Favorite American Civil War Quote? Voices From Time You Can't Forget

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
gb 1863 pa collegesz 1.jpg

Using this 1863 image from Gettysburg, of Pennsylvania College to symbolize us smack in the middle of the war, where so many were lost and so many left behind. Hit me, one building there my daughter entered as a Freshman and in a ceremony as old as the college, graduated, and exited through it. We left a lot in those years as we did at Gettysburg. So leave some here.

Maybe we have this thread? Can't find it. I don't mean a quote by a later author- they're too easy because authors glue together words staggeringly well.

Anyone, soldier or, one supposes, politician ( if you have to.... ), letter from home, battle quotes- anything at all. We have so many intriguing signatures here, on member profiles it always makes me smile. What a well read, amazingly researched, dedicated bunch.

I'll have to come back, personally. There are so many. Just when you think someone either summed it up, or got to you, Mother Bickerdyke will show up.

" I have a commission from God Almighty himself to do everything I can for every miserable creature who comes in my way; he is always sure of two friends, God and me. "
 
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Using this 1863 image from Gettysburg, of Pennsylvania College to symbolize us smack in the middle of the war, where so many were lost and so many left behind. Hit me, one building there my daughter entered as a Freshman and in a ceremony as old as the college, graduated, and exited through it. We left a lot in those years as we did at Gettysburg. So leave some here.

Maybe we have this thread? Can't find it. I don't mean a quote by a later author- they're too easy because authors glue together words staggeringly well.

Anyone, soldier or, one supposes, politician ( if you have to.... ), letter from home, battle quotes- anything at all. We have so many intriguing signatures here, on member profiles it always makes me smile. What a well read, amazingly researched, dedicated bunch.

I'll have to come back, personally. There are so many. Just when you think someone either summed it up, or got to you, Mother Bickerdyke will show up.

" I have a commission from God Almighty himself to do everything I can for every miserable creature who comes in my way; he is always sure of two friends, God and me. "

Would that Mother Bickerdyke's quote above be our manta for our life's journey! The world would be better for it.
 
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"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."

Union general Stephen Hurlbut's comment on general Nathan Bedford Forrests' successful August 1864 raid on the Union garrison in Memphis, TN commanded by Union general C.C. Washburn.
 
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"Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do."

- Ulysses S. Grant
 
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"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
 
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"Let every dog shake his own paw"

Willis Baker was an old man, nearly 60. He had never been in Union or Southern service, but was charged as being one of the murderer's of Ezekiel Pratt. Mr Baker had two sons in Southern service and he was accused of harboring them and their companions. He was in jail in Palmyra and after Porter's raid was one of the 10 selected to be executed in the Palmyra Massacre by Provost Marshall Strachan

Right before the massacre Provost Marshal Strachan and Rev Rhodes came forward to shake hands with the condemned, when they got to old Willis, he refused and told Strachan "Let every dog shake his own paw"
 
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"I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."
US Grant
Regards
David
 
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"They couldnt hit an elephant at this distance" - John Sedgwick

That one is actually a bit of a popular myth. He did make that statement but they weren't his last words. In some versions of that famous quote poor Sedgwick doesn't even get a chance to finish saying it before he is killed. It's one of those stories from the Civil War that seems to have been exaggerated with the retelling. Here is the account of what actually transpired when he was killed:


"I gave the necessary order to move the troops to the right, and as they rose to execute the movement the enemy opened a sprinkling fire, partly from sharp-shooters. As the bullets whistled by, some of the men dodged. The general said laughingly, "What! what! men, dodging this way for single bullets! What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." A few seconds after, a man who had been separated from his regiment passed directly in front of the general, and at the same moment a sharp-shooter's bullet passed with a long shrill whistle very close, and the soldier, who was then just in front of the general, dodged to the ground. The general touched him gently with his foot, and said, "Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way," and repeated the remark, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." The man rose and saluted and said good-naturedly, "General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn't, it would have taken my head off. I believe in dodging. "The general laughed and replied, "All right, my man; go to your place."

For a third time the same shrill whistle, closing with a dull, heavy stroke, interrupted our talk; when, as I was about to resume, the general's face turned slowly to me, the blood spurting from his left cheek under the eye in a steady stream. He fell in my direction ; I was so close to him that my effort to support him failed, and I fell with him."

"All right, my man; go to your place." makes for less dramatic last words, so somewhere along the line the facts were blurred to make his last words "they couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." A shame, because Sedgwick was just trying to inspire bravery in his troops. The man was just doing his job as an officer, but because of the exaggeration & mythology he ends up being made to look a fool.

Getting back on topic, I'd like to submit "I believe in dodging" as one of my favorite Civil War quotes. :D
 
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Are quotes from period dog tags acceptable?

Harvey was a Bull Terrier that traveled with the 104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry–known as the Barking Dog Regiment because they had several dogs attached. Harvey, mostly white with some black markings, became part of the unit in 1862 when his owner, Daniel M. Stearns of Wellsville, Ohio, joined the regiment. Both Stearns and Harvey had had previous military experience with the Pennsylvania Reserve.

In November 1862 Stearns was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant, and he proudly fitted Harvey with a special collar with a nameplate that read, “I am Lieutenant D.M. Stearn’s dog, whose dog are you?”

:bounce:

A Civil War Dog: A Civil War Dog and the Barking Dog Regiment of Ohio
 
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