-- Soldier's Quotes from the War

"We won every major battle til Gettysburg... then some **** fool put Grant in charge. That man killed more men beating us than you could imagine. But he beat us." Sgt Nathanial Cole, ANV
 
"I never wear blue, I saw too much of it running in the last unpleaseantness." Reply. "Yep, we ran the whole way to Appomatox, then we stopped running."

Conversation between Unnamed US Senators
 
"You can whip them time and again. But the next fight they go into they're as full of pluck as ever." Unknown Union officer referring to his men.
 
"My God, he'll kill us all!" Captain in a Louisiana regiment after General Bragg ordered the third frontal assault against the Hornets Nest at Shiloh.
 
"... Sgt if a Texan is merely a Mexican who couldn't make it further north... then by God give me ten thousand of those Mexicans and I'll whip the Yankess clean to hell." CSA Major after witnessing the Texans charge at Antietem.
 
"Wheelers men were curs. I remember them well from Georgia, they hanged little Simmers, a fouteen year old drummer boy in a Minnesota Regiment. And what they did to the negroes who followed us was inhuman. I suppose it's a brave thing to hang a child and kill unarmed slaves, they never charged Shermans men half so well."

Unnamed Captain of Hazen's Brigade.
 
"Murder, pure and simple murder." An unnamed Union Private looking at the after effect of the repulse of a Georgia militia Brigade by his regiment armed with new Spencer Rifles.
 
"In this army one hole in the seat of the breeches indicates a Captain, two holes a Lieutenant and the seat of the pants all out indicates the individual is a private." Texan outside of Atlanta 1864.
 
Cushing ran the last of his guns to the battle line. The rest had been smashed to scrap by Lee's artillery fire. He held his guts in his hands as the charge came to the wall. His gun spoke out one time for him before he fell to the ground.

Stephen Vincent Be'net's account of the last shot fired from Cushing's battery at Gettysburg.
 
"We'll fight them, sir, 'til hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will fight them on the ice."

A Confederate soldier at Gettysburg
 
"General Wheeler... has demonstrated to every man in the Confederacy, except the President and General Bragg, that he is not capable of commanding 10,000 cavalrymen." Georgia Governor Joe Brown
 
"We have been driven like a wild herd from our country, not so much from a want of spirit in the people or the soldier, as from want of energy and competence in our commanders. Hampton and Butler are the only ones who have done anything." General James Chestnut
 
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