Civil War Quotes

The damn vermin are so numerous that I am afraid to sneeze, for fear the damned lice would regard it as gong for dinner, and eat me up - Robert Cobb Kennedy

Tobin T. Buhk

Why, sir, in the beginning we appointed all our worst generals to command the armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers. As you know, I have planned some campaigns and quite a number of battles. I have given the work all the care and thought I could, and sometimes, when my plans were completed, as far as I could see, they seemed to be perfect. But when I have fought them through, I have discovered defects and occasionally wondered I did not see some of the defects in advance. When it was all over, I found by reading a newspaper that these best editor generals saw all the defects plainly from the start. Unfortunately, they did not communicate their knowledge to me until it was too late.” Then, after a pause, he added, with a beautiful, grave expression I can never forget: “I have no ambition but to serve the Confederacy, and do all I can to win our independence. I an willing to serve in any capacity to which the authorities may assign me. I have done the best I could in the field, and have not succeeded as I could wish. I am willing to yield my place to these best generals, and I will do my best for the cause in editing a newspaper.”In the same strain he once remarked to one of his generals: “Even as poor a soldier as I am can generally discover mistakes after it is all over. But if I could only induce these wise gentlemen who see them so clearly beforehand to communicate with me in advance, instead of waiting until the evil has come upon us, to let me know that they knew all the time, it would be far better for my reputation, and (what is of more consequence) far better for the cause.

Robert E. Lee

A tense account of the perils facing those who sought freedom in the lead-up to the Civil War.

Publisher’s Weekly

No, I went to the bar to ask for a mojito and that guy Johnny said he didn’t make mojitos. Then he offered to make me a mint julep, in one of those silver cups and everything.” t“Did you know say the true cause of the Civil War was some Northerner adding nutmeg to a mint julep?” Lucy asked.

Mary Jane Hathaway

I wanted to leave the whole war behind me, and yet I was seeing something on that battlefield that demanded commemoration. It was unholy ground, but I wanted to thank God for showing it to me. I would never again look at a man without wondering what crimes he was capable of committing. That seemed important to know.

Robert Hicks

I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.

Daniel Woodrell

The evening was a string of miserable minutes strung together in tiny clusters. Three minutes for a man shot through the shoulder; Ellis put first a finger in the entry wound and then another in the exit and when his fingers touched, he decided the man was only lightly injured and didn’t need a surgeon. Three minutes to set a broken wrist and splint it with a strip of cowhide and a piece of wood from a sycamore tree. Two minutes to tourniquet a leg, then extract a piece of wire deep in the meat of it. A minute to peek under a pink, saturated bandage several inches below a slender belly button; he saw thin, red water leaking from a hole and smelled urine, knew the ball had breached the bladder. It would either heal or it wouldn’t, but nothing to do about it so he set the soul aside, a case not to be operated upon. He turned a man’s head looking for the source of a trickle of blood and had ten terrible minutes trying to stop torrential bleeding from under his clavicle; frantic moments during which he could get neither a finger nor a clamp around the pulsating source. All bleeding stops eventually though, and the case did not violate the rule. He took two minutes to settle his own breathing, then four minutes sewing a torn scalp, and half a minute saying a prayer over a fat, cigar-shaped dead man. After awhile, he had the impression he wasn’t seeing men, but parts—an exploded chest, a blood swolled thigh, a busted jaw with its teeth spat to the wind or swallowed.It was more than a man could take and a lot less than there was to be seen.

Edison McDaniels

Hundreds of men crowded the yard, and not a one among them was whole. They covered the ground thick as maggots on a week old carcass, the dirt itself hardly anywhere visible. No one could move without all feeling it and thus rising together in a hellish contortion of agony. Everywhere men moaned, shouting for water and praying for God to end their suffering. They screamed and groaned in an unending litany, calling for mothers and wives and fathers and sisters. The predominant color was blue, though nauseations of red intruded throughout. Men lay half naked, piled on top of one another in scenes to pitiful to imagine. Bloodied heads rested on shoulders and laps, broken feet upon arms. Tired hands held in torn guts and torsos twisted every which way. Dirty shirts dressed the bleeding bodies and not enough material existed in all the world to sop up the spilled blood. A boy clad in gray, perhaps the only rebel among them, lay quietly in one corner, raised arm rigid with a finger extended, as if pointing to the heavens. His face was a singular portrait of contentment among the misery. Broken bones, dirty white and soiled with the passing of hours since injury, were everywhere abundant. All manner of devices splinted the damaged and battered limbs: muskets, branches, bayonets, lengths of wood or iron from barns and carts. One individual had bone splinted with bone: the dried femur of a horse was lashed to his busted shin. A blind man, his eyes subtracted by the minié ball that had enfiladed him, moaned over and over “I’m kilt, I’m kilt! Oh Gawd, I’m kilt!” Others lay limp, in shock. These last were mostly quiet, their color unnaturally pale. It was agonizingly humid in the still air of the yard. The stink of blood mixed with human waste produced a potent and offensive odor not unlike that of a hog farm in the high heat of a South Carolina summer. Swarms of fat, green blowflies everywhere harassed the soldiers to the point of insanity, biting at their wounds. Their steady buzz was a noise straight out of hell itself, a distress to the ears.

Edison McDaniels

What held the civilized world together was the thinnest tissue of nothing but human will.

Paulette Jiles

Jesse and Frank James were the most well-known military-trained gang members

Carter F. Smith

These are all good things, I said. But no one knows where your country is or who you are. You don't have a familiar ethnic cuisine; your diaspora , from what I understand, is mostly in Southern California, three time zones removed from the national media in New York; and you don't have a recognizable, long-simmering conflict like the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians, where people in the richer nations can take sides and argue over at the dinner table. The best you can do is get the United Nations involved, as in East Timor. Maybe they'll send troops.""We don't want the United Nations" Mr. Nanabragov said. "We don't want Sri Lankan troops patrolling our streets. We're better tan that. We want America.

Gary Shteyngart

With the music of our singing in the background, I looked at the church candles and thought about the surreal connection between images and memory. The peaceful and joyous candles flickering there during the Christmas ceremony projected warmth, comfort, and familiarity – even though thy emitted the same kind of fiery energy as the flames caused by the war.

Zack Love

...The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

Frederick Douglass

South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.

James Louis Petigru

Besides the moral courage required to accept commissions in the Fifty-fourth at the time it was organizing, physical courage was also necessary, for the Confederate Congress, on May 1, 1863, passed an act, a potion of which read as follow: -Section IV. That every white person being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court.

Luis Fenollosa Emilio

In our humble12 opinion, the South in general’s attitude regarding the war and everything that came after needs a major paradigm shift. Put simply: we need to be more like Germany. Ya see, after World War II, Germany as a nation took responsibility for its crimes, owned up to them, and has refused to make excuses for the atrocities that occurred. Germans own it. That’s just the way it is. (Or at least the perception of the way it is, and as we keep reiterating, the perception can be just as important as the reality.) How many people in the South could stomach the idea of Nazi statues existing in Germany in order to “honor the past” but “not meant to offend the Jews, of course?” Because y’all do realize that’s what most of these Civil War monuments are, right?

Trae Crowder

Some of you from outside the South may be wondering why we’re emphasizing this irrefutable historical fact that everyone should know so strongly already. Well, it’s because there has been an unfortunate tendency down here to deflect as much attention as possible away from the atrocities that the South was responsible for before, during, and after the war, and to focus on the glory, the courage, and all that kind of shit instead. We name roads, schools, and parks after Confederate leaders. We erect statues in their honor. We revere them and honor them, all while ignoring the gigantic racist elephant in the room. 4 Look, it ain’t nothin’ wrong with glory and courage, and it’s completely legitimate to acknowledge the military greatness of some of the Confederacy’s leaders, but what’s not okay is to do so without also acknowledging their complicity in and tacit acceptance of one of the single most reprehensible and inhumane practices in human history. 5 It’s disingenuous. It’s cheap. It’s cowardly. We gotta cut that shit out. So, yes, we fought a war for slavery, and because sometimes the universe gets some shit right (waterfalls, potatoes, Scarlett Johansson), we lost. Which is another thing we apparently need to remind some of our fellow Southerners of. Not only did we fight a war for slavery, but we got our asses whupped. Until we can all agree to accept this and act accordingly, we’re never going to be able to move on. It’s nothing to be proud of, y’all—it really ain’t. We fought and we lost. But our defeat was a great victory for morality and for the country as a whole. Southerners tend to act as if the Civil War isn’t history but a scientific theory whose results can be disproven if discussed enough. It’s not. We lost. Get over it.

Trae Crowder

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both *may* be, and one *must* be, wrong. God cannot be *for* and *against* the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true - that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either *saved* or *destroyed* the Union without human contest. Yet the contest began, And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

Abraham Lincoln

If men were equal in America, all these Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves.

Michael Shaara

Ain’t nothing too serious. Even death is a joke on the old devil, if we are living for the Lord.

Nancy B. Brewer

THE FIGHTING IN THE PEACH ORCHARD AT GETTYSBURGPROLOGUE"The same young men who crowded each other as they faced the recruiters' tables now crowded each other as they died.

Charles Phillips

JAKE BAKER JOINING THE UNION ARMY IN NEW ORLEANS"I'd prefer to be back in Texas, taking aim at the Rebs..., but I just can't do that," said Jake. ..."So, I'll just do what I can do, I guess.""I suspect that goes for all of us," said the Colonel. "Maybe we should make that the unit's motto. 'The First Texas Cavalry of the United States of America: We'll just do what we can do, we guess.' It does have a ring to it, but I expect that we need somethin' a bit more inspirational and less true.

Charles Phillips

She was as lovely as ever, my Jessie Anne. I paused for a moment, taking her beauty in, laying up this vision of her in the deepest and most secret place of my mind, allowing the sight of her to renew my spirit. I stepped slowly down to the platform, never allowing my gaze to drift from her. Jessie Anne was looking toward the front of the car, and it was a moment or two before she turned and spotted me.The bright and hopeful smile I had so expected and longed for darkened, just for a moment to be sure, but long enough for me to recognize a fleeting glimpse of shock and anguish, possibly of horror. No longer did she see the man she had known, the man she had given her life to. No, she saw me for the man I truly was, the man with blood on his hands.

Karl A. Bacon

Lush, detailed, total-immersion storytelling.–Kirkus Review

Sharon Lovejoy

(Running out of Night) ...is a story that respects this pivotal era of American history, a story that reveals the pain, the courage, and the hope that eventually changed the world.–Middle Shelf : Cool Reads for Kids magazine

Sharon Lovejoy

Rarely do page-turners written for middle-school kids also ignite excitement in adults. (A notable exception is the series of Harry Potter books.) Fewer still explore the secret sorrows of children's lives in the mid-1800s, whether enslaved or free. Running Out of Night, a debut novel from Californian Sharon Lovejoy, a veteran author-illustrator known nationally for her prizewinning nonfiction books on gardening and nature, gives you both.–OpEd News

Sharon Lovejoy

An Underground Railroad story with a distinctive flavor. –Booklist

Sharon Lovejoy

A gripping historical novel . . . heart-stopping, heart-racing and eventually heart-easing.–Library Voice

Sharon Lovejoy

This book would be a great addition to a classroom library, especially considering its emphases on timeless and critical topics like discrimination and prejudice. –examiner.com, National Book Examiner

Sharon Lovejoy

Very different from other middle grade of YA stories I've read about slaves running during the 1800s. – Wandering Librarian

Sharon Lovejoy

The rural, mid-19th-century dialect, coupled with the author's interest in ethnobotany, roots the story deeply in the houses, forests, gardens, and even streambeds of antebellum Virginia. –School Library Journal

Sharon Lovejoy

Readers will be swept up by the drama and fast pace of this powerful debut novel.” Reading Today Online, International Reading Association

Sharon Lovejoy

(The golden goose has died, my prince turned into a frog, the Kingdom is lost, everyone has turned into stone and I am locked in the tower)

Nancy B. Brewer

Jason smiled. The sound of wings was louder now, the fluttering of angels come to carry him home.

Robert Ferrigno

Slaughter personified to him every evil of this war. It would never end for Tom until he had dealt with Slaughter. His chance had been delayed last night. The next time he encountered the Colonel, he’d kill him.

C.G. Faulkner

Guess that's thirty-one pieces of silver you've got now, huh? Sleep well, Judas.

Mark Millar

‎"He smiled at me and I felt the tenderness only a daughter could feel.

Nancy B. Brewer

It was not an unusual site to see Negro tenant farmers crossing the intersection of Spring and Barbrick on the way to the cotton warehouse

Nancy B. Brewer

I stop to brace myself against the walls, which are painted with the fingerprints of family.

Nancy B. Brewer

Rebel Number Four" is waiting patiently by the door. I named him "Rebel Number Four," for he is the fourth of his kind I have given the name "Rebel." To many he may be just a hound dog, but to me he is a champion and a friend to the end.

Nancy B. Brewer

The curtains were not yet drawn and with the moonlight spreading across the room, I could see clearly. I undressed and slipped a soft cotton gown over my naked body. I pulled the blanket off the foot of my bed, covered my shoulders and wa...lked out on the balcony. The cool night air blowing through my hair served as a reminder that only a hint of summer remained in this year of 1860.

Nancy B. Brewer

Today’s breakfast consist of rice and a piece of bread fried in a bit of salt pork grease. At least I have my memories of grand banquets and fine foods, but this is all the children have ever known. I suppose it is best not to have anything to compare.

Nancy B. Brewer

Sea and land may lie between us, but my heart is always there with you.

Nancy B. Brewer

Like the magnolia tree, She bends with the wind,Trials and tribulation may weather her, Yet, after the storm her beauty blooms, See her standing there, like steel, With her roots forever buried,Deep in her Southern soil.

Nancy B. Brewer

The promoters of emancipation were not bent on promoting a revolution so much as they were intent on snuffing one out – a backward-looking, aristocratic revolution – in order to put the South back on the track it should have been on from the beginning of the republic.

Allen C. Guelzo

I couldn’t figure out if it was fate or faith that had brought me there. How funny those two words sounded when paired together. One was the inevitable, something I could not change in my life, while the other was the hope and belief that I could. These two words were enemies of each other, and one of them was down right dangerous for a slave to have anywhere near his mind.

Jay Grewal

That was when I realized we weren’t born to beslaves. It was ignorant for any man to think he could be the master of another. We were all meant to be free, and somewhere there were good people helping to heal this broken world.

Jay Grewal

To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Chamberlain raised his saber, let loose the shout that was the greatest sound he could make, boiling the yell up from his chest: Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! He leaped down from the boulder, still screaming, his voice beginning to to crack and give, and all around him his men were roaring animal screams, and he saw the whole Regiment rising and pouring over the wall and beginning to bound down through the dark bushes, over the dead and dying wounded, hats coming off, hair flying, mouths making sounds, one man firing as he ran, the last bullet, last round.

Michael Shaara

The ground had opened up and spit out hell, Nell thought, and the detritus was Shiloh.

Kelsey Brickl

I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

Alexander H. Stephens

Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them.

Alexander H. Stephens

Modifying Clausewitz’ aphorism—war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means—one could say that in ideologically divided countries civil war is but the continuation of parliamentarism with other means.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

What I wanted was to get away. But the moon was too far beyond, and there were white bits under me, where the flesh was shredded off and the bone gleamed that famed ivory, and those below cowered and, if they were not quick enough, were spattered in blood. Then came the jolt, as of a fall, and I saw the leg was caught in an ungainly way in the smaller branches of a mutamba tree, the foot hooked, long like that infamous fruit.

Tsitsi Dangarembga

It is not the self respect and pride that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind to your children that matters. A strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations. Those blessed with a patriotic genetic legacy should run to the top of the mountain and roar with all fervency, “If they can over come, so will I!” When you know the ghosts that stand in support of you, you can begin to see life as they did—a life of joy, possibilities and freedom.

Shannon L. Alder

I'm American. Like I told you. And I'm American and not something else because they failed that day. They couldn't do it and most of them probably knew they couldn't do it before they even started, but they went anyhow. There's honor in that. I don't reckon there's much honor left in the world now, but they had it that day and I honor them on both sides by knowing what I can about it. Much as I can.

Lance Weller

I feel proud that I have been counted worthy to have blood shed by a traitor, and to suffer torture at the hands of those who have undertaken to trail our Flag in the dust. Signed, Yours as Ever, Franklin M. Haven.

Franklin Marion Havens

The evolution of national unity and equal rights is all about what America represents as a nation today: a manifestation of the historical episodes of Jefferson and Henry as well as the Civil War, the Women’s Suffrage movement, and the Civil Rights struggles.

Patrick Mendis

Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.

Karl Marx

Was I altering the 'space-time continuum' or whatever they called it in time travel movies, just by existing right now? Perhaps I'd accidentally kill a mosquito that might have given some famous person a disease that killed them?

J.R. Rain

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Civil War Quotes

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