Civil War One-Liners

ewc

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Mr Lincoln is the acknowledged master here, but I will start out with three others that I enjoy:

-Upon the collapse of the Confederate lines on Missionary Ridge, breaking the Rebels' Siege of Chattanooga, Bragg, the commanding general, rode into the mob of his retreating troops trying to stem the tide and restore order, shouting "Here's your commander!"

To which, undeterred fleeing soldiers reply "Here's your mule!"

-Rebel General Joe Johnston, upon hearing of Lee's repulse of the Army of the Potomac with heavy losses at Fredericksburg, the Yanks charging repeatedly up Marye's Heights, lamented "The luck some people have! Nobody will come and attack me in such a place!"

-Rebel General Bedford Forrest had a particular talent at undoing Yankee generals. Forrest, as usual, showed up unannounced with his horsemen in Yankee occupied Memphis well before dawn August 21, 1864. 3 Federal generals managed to evade capture, one- the district commander, General CC Washburn, in his nightshirt and out the backdoor as Forrest's men came in the front, and another- the former district commander, General Stephen Hurlbut, because he was not at home, but laying low, as some might put it, with a lady acquaintance with whom he enjoyed friendly relations. Hurlbut, superceded by the Union brass to see if Washburn might have better luck corraling Forrest, declared, in a classic statement on this raid, "They removed me from command because I couldn't keep Forrest out of West Tennessee, and now Washburn can't keep him out of his own bedroom!"

Cheers all, ewc
 
Alright, here's a Lincoln classic:

The Young Napoleon, General McClellan, came to Washington amid great fanfare in July 1861 to reorganize and 'save' the Union armies. Before very long, goodwill ran out and he became the target of the hard war men, namely the Radical Republicans, who controlled the mean and mighty Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, the great bane to ill-starred military commanders. Ohio Senator Ben Wade, the chairman of the fearsome committee, cranky even in the best of moods, had finally had his fill of McClellan, went storming to Lincoln to press McClellan's removal. Lincoln asked then who should command. Wade blurted out- "Anybody!"

To which Lincoln retorted, sighing, "Wade, anybody might do for you, but I must have somebody."

A deep man, Lincoln.
 
A Southern soldier noticed a young rebel running from the action at Saylor's Creek and asked him why he was running.

The young soldier replied, "'Cause I can't fly!"

Soldiers off all armies of all times say it straight and short and with feeling, don't you think?

Unionblue
 
Civil War surgeons differ little from their contemporaries in the matter of stuffed-shirtedness and general full-of-themselvesdom, and not a few of them ran afoul of the matrons who cared for the wounded and ill soldiers. Mother Bickerdyke, in particular, ran roughshod over this specimen of surgeon whom she felt were negligent in their care of their charges. While tending the men at the Gayoso Hospital in Memphis in early '63, she threw the ward surgeon out of the hospital, assuring him she would have him drummed out of the army altogether. The good doctor, with feathers all arumpled, betook himself to address the matter with the area commander, Tecumseh Sherman. Asking (as if he needed to) about whom he made this complaint, Uncle Billy merely frowned and shook his head, saying, 'Ah well, then, my man, if it was she, I'm afraid I can't help you. She ranks me.'
 
A pair of Irish friends in Price's Missouri militia early in the war had made a solemn pact to tend one another on the field and in camp in the event of wounding or infirmity. During an engagement at one of the early battles in the West, one of the friends went down with a disabling wound. Unable to walk, he was effectively hors de combat. The second soldier, true to his oath, heeded the pleas of his friend and lifted him onto his back to bear him from the field and seek aid. The Union shelling was hot and heavy, and it was with no little relief that the soldiers moved to the rear. Arriving at the field hospital, the doctor asked the soldier why he was carrying a corpse to be treated, a cannonball having come along and cleanly removing the wounded soldier's head. The poor man's friend looked over his shoulder, and seeing it was so, gently laid his friend upon the ground. Said he in wonderment, "Why, the lying rascal, he said it was his leg!"
 
Here's a good one-liner for you Ed.

Lincoln liked General Sherman and called his conquest of Savannah in December of 1864 "My Christmas present."

When senators pressed Lincoln as to the general's course through Georgia in the following spring, he recounted Sherman's encounter with a Georgian plantation owner.

A gray-haired gentleman sat on the veranda of his pillared mansion as Sherman rode up to get water. The owner heard Sherman referred to as a general.

"So you're a general?" he said as he offered Sherman a jug of water. Sherman nodded. "How many men do you have?" queried the planter. "About a million," was Sherman's dry reply. "Where are you headed for?" was the next question. "I'm not sure I should answer that," said the Union Army general. "Oh, I wouldn't tell anybody," the Southerner insisted. "But this is knowledge not to be released publicly," stated Sherman. "Oh I wouldn't tell anybody where you're going." "You promise?" demanded General Sherman. "Yes, I swear on the honor of a gentleman," said the Georgian, crossing his heart.

"All right," said Sherman, "lean over and I'll whisper it in your ear." The man bent over and then he heard Sherman's scream.

"I'M GOING WHERE I GODDAM PLEASE!"

Unionblue
 
Classic Sherman, Neil.

Here's another of my Sherman favorites:

Having dispossessed the Rebs of Atlanta did prove to have one significant disadvantage- it released Hood from a fixed point and allowed him and his army to operate like Forrest, Wheeler, and the gang, popping up here and there, will-o-the-wisp, about anywhere they pleased upon God's green earth. And where many a fine Reb particularly liked to be was in an unsuspecting Unionist's rear, upon his supply line, feasting on his wine and pickles. So it was now with Hood, and there was never forgetting 'that devil Forrest', and Sherman's supply line extended some three hundreds of sensitive miles or so back to Louisville, seemingly as beckoning the faithful to prayers.

This was not a situation to make Uncle Billy happy, chasing Rebs up to no good across the countryside, gone once he got there, like swatting mosquitoes with a baseball bat; this was not the grinding of the bootheel, much more to Sherman's liking.

One such occurrence was the attack of French's division on the major Union depot and garrison at Allatoona, guarding the Western & Atlantic RR to Atlanta, 5 October '64. Sherman sent General John M Corse and his division to help defend this place. French had the place invested and things going his way, asked Corse to surrender, which was refused. Uncle Billy was coming up. The fight was severe, and the men in Blue outnumbered. Sherman appeared on Kennesaw Mountain, and signaled the defenders, what comes down to us as the famous 'Hold the fort, for I am coming.' During a break in the fighting, Corse signaled to Sherman, 'I am short a cheekbone and an ear, but am able to whip all hell yet.'

With the defenders still full of spit and vinegar, and a force assembling in his rear, French withdrew- never you mind, boys; we'll have at em again somewheres else.

Sherman, eager to congratulate the wounded Corse and his men, rushed to the fort. He found Corse, though his skull creased by a bullet, sporting a chipper cheekbone and having an earlobe pinked. Appreciating the humor of the moment, he exclaimed "Look here, Corse, they almost missed you."

e
 
In February of 1865, when the 3 high-ranking Confederate Peace Commissioners showed up on General Ord's lines outside Petersburg, he sent them along to General Grant's headquarters. Grant made them comfortable till word came from the administration to send them packing. Grant had been talking to them unofficially and wrote personally to President Lincoln to say it might be a good idea to hear what they had to say. Lincoln agreed and journeyed down to Ft Monroe with Secretary Seward, who was well acquainted from the old Washington days with Commissioners Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell. The meeting aboard the River Queen of course came to naught. So the commissioners boarded the packet provided by Grant to return to his headquarters and thence home. Seeing them off, Seward remembered his manners and assembled a basket of champagne and hams as parting gifts for his friends of old. From the River Queen he signaled the Confederates on their packet; it was then they saw an old Negro, a former slave, rowing over to them, conveying the basket from Seward. In the basket with the goods was a note from Seward-

"Keep the basket. Return the Negro."

Shortly thereafter, of course, all the Negroes were 'returned.'
 
After Lincoln was inaugurated, the immediate threat was the vulnerability of Fort Sumter off the South Carolina coast. One adviser recommended to Lincoln that the Union yield Fort Sumter, Fort Pickens, and other federal government properties in the South.

Lincoln said, "There is a lesson in the fable of the lion and the woodman's daughter."

"A lion was very much in love with a woodman's daughter. The fair maid referred him to her father. The lion applied for the girl. The father replied, 'Your teeth are too long.' The lion went to a dentist and had them extracted. Returning, he asked for his bride. 'No,' said the woodman, 'your claws are too long.' Going back to the dentist, he had them drawn. Then he returned to claim his bride, and the woodsman, seeing that he was unarmed, beat out his brains."

Lincoln concluded, "May it not be so with me, if I give up all that is asked?"

Unionblue
 
B.F.R. Jeffares knew his native Georgia was largely occupied by the advance of Sherman's army. Atlanta had fallen and Savannah was about to be taken when he wrote to his wife.

"You can't imaggin how bad it makes me want to see you all when I hear what a condition you are all left in, in that country it seems to me that it is more than I can bear to stay away from you & that Dear sweet child, oh if I could just see you with the natural eye as plain as I imagined I saw you in my sleep last night I thought I had you embraced in my arms but it turned out to be only a Dream when I awoke up I was crying."
 
"The institution in your states will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion...of the war."

President Lincoln speaking to Border South congressman with the idea of a Union plan in 1862 to emancipate slaves by buying them from slaveowners for $300 - $400 per slave.

Unionblue
 
General Sherman's wife,concerning his ultimate purpose in the war, writing to her husband after his taking command in Memphis:
"of extermination and that all (Southerners) would be driven like the Swine into the sea. May we carry fire and sword into their states till not one habitation is left standing."
 
"Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may."

General Sherman's letter of reply to the City Council of Atlanta, Sept. 12, 1864.

Unionblue
 
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