This week, General William T. Sherman got in a powerful dispute with newspaper reporter, Thomas Knox, of the New York Herald. Knox had reportedly followed General Sherman's army to Chickasaw and printed an account disparaging Sherman's sanity. Knox also revealed General Sherman's troop strength. Sherman had Knox arrested. The reporter was banished from Sherman's army when found guilt of disobeying an order.
President Lincoln thought it necessary to have the New York Herald's support. He revoked Knox's court marshal and said he would allow Knox to return to Sherman's army upon authority of General Ulysses S. Grant. General Grant relayed the proposal to General Sherman. Without mincing any words at all, General Sherman said, "Come with a sword or a musket in your hand...and I will welcome you...but come as you now do...as a representative of the press...and my answer is, 'Never'."
In a move called "bold" by some, Mr. Lincoln notified Tennessee military Governor Andrew Johnson that it was alright to organize Negro soldiers. Johnson was governor of a slave state and owned slaves himself. Mr. Lincoln said "the colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi, would end the rebellion at once."
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