Watterson ultimately settled down in Louisville, Kentucky, having met Walter Newman Haldeman during the war, and began editing the "Louisville Journal". That paper merged with the "Louisville Courier" in 1868, forming the "Courier-Journal". This paper soon gained national attention for its excellent reporting. Watterson was a leader of the Liberal Republican movement in 1872. By 1876 he was a Democrat; his proposal for hundreds of thousands of Democrats to march on Washington to force the election of Tilden angered President Ulysses S. Grant, who noted that nobody threatened Grant. Watterson was elected to fill the rest of Edward Y. Parsons' term in the U.S. House when Parsons died in office.