Unknown to New York Herald correspondent, April 7, 1863

Camp before Vicksburg, April 7, 1863.

Correspondent New York Herald, Steamer Continental :

Sir: Yours of April 6, inclosing a copy of President Lincoln’s informal decision in your case, is received.

I certainly do regret that Generals McClernand and Thayer regard the disobedience of orders emanating from the highest military source and the publication of willful and malicious slanders against their brother officers as mere technical offenses, and notwithstanding the President’s indorsement of that conclusion, I cannot so regard it. After having enunciated to me the fact that newspaper correspondents were a fraternity bound together by acommon interest that must write down all who stood in their way, and that you had to supply the public demand for news, true if possible, but false if your interest demanded it, I cannot be privy to a tacit acknowledgment of the principle.

Come with a sword or musket in your hand, prepared to share with us our fate in sunshine and storm, in prosperity and adversity,in plenty and scarcity, and I will welcome you as a brother and associate; but come as you now do, expecting me to ally the reputation and honor of my country and my fellow-soldiers with you, as the representative of the press, which you yourself say makes so slight a difference between truth and falsehood, and my answer is, Never.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General of Volunteers.