"'Boys' (we were both youngsters), "I have been ordered to suppress your paper, but I don't like to do that, and I just dropped in to warn you not to be so free with your pencils. If you don't ease up you will get into trouble."
"We promised to reform, and as the General seemed so pleasant and friendly, I asked him if he couldn't do something to increase the circulation of currency. There was no small change, and we had to use the soda water checks of a confectioner named Lane. We dropped soda water checks in the contribution box at the church, paid for straight whiskey with them and received them for money. If Lane had closed his shop the checks would have been worthless.
"General Sherman comprehended the situation, and quick as a flash said: 'You need a medium of exchange that has an intrinsic value. Cotton is king here. Make cotton your currency. It is worth $1 a pound. Make packages containing eight ounces represent 50 cents, four ounces 25 cents, and so on. Cotton is the wealth of the South right now. Turn it to money.'
"'But the money drawers wouldn't hold such bulky currency,' said I.
"'Make 'em larger,' said the General, and with that he strode off.
"As he mounted his horse and galloped away he shook his whip at Brower and me and shouted: 'You boys had better be careful what you write, or I'll be down on you.'"
At Savannah, just after he had captured it, Sherman had another controversy with a newspaper man, one "Tom" Miles, from Boston. The latter, on getting into Savannah with the army, went prospecting round the city, and presently, according to the teller of the story, in The Boston Post, found himself in a vacated printing office. It presented a golden opportunity. There were types and presses and all the paraphernalia essential to business, with a form on the press, which the printer had left in his flight, and Miles, taking out the editorial and other offensive matter, filled its columns with healthy Union sentiment, with the aid of one or two of the craft whom he had discovered in the army. His leader was a rich specimen of crowing over the victory, in which he extolled General Sherman as the greatest hero since Alexander, and his army the finest and best disciplined that the world ever saw. With this grand flourish of trumpets the first number was issued, and Miles lay back in his editorial chair, contemplating his work with the belief that he had achieved the next triumph to Sherman's, and wondered what the conqueror would say when he saw the praises he had heaped upon him. The next morning as the General and his staff were about taking breakfast, a paper was handed to him, and he commenced to read the leader which was so lavish in his praise.
"Look here!" said he, red and furious. "What the d—— l does this mean? Who knows anything about this paper?"
His orderly, who had known something about its preparation, explained to him that it was the work of the literary gentleman who had followed the expedition.
"Well," said the General, "go down to the office and tell him to discontinue his paper or I'll put him under guard. I won't have such cursed stuff printed about me when I can prevent it. Abuse is bad enough, but this is a deuced sight worse."