General William Tecumseh Sherman was a resolute, intelligent and courageous army commander – one of the most revered Union heroes in the American Civil War. He also proved himself a remarkable man of letters. His war memoirs are an important achievement in 19th Century American literature. (On that point, see this Book Den post.)Perhaps it was because of his high sense of honor... maybe his love of forthrightness and truth, but William T. Sherman absolutely loathed newspapermen.
He hated the petty bias, the power-lust, and the dishonesty which marked the journalism of his time. He was especially inflamed by the indifference of reporters and editors to the common good.
Sherman once wrote to Ulysses Grant about the newspapers, "We must scorn them, else they will ruin us and our country. They are as much enemies to good government as the 'secesh' (meaning the Confederate armies) and between the two I like the 'secesh' best because they are a brave, open enemy and not a set of sneaking, croaking scoundrels."
Once when a towboat was sunk on the Missouri River and Sherman believed four newspapermen had drowned (they hadn’t), he wrote in his journal, "They were so deeply laden with weighty matter that they must have sunk. In our affliction we can console ourselves with the pious reflection that there are plenty more of the same sort."
