Civil War Quotes - Page 3

• You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, Civilization, Madness

  Said to David F. Boyd at the Louisiana State Seminary on December 24, 1860. "The Civil War: A Book of Quotations" by Robert Blaisdell, 2004.

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• Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots and traitors.

  Stephen A. Douglas

  War, Men, United States

  Last public speech before his death, Chicago, Illinois, May 1, 1861.

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• Jackson possessed the brutality essential in war; Lee did not. He could clasp the hand of a wounded enemy, whilst Jackson ground his teeth and murmured, 'No quarter to the violators of our homes and firesides', and when someone deplored the necessity of destroying so many brave men, he exclaimed: 'No, shoot them all, I do not wish them to be brave.'

  J. F. C. Fuller

  War, Home, Men

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• Any victory would be dear at such a price.

  Robert E. Lee

  War, Victory, Would Be

  Robert E. Lee, Civil War Classics (2014). “Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (Civil War Classics)”, p.122, Diversion Books

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• Only three men in the Confederate army knew what I was doing or intended to do; they were Lee and Stuart and myself.

  John S. Mosby

  War, Army, Men

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• The enemy has assailed my outposts in heavy force. I have fallen back on the line of Bull Run and will make a stand at Mitchell's Ford.

  P. G. T. Beauregard

  Running, War, Enemy

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• Come on boys! Give them the cold steel! Who will follow me?

  Lewis Armistead

  Inspirational, Military, War

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• On the Avenue in front of the White House were several hundred colored people, mostly women and children, weeping and wailing their loss. This crowd did not diminish through the whole of that cold, wet day; they seemed not to know what was to by their fate since their great benefactor was dead, and though strong and brave men wept when I met them, the hopeless grief of those poor colored people affected me more than almost anything else.

  Gideon Welles

  Strong, Children, War

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• And I'm a slow writer: five, six hundred words is a good day. That's the reason it took me 20 years to write those million and a half words of the Civil War.

  Shelby Foote

  War, Writing, Good Day

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• A war between Europeans is a civil war.

  Victor Hugo

  War, Historical

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• What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Leadership, Humility, Giving

  Martin D. Tullai, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “Speaking of Abraham Lincoln”

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• I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, Fierce, Tire

  William Tecumseh Sherman (1990). “Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman”, p.368, Library of America

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• I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Wise, Men

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations”, p.69, Courier Corporation

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• With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relative, my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the Army.

  Robert E. Lee

  Loyalty, Children, War

  Robert E. Lee, Ben Wynne (2004). “Recollections and Letters”, p.21, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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• The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.

  Gertrude Stein

  Mother, Country, War

  Gertrude Stein (1974). “How Writing Is Written”

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• The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.

  Ronald Reagan

  Country, War, Struggle

  Remarks at the Annual Convention of the the National Association of Evangelicals, delivered 8 March 1983, Orlando, Florida

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• The question before us is, whether people of African ancestry compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.

  Roger Brooke Taney

  War, Thinking, Rights

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• Before this war is over, I intend to be a Major General or a corpse.

  Isaac R. Trimble

  War, Corpses, Majors

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• That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred ans sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thence forward, and forever free.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Eight, Years

  Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, 22 Sept. 1862

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• Lee's army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  War, Army, Objectives

  Ulysses S. Grant (1990). “Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs & Selected Letters: Library of America #50”, p.482, Library of America

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• I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Children, Father

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.328, Fordham Univ Press

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• The defence of human liberty against the aggressions of despotic power have been always the most efficient in States where domestic slavery was to prevail.

  John C. Calhoun

  War, Liberty, Slavery

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• I would fight them if they were a million!

  Albert Sidney Johnston

  War, Fighting, Ifs

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• Tonight we water our horses in the Tennessee River.

  Albert Sidney Johnston

  Horse, War, Rivers

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• You are green, it is true; but they are green also. You are all green alike.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Green

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “Abraham Lincoln's Wit & Wisdom”, p.185, Courier Corporation

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