our camp seeking a stray horse & find afterwards he has been to the enemy: we hang him as a spy because the safety of the army & the cause it fights is too important to be risked by any pretext or chance. Now in these modern times a class of men has been begotten & attend our camps & armies gathering minute information of our strength plans & purposes & publish them so as to reach the enemy in time to serve his purposes. Such publications do not add a man to our strength, in no ways benefit us but are invaluable to the enemy. You know that this class published in advance all the plans of the Manassas movement enabled Johnston to reinforce Beauregard whereby McDowell was defeated & the enemy gained tremendous strength & we lost in comparison. I know the enemy received from the same source some similar notice of our intended attack on Vicksburg & thwarted our well laid scheme. I know that Beauregard at Corinth received from the same source full details of all troops ascending the Tennessee & acted accordingly. I know that it was by absolute reticence only that Halleck succeeded in striking Forts Henry & Donaldson & prevented their reinforcements in time to thwart that most brilliant movement. And it was only by the absence of newspapers that we succeeded in reaching the post of Arkansas before it could be reinforced.
I know that the principal northern papers reach the enemy regularly & promptly & I know that all the vigilance of our Army cannot prevent it & I know that by this means the enemy can defeat us to the end of time. I could instance other examples but these suffice to illustrate this branch of the subject.
Another view of the case. The Northern Press either make public opinion or reflect it. By gradual steps public opinion instead of being governed governs our country. All bow to it, & even military men who are sworn officers of the Executive Branch of the Government go behind & look to public opinion. The consequence is & has been that officers instead of keeping the Executive Branch advised of all movements events or circumstances that would enable it to act advisedly & with vigor communicate with the public direct through the Press so that the Government authorities are operated on by public opinion formed too often on false or interested information. This has weakened our Executive and has created jealousies mistrust & actual Sedition. Officers find it easier to attain rank known fame and notoriety by the cheap proces of newspapers. This cause has paralized several fine armies & by making the people at home mistrust the ability of Leaders Surgeons & Quarter Masters has even excited the fears of parents so far that many advise their sons & brothers to desert until desertion & mutiny have lost their odious character. I’ll undertake to say that the army of the Potomac has not today for battle one half the men whom the U.S. pays as Soldiers & this is partially the case with the army in Tennessee & here. In all armies there must be wide differences of opinion & partial causes of disaffection—want of pay, bad clothing dismal camps crowded transports hospitals rudely formed & all the incidents of war. These cannot be entirely avoided & newspapers can easily change them to negligence of commanders & thereby create disaffection. I do not say that the Press intends this but they have done this and are doing it all the time now I know that I made the most minute and careful preperation for the sick & wounded on the Yazoo, plenty of ambulances & men detailed in advance to remove the wounded—four (4) of the largest transports prepared & set aside before a shot was fired, & that every wounded man was taken from the field dressed & carefully attended immediately & yet I know that the Press has succeeded in making the very reverse impression & that many good people think there was criminal negligence. The same naked representations were made at Shiloh & I saw hundreds of Physicians come down & when our Surgeons begged & implored their help they preferred to gather up trophies & consume the dainties provided for the wounded & go back & represent the cruelty of the Army Surgeons & boast of their own disinterested humanity. I know this & that they nearly ruined Dr. Hewit one of the hardest working Surgeons in any army. I see similar attempts less successful however against Dr. McMillan not a word of truth not even a pretence of truth but it is a popular & successful theme & they avail themselves of it. What is the consequence? All officers of industry who stand by at all times through storm & sunshine find their reputations blasted & others usually the most lazy & indolent reaping cheap glory & fame through the correspondents of the Press. I say in giving intelligence to the enemy, in sowing discord & discontent in an army these men fulfil all the conditions of spies. Shall we succumb or shall we meet & overcome the evil? I am satisfied they have cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars, & brought our country to the brink of ruin & that unless the nuisance is abated we are lost. Here we are in front of Vicksburg. The attack direct in front would in our frail transports be marked by the sinking of Steamers loaded with troops, a fearful assault against hills fortified with great care by a cunning enemy. Every commander who has looked at it says it cannot be done in front it must be turned. I tried it but newspaper correspondents had sent word in advance & ample preperations were made & reinforcements to double my number had reached Vicksburg.
McClernand was unwilling to attack in front. Grant do. Then how turn the position? We cannot ascend the Yazoo to where our men can get a footing. We cannot run our frail transports past the Vicksburg Batteries then we resolve to cut a channel into Yazoo at the old pass near Delta above & into the Tensas by way of Lake Providence. Secrecy & dispatch are the chief elements of success. The forces here are kept to occupy the attention of the enemy two steamers are floated past the Batteries to control the River below & men are drawn secretly from Helena & Memphis to cut the canals & levies & remove all the inhabitants so that the enemy could not have notice till the floods of the Missippi could finish the work of man. But what avail? Known spies accompany each expedition & we now read in the northern papers (the same are in Vicksburg now) that our forces here are unequal to the direct assault but are cutting the two canals above: all our plans revealed & thwarted, the levies are cut & our plans work to a charm but the enemy now knows our purposes & hastens above, fells trees into the narrow head streams, cuts the side levies disperses the waters & defeats our well conceived plans. Who can carry on war thus? It is terrible to contemplate; & I say it that no intelligent officer in this or any American army now in the field but would prefer to have his opponent increased twenty—yea fifty per cent if the internal informers & spies could be excluded from our camps. I know our people are full of anxiety to hear from our armies but every soldier can & does write home, his family can at all times hear of his welfare & if the people could only see as I see the baneful effects of this mischeivous practise they would cry aloud in indignant tones. We may in self defense be compelled to take the law into our own hands for our safety or we may bend to the storm and seek a position where others may take the consequences of this cause. I early foresaw this result & have borne the malignity of the Press but a day will come & that far distant when the Press must surrender some portion of its freedom to save the rest else it too will perish in the general wreck. I think the Commercial misjudges my character somewhat. I certainly am not proud or haughty. Every soldier of my command comes into my presence as easy as the highest officer. Their beds & rations are as good as mine & certainly no General officer moves about with as little pomp as I. They see me daily nightly hourly, along the picket line afoot alone or with a Single orderly or officer whilst others have their mighty escorts & retinue. Indeed I am usually laughed at for my simplicity in this respect. Abrupt I am & all military men are. The mind jumps to its conclusions & is emphatic, & I can usually divine the motive of the insidious cotton Speculator camp follower & hypercritical humanity seeker before he discloses his plans & designs & an officer who must attend to the thousand & one wants of thirty thousand men besides the importunities of thousands of mischeivous camp followers must need be abrupt unless the day can be made more than twenty four hours long. A citizen cannot understand that an officer who has to see to the wants and necessities of an army has no time to listen to their usual long perorations & I must confess I have little patience with this class of men. To be sure policy would dictate a different course, & I know I could easily have acheived popularity by yeilding to these outside influences but I could not do what I see other popular officers do furnish transportation at Government expense to newspaper agents & supply them with public horses Seat them at my table to hear conversations of public matter give access to official papers which I am commanded to withhold to the world till my Employer has the benefit of them. I could not do these things & feel that I was an honest man & faithful servant of the Government for my memory still runs back to the time when Peter Hagner was Auditor of the Treasury, & when an officer would not take a Government nail out of a keg on which to hang his coat or feed his horse out of the public crib without charging its cost against his pay. That time is past, but must again return before the United States can regain its lost good name among the nations of the earth.
Again the habit of indiscriminate praise & flattery has done us harm. Let a stranger read our official reports & he would blush at the praise bespattered over who Regiments Divisions and Corps for skirmishes & actions where the dead & wounded mark no Serious conflict. When I praise I mean it & when troops fall into disorder I must notice it but you may read my reports in vain for an instance where troops have kept their ranks & done even moderately well but I have encouraged them to a better future. There is an unwritten history that will come out when the real soldiers come home. At the Post of Arkansas I wanted to storm the rifle pits by a Hurrah! One of my divisions faltered and in reply to my aid “How are things with you”? “Why Damn it my men are only wasting ammunition”, I cautioned him to patience. “Be kind & coax along & notify me the moment you think your men are equal to the work”—hundreds heard me & yet this same officer would indulge now in extravagant boasts. I know that in trouble in danger in emergencies the men know I have patience a keen appreciation of the truth of facts & ground equalled by few and one day they will tell the truth. Many a solitary picket has seen me creeping by night examining ground before I ordered them to cross it & yet other lazy rascals ignorant of the truth would hang behind sleep or crouch around the distant camp fire till danger was passed, & then write “how Sherman with insane rashness had pushed his brave soldiers into the jaws of death.”
I have departed from my theme. My argument is that newspaper correspondents & camp followers, writing with a purpose & with no data communicate facts useful to an enemy and useless to our cause & calculated to impair the discipline of the army & that the practise must cease We cannot appeal to Patriotism because news are a saleable commodity & the more valuable as it is the more pithy & damaging to our cause I am satisfied the enemy encourages this as the cheapest & most effectual weapon of war either by direct contribution of money or by becoming large purchasers of its numbers. The law gives us the means to stop it & as an army we fail in our duty to the Government to our cause & to ourselves if we do not use them.
To shew how the Press is used I will tell of another recent instance. The Captain of the Gun Boat New Era behaved badly, cowardly at Arkansas Post. Admiral Porter, a gallant officer sent him to Cairo in banishment. It was necessary for him to cover up his disgrace. Getting into safety nearly up to the Ohio he pretended he saw an army of 3,000 men near Island No. 10, & he shelled them away at a cost of many thousands of dollars. He alarmed the whole country & wrote his own account but not a man here believes he saw a single Guerilla. This is true of many glorious battles in the newspapers.
Our camp is about flooded & consequent idleness must form my apology for this long letter. If you think proper I have no objection to the Editor of the Commericial seeing this but I confess myself too “haughty” to allow it or anything else of mine to be printed. Affectionately
W. T. Sherman
Camp before Vicksburg,
February 18, 1863
My Dear Brother,
I have seen your speeches on the subject of absentees, filling up the army with conscripts, and the necessity of standing by the President for the sake of unity of action. So at last I see you and the Country begin to realize what we ought to have known two years ago, that individual opinions however sincere, real & honest are too various to Secure unity of action, and at last that men must forego their individual notions and follow some one Leader, the Legitimate & Constitutional one if possible. Two years of war, costly & bloody have been endured and we have arrived by sad experience at a Result that all the world knew before. If the People of the North will not learn from the experience of the world, but must go on groping in the dark for experience to develop and demonstrate the Truth of established principles of Government, why of course there is no help for it, but as a people we must pay the price.
We have reproached the South for arbitrary conduct in coercing her People—at last we find we must imitate their example—we have denounced their tyranny in filling their armies with conscripts—and now we must follow her example—We have denounced their tyranny in suppressing freedom of speech and the press, and here too in time we must follow her Example. The longer it is deferred the worse it becomes.
Who gave notice of McDowell’s movement on Manassas, & enabled Johnston so to reinforce Beauregard that our army was defeated?
The Press.
Who gave notice of the movement on Vicksburg?
The Press.
Who has prevented all secret combinations and movements against our enemy?
The Press.
Who has sown the seeds of hatred so deep, that Reason, Religion and Self interest cannot eradicate them?
The Press.
What is the real moving cause in this Rebellion? Mutual hatred & misrepresentations made by a venal Press.
In the South this powerful machine was at once scotched and used by the Rebel Government, but at the North was allowed to go free. What are the results. After arousing the passions of the people till the two great sections hate each other with a hate hardly parallelled in history, it now begins to Stir up sedition at home, and even to encourage mutiny in our armies. What has paralyzed the Army of the Potomac? Mutual jealousies kept alive by the Press. What has enabled the enemy to combine so as to hold Tennessee after we have twice crossed it with victorious armies. What defeats and will continue to defeat our best plans here and elsewhere? The Press.
I cannot pick up a paper but tells of our situation here, in the mud, sickness, and digging a canal in which we have little faith. But our officers attempt secretly to cut two other channels one into Yazoo by an old Pass, and one through Lake Providence into Tensas, Black Red &c., whereby we could turn not only Vicksburg Port Hudson, but also Grand Gulf, Natchez, Ellis Cliff, Fort Adams and all the strategic points on the Main River, and the busy agents of the Press follow up and proclaim to the world the whole thing, and instead of surprising our enemy we find him felling trees & blocking passages that would without this have been in our possession, and all the real effects of surprise are lost. I say with the Press unfettered as now we are defeated to the end of time. Tis folly to say the people must have news. Every soldier can and does write to his family & friends & all have ample opportunities for so doing, and this pretext forms no good reasons why agents of the Press should reveal prematurely all our plans & designs. We cannot prevent it. Clerks of steamboats, correspondents in disguise or openly attend each army & detachment, and presto appears in Memphis & St. Louis minute accounts of our plans & designs. These reach Vicksburg by telegraph from Hernando & Holly Springs before we know of it.
The only two really successful military strokes out here have succeeded because of the absence of newspapers or by throwing them off the trail—Halleck had to make a simulated attack on Columbus to prevent the Press giving notice of his intended move against Forts Henry & Donelson. We succeeded in reaching the Post of Arkansas before the Correspondents could reach their Papers. Now in war it is bad enough to have a bold daring enemy in great strength to our front without having an equally dangerous & treacherous foe within. I know if the People of the United States could see & realize the Truth of this matter they would agree to wait a few days for their accustomed batch of exciting news rather than expose their sons, brothers & friends as they inevitably do to failure and death. Of course I know the President & Congress are powerless in this matter & we must go on till perpetual defeat & disaster point out one of the Chief Causes. Instead of being governed by Reason, our people prefer to grope their way through personal Experience and must pay its cost. I only await a good time to Slide out & let the experiment go on at the expense of others. I have had my share & wish no more. I still have unlimited faith in Halleck & prefer that he should command the whole army than McClellan. Still I would like to have him come West. Affectionately
Sherman