Camp at Chewalla, 10
miles N. West of Corinth
daylight,
June 6, 1862.
. . . I get nearly all or all the papers here somehow or
other, and have seen most of the pieces you have clipped out, but I had not
seen that of your father from the Louisville Journal signed E. It is
sufficiently complimentary, more so than I merit, from such a high source, and
the illustration of the fable of the warrior's fight with the mud turtles is
very strong and like your father. I will get even with the miserable class of
corrupt editors yet. They are the chief cause of this unhappy war. They fan the
flames of local hatred and keep alive those prejudices which have forced
friends into opposing hostile ranks. At the North and South each radical class
keeps its votaries filled with the most outrageous lies of the other. In the
North the people have been made to believe that those of the South are horrid
barbarians, unworthy a Christian burial, whilst at the South the people have
been made to believe that we wanted to steal their negroes, rob them of their
property, pollute their families, and to reduce the whites below the level of
their own negroes. Worse than this at the North, no sooner does an officer rise
from the common level, but some rival uses the press to malign him, destroy his
usefulness, and pull him back to obscurity or infamy. Thus it was with me, and
now they have nearly succeeded with Grant. He is as brave as any man should be,
he has won several victories such as Donelson which ought to entitle him to
universal praise, but his rivals have almost succeeded through the
instrumentality of the press in pulling him down, and many thousands of
families will be taught to look to him as the cause of the death of their
fathers, husbands and brothers.
The very object of war is to produce results by death and
slaughter, but the moment a battle occurs the newspapers make the leader
responsible for the death and misery, whether of victory or defeat. If this be
pushed much further officers of modesty and merit will keep away, will draw
back into obscurity and leave our armies to be led by fools or rash men, such
as _____. Grant had made up his mind to
go home, I tried to dissuade him, but so fixed was he in his purpose that I
thought his mind was made up and asked for his escort a company of 4th
Illinois. But last night I got a note from him saying he would stay.1
His case is a good illustration of my meaning.
He is not a brilliant man and has, himself, thoughtlessly
used the press to give him éclat in Illinois, but he is a good and brave
soldier, tried for years; is sober, very industrious and as kind as a child.
Yet he has been held up as careless, criminal, a drunkard, tyrant and
everything horrible. Very many of our officers, knowing how powerful is public
opinion in our government have kept newspaper correspondents near their persons
to praise them in their country papers; but so intense is public curiosity that
several times flattery designed for one county has reached others, and been
published to the world, making their little heroes big fools. It had become so
bad — and the evil is not yet eradicated — that no sooner was a battle fought than every
colonel and captain was the hero of the fight. Thus at Shiloh, for a month, all
through Illinois and Missouri a newspaper reader would have supposed McClernand
and Lew Wallace were away ahead of my division, whereas the former was directly
behind me, and the other at Crump's Landing. Again, at Corinth you will hear of
five hundred first men inside the works. Let them scramble for the dead lion's
paw. It is a barren honor not worth contending for. If these examples and a few
more will convince the real substantial men of our country that the press is
not even an honest exponent of the claims of men pretending to serve their
country, but the base means of building up spurious fame and pulling down
honest merit, I feel that I have my full reward in being one of the first to
see it and suffer the consequences. . . .
__________
1 See Memoirs, I, 283.
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 226-9. A full copy of this letter can
be found in the William
T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA),
Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 1/146.
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