ciations of press correspondents and of explanations why they regard him as the enemy of their class. “ I announced ,” he writes in 1863, “ that all such accompanying the expedition were and should be treated as spies . They are spies because their publica
tions reach the enemy, give them direct and minute information
of the composition of our forces, and while invariably they puff up their patrons, they pull down all others.” And he continues :
“ The press has now killed McClellan, Buell, Fitz - John Porter, Sumner, Franklin , and Burnside. Add my name and I am not ashamed of the association. If the press can govern the country, let them fight the battles.” Again he writes John Sherman : “ We have denounced their (the South 's] tyranny in suppressing freedom of speech and of the press , and here too in time we must follow their example .
The longer it is deferred the worse it becomes.” And after an impassioned arraignment of the press for the information it has given the enemy, he adds, “ I say with the press unfettered as now we are defeated to the end of time.” To his brother's en
treaties tobemoremoderate in his dealings with newspapermen ,he only laments themore the freedom of the correspondents and adds, “ Napoleon himself would have been defeated with a free press.” 21 Nor was General Sherman the only commander in the Civil
War who anathematized the press. General Halleck's " famous war on the press ” after the battle of Pittsburg Landing has been equally well-known and it has led to the comment that “ the complaint was that correspondents praised some generals and
did not praise others, and the complaint came from the parties not praised !” 22 The neglect and the polite indifference of the Government at Washington to William Howard Russell and its consequent
failure to appreciate the service he was able to render it through writing the absolute truth of military and political conditions both North and South are but too well remembered.23 1 The Sherman Letters , ed. by Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Letters of February , 1863, pp. 187-188, 189, 191- 193, 193– 194. » R . Cortissoz, Life of Whitelaw Reid , I , 89 -91. 23 W . H . Russell, My Diary North and South , and J. B . Atkins, Life of Sir William Howard Russell, 2 vols., give full details of the over-sensitive ness to criticism on the part of the officials involved that led to Russell's abrupt return to England .
