Civil War Quotes - Page 5

• General, unless he offers us honorable terms, come back and let us fight it out!

  James Longstreet

  War, Fighting, Honorable

  35 Copy quote

• They will attach you in the morning and they will come booming - skirmishers three deep. You will have to fight like the devil until supports arrive.

  John Buford

  Morning, War, Fighting

  16 Copy quote

• I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.

  George Pickett

  War, Army, Thinking

  84 Copy quote

• I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a damn scoundrel, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it.

  Nathan Bedford Forrest

  War, Men, Long

  80 Copy quote

• The words, gestures, and threats of our officers were thrown away upon men who had lost all presence of mind and only longed for absence of body.

  Andrew Potter

  War, Men, Presence Of Mind

  7 Copy quote

• Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Strong, Freedom

  Speech to 140th Indiana regiment, 17 Mar. 1865

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• In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.

  Abraham Lincoln

  God, Party, May

  "Meditation on the DivineWill," ca. 2 Sept. 1862

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• In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Hands, Issues

  Abraham Lincoln (2011). “Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches”, p.44, Penguin

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• In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Government, Hands

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, p.261, Wildside Press LLC

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• Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Long, Gettysburg

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863

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• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Believe, Struggle

  Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 Aug. 1862

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• I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage and heroic endurance with the descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and Yorktown. For this reason I predict the civil war which is now at hand will be stubborn and of long duration.

  Sam Houston

  War, Hero, Hands

  Sam Houston (1943). “The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863: 1825-1863”

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• Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Freedom

  'The Soul of Man under Socialism'

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• The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Sheep, Agreement, Liberty

  Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Md., 18 Apr. 1864

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• Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2) Advising the President. 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.

  David Letterman

  Funny, War, Humorous

  "Only Joking: What's So Funny about Making People Laugh?". Book by Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves, 2006.

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• The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. --as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS

  Abraham Lincoln

  Dream, Nature, Memories

  Harold Holzer, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “The Lincoln Mailbag: America Writes to the President, 1861-1865”, p.7, SIU Press

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• My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on Bobby Lee, for I shall have none.

  Joseph Hooker

  War, Perfect, May

  53 Copy quote

• Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  War, Tired, Thinking

  Ulysses S. Grant (1969). “Ulysses S. Grant: Warrior and Statesman”

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• Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.

  Sam Houston

  Perseverance, War, Moving

  "Sam Houston". Book by James L. Haley, p. 397, 2004.

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• Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.

  Alexander H. Stephens

  War, Men, White Man

  Alexander H. Stephens' “Corner Stone” Speech, teachingamericanhistory.org. March 21, 1861.

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• **** the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

  David Farragut

  War, Military, Marine

  At the battle of Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864 ('torpedoes' were mines). Capt. A. T. Mahan 'Admiral Farragut' (1892) ch. 10

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• The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak violence upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, Army, Fate

  46 Copy quote

• I know the hole he went in at, but I can't tell you what hole he will come out of.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Holes, Knows

  Abraham Lincoln (1954). “The War Years, 1854-1865, Volume 3”

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• Western civilization, Christianity, decency are struggling for their very lives. In this worldwide civil war, race prejudice is our most dangerous enemy, for it is a disease at the very root of our democratic life.

  Mordecai

  War, Struggle, Race

  16 Copy quote

• Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state.

  Elizabeth Van Lew

  Crush, Freedom, Jealous

  79 Copy quote