Civil War Quotes - Page 22

• Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  War, Appreciate, Southern

  10 Copy quote

• Two persons have been elected to the offices of President and Vice-President exclusively by the people of ONE SECTION of the country...A clearer case of foreign domination could not well be presented.

  John Willis Ellis

  Country, War, Two

  5 Copy quote

• My arm extended upward in pleading for peace and the Union of our Fathers... When my hand came down from that impassioned gesticulation, it fell slowly and sadly by the side of a Secessionist.

  Zebulon Baird Vance

  Father, War, Hands

  "Papers".

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The prejudice of the race appears stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  War, White, Race

  8 Copy quote

• We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.

  William H. Seward

  War, Slavery, Bondage

  16 Copy quote

• A major of colored troops is here with his party capturing negroes, with or without their consent....They are being conscripted.

  John A. Logan

  War, Party, Troops

  4 Copy quote

• Officers in command of colored troops are in constant habit of pressing all able-bodied slaves into the military service of the U.S.

  Lovell Rousseau

  Military, War, Able

  5 Copy quote

• Rather than concede to the state of Missouri for one single instant the right to dictate to my government in any matter however unimportant, I would see you, and you, and you, and you, and every man, woman and child in the state, dead and buried. This means war.

  Nathaniel Lyon

  Children, War, Mean

  16 Copy quote

• In Sherman's famous march through Georgia, his soldiers left a swath of death and destruction, destroying crops, burning homes and killing civilians. Sherman himself acknowledged that only 20% of the destruction inflicted by his invasion was inflicted on military objectives. Civilian non-combatants, essentially innocents, suffered 80% of the losses.

  John Pugsley

  Military, War, Home

  5 Copy quote

• [The South] is ****ed for its virtues and praised for its faults, and there are those who wish its annihilation. But most revealing of all is the fear that it gestates the revolutionary impulse of our future.

  Richard M. Weaver

  War, Wish, Faults

  8 Copy quote

• And just think, fellow Southrons, what kind of a Confederate nation we could have, if after independence, politicians abandoned equivocation and spoke honestly and firmly on all issues? If they were to do their duty to God, nation, and people, there would be virtually no need for any form of federal litigation.

  Charley Reese

  War, Thinking, Issues

  5 Copy quote

• It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.

  Patrick Cleburne

  Giving Up, War, Military

  165 Copy quote

• ...So Englishmen saw it. Lincoln's insincerity was regarded as proven by two things: his earlier denial of any lawful right or wish to free the slaves; and, especially, his not freeing the slaves in 'loyal' Kentucky and other United States areas or even in Confederate areas occupied by United States troops, such as New Orleans.

  Sheldon Vanauken

  War, Kentucky, Two

  19 Copy quote

• ...there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate Army...as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government...There were such soldiers at Manassas and they are probably there still.

  Frederick Douglass

  Real, War, Army

  Frederick Douglass (1952). “The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: The Civil War, 1861-1865”

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• I hope that when I commence that oath, my tongue may cleave to the roof of my mouth. If I ever sign one line to show allegiance, I hope my arm falls paralyzed to my side....Get out. I'm so disgusted I can't endure your presence any longer.

  Belle Boyd

  War, Fall, Lines

  4 Copy quote

• Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.

  James Longstreet

  War, Errors, Truth Is

  90 Copy quote

• Sir: This point of observation commands an area nearly 50 miles in diameter. The city, with its girdle of encampments, presents a superb scene. I have pleasure in sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station.

  Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

  War, Cities, Firsts

  20 Copy quote

• Bring me Longstreet's head on a platter and the war will be over

  Abraham Lincoln

  War

  4 Copy quote

• After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, Men, Thinking

  "The Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest". Book by John Allan Wyeth, July 1, 1996.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• **** it, holler them across.

  Jubal Early

  War

  29 Copy quote

• Without doing injustice to the living, it may safely be asserted that our loss is irreparable; and that among the shining hosts of the great and good who now cluster around the banner of the country, there exists no purer spirit, no more heroic soul, than that of the illustrious man whose death I join you in lamenting.

  Jefferson Davis

  Country, War, Loss

  7 Copy quote

• For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to mourn; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune for the South.

  Jefferson Davis

  War, Views, Political

  Jefferson Davis (1912). “The rise and fall of the Confederate Government”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• All I ever wanted was a Virginia farm, no end of cream and fresh butter and fried chicken - not one fried chicken, or two, but unlimited fried chicken.

  Robert E. Lee

  War, Virginia, Two

  89 Copy quote

• We will breakfast together here and dine together in hell.

  Richard S. Ewell

  War, Together, Breakfast

  27 Copy quote

• Death, in its silent sure march is fast gathering those whom I have longest loved, so that when he shall knock at my door, I will more willingly follow.

  Robert E. Lee

  War, Doors, Gathering

  11 Copy quote