Books: Scribblers & Generals

REPORTERS FOR THE UNION (316 pp.)—Bernard A. Weisberger—Little, Brown ($4.50).

Being a war correspondent in the 1860s was in some ways tougher than being an infantryman. The foot soldier had to contend with nothing worse than mud, hardtack and the enemy's shot & shell. The war correspondent had to face all these things plus the wrath and distrust of such generals as William Tecumseh Sherman: "Dirty newspaper scribblers." Sherman called them. "They come into camp, poke about among the lazy shirks and pick up their camp rumors and publish them as facts ......