American Civil War Quotes

[Ulysses S. Grant]

Hey people, i have two things to say in this thread.

1: This is for the ACW team. Are you going to add Civil War related quotes for the loading screens?

2: What quotes do you; the community thing are good from the Civil War period.


I'm gonna start by posting some good quotes said by my namesake Ulysses S. Grant:

"Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace."

"I know only two tunes: one of them is "Yankee Doodle," and the other isn't."

"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

"There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword."

"In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins."

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."

[kenniston5]

Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.
Gen.George S. Patton

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.
Gen.George S. Patton

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
Gen.George S. Patton

oops...... sorry wrong war
god bless america

['Gunny]

"The Union, which can alone insure internal peace, and external security to each State, Must and Shall be Preserved, cost what it may in time, treasure, and blood." - George McClellan

"I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game" -Lincoln

"It's just like shooting squirrels, only these squirrels have guns" - A Federal Veteran training new troops

[Good ole Reb]

"If we were to kill every journalist in the world tonight, there would be news from Hell before breakfast" - Sherman

[Railin]

If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.

[shokh]

Continue in posting, i´ll take them into the loading screens with the others i still have.

[Potus]

George Pickett said these words to John S. Mosby shortly after paying Lee a visit in Richmond

That old man...had my division massacred at Gettysburg!

Mosby's reply to Pickett

Well, it made you famous

[Good ole Reb]

Jackson's response after being asked what could be done about the Federal pillaging of Fredricksburg :

'Kill em...Kill em all.'

[Good ole Reb]

Albert Sydney Johnston at Shiloh :

"I would fight them if they were a million!"

[LtRowland]

“I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses, Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?”
Lincoln to McClellan, October 25, 1862

[OneEyeMick]

Read my signature

[InFaMY]

Union General John Sedgwick spoke these words just moments before being shot dead by a confederate sniper at Spotsylvania

They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance



The daring and profane Union General Philip Kearny used these words to evaluate his leadership ability

I can make men follow me to hell


General Winfield S. Hancock issued this order to the 1st Minnesota on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, as the Union line was being driven back. The Minnesotans carried out the orders, driving back the Confederates and taking the colors--at a loss of one-third of the regiment

Do you see those colors? Take them!


William T. Sherman issued this warning to an army quartermaster prior to the departure of Sherman's army from Chattanooga toward Atlanta

If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir


A black Union soldier spoke these words to a Confederate prisoner he recognized--his former master

Hello, Massa; bottom rail on top dis time



Confederate Brigadier General Albert Perrin made this oath on the eve of the Battle of Spotsylvania, where he was killed in action.

I shall come out of this fight a live major general or a dead brigadier.



Confederate partisan John S. Mosby directed this order to General Edwin H. Stoughton after rousing the General from his bed at Union headquarters.

General, get up--dress quick--you are a prisoner!



General James Longstreet made this vow to Robert E. Lee as countless Federal assaults were beaten back by Longstreet's men at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

General, if you put every [Union soldier] now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, I will kill them all before they reach my line.

[Super Sea Otter]

There are times when a Corps Commander's life does not count. - Winfield Scott Hancock at the Battle of Gettysburg.

It is well that war is so terrible, that we should grow too fond of it. - Robert E. Lee commenting on the disastrous Union Assault on Marye's Heights.

We'll make a bunker hill of it. - George Pickett, commenting the Pig War.

Sic Semper Tyrannis - Virginia Official Motto, and John Wilkes Booth's words immediately after Lincoln's assassination.

General Lee, - I have no division. - George Pickett, directly after Pickett's Charge.

Glory Hallelujah! - Colonel Robert Gould Shaw

Well if he's an angel. Then he damn well must be a Killer Angel. - An unknown federal Sergeant. (Teehee.)

Little Powell's got his battle shirt on! - A confederate soldier, preparing for battle after noticing A.P. Hill wearing his famous red shirt.

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

Virginians! With me! Who will come with me!? - Lewis A. Armistead, leading his Brigade at Pickett's Charge.

Yell like Furies! - Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, giving the order for the first Rebel Yell at the first battle of Bull Run.

Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees. - Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, his last words.

He has lost his left arm, but I my right. - Robert E. Lee, mourning Stonewall Jackson's death.

Sir, if you ever presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this university. - Robert E. Lee, defending his opponent Ulysses Grant to a teacher.

We shall crush out this rebellion as an elephant would trample on a mouse. - An unknown Union supporter, dated 1861 shortly before the First Battle of Bull Run.


A human life I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead. - George Eliot.

[InFaMY]

SSO wtf lmao SSO from SSTRP?

[Primergy]

"I can make brigadier generals, but i can't make horses" - Abraham Lincoln, after being informed that besides Edwin H. Stoughton also 30 Soldiers and 58 horses had been captured by Mosby

[Ulster Confederate]

"Grant stood by me when I was crazy and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other."
- William T. Sherman, backing his friend and then President Ulysses S. Grant


"I would charge hell itself for that old man."
- Confederate soldier under Lee's command at Wilderness

[Ulysses S. Grant]

"I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." - Uncle John Sedgwick moments before he was shot dead at Spotsylvania Court House.

[tigone2001]

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side."

I'd like to see an original source for that one. That doesn't sound right for Grant.

[Ulysses S. Grant]

"If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side."

I'd like to see an original source for that one. That doesn't sound right for Grant.

I don't know the original source for that, but i've read it in several Civil War and American slavery books.

[tigone2001]

I don't know the original source for that, but I've read it in several Civil War and American slavery books.

Nothing personal, but there's a ton of quotes flying around out there that simply aren't reliable, and need some pushback.

It's entirely out of character for Grant. He was not especially political, personally, but grew up in a household with a strong abolitionist bent. (His father, Jesse Grant, was active in local politics and, as a young man, had worked for and boarded with with the family of Owen Brown -- he knew John Brown when the latter was a teenager.) Grant himself did own a slave, briefly, shortly before the war.

Upon further digging, the quote appears to originate from an anonymous, third-party anecdote in a Democratic Party political guidebook (p. 33), published during the 1868 campaign in which Grant was elected to the presidency. It's a political smear, to brand Grant a hypocrite. Grant went on to become president, and passed some of the most important civil rights legislation of the 19th century, including the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

There were many soldiers who would have been reluctant to go to war for the Union had it begun explicitly as a war to end slavery. But the notion that Grant would actually take up arms against his country and fight for the South explicitly in defense of slavery is ludicrous, and goes against everything else the man did and said in his life.