-- Soldier's Quotes from the War

Union General John Pope made this observation to his troops shortly before his sound defeat at the Battle of Second Manassas.

"Success and glory are in the advance, disaster and shame lurk in the rear".
 
"If this cause, that is dear to my heart, is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it, while my face is toward the enemy and my arm battling for that which I know is right." --Major General Patrick Cleburne, before his fatal wound at the battle of Franklin, Tenn.
 
When asked by the secretary of war if he had organized a regiment of "fugitive slaves", Union Brig. Gen. David Hunter, serving on the Carolina coast, replied that he had not, but that he did have "a fine regiment of persons whose late masters are 'fugitive rebels'."
 
When asked by Braxton Bragg, "Do you know what a retreat looks like:," one of his men replied, "I ought to know, General, I've been with you during the entire campaign."

During the battle of Chickamauga (19-20 September 1863) an Irishman in the Confederate 10th Tennessee refused to take up the colors, because, "By the holy Saint Patrick, Colonel, there's so much good shooting here, I haven't a minute's time to waste fooling with that thing."
 
Informed by a medium that a distinguished Indian chief in the next world wished to speak with him, Lincoln is said to have replied, "I should be happy to hear what his Indian majesty has to say. We have recently had a visitation from our red brethren, and it was the only delegation, black, white, or blue, which did not volunteer some advice about the conduct of the war."
 
While touring the trenches at Petersburg one day, Gen. Robert E. Lee found that Brig. Gen. Archibald Gracie, Jr., appeared to be obscuring his view as he indicated points of interest in the Yankee lines, and so remarked "General, you should not expose yourself so much," to which Gracie--who was trying to shield Lee from Union marksmen--replied,"If I should not, General Lee, why should you?" at which Lee smiled and retired to a less exposed position.
 
Robert E. Lee's spartan tastes were such that Richard Taylor once remarked, "General Lee was never so uncomfortable as when he was comfortable."

Disapproving a musician's request for leave, Confederate Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill explained that priority for leave was for "shooters, not tooters."
 
As a captured Rebel was being taken past a Union artillery park just outside the Petersburg lines in Virginia, he is said to have remarked, "By God, you fellers have almost as many guns marked 'U.S.' as we do."
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sbc
During the Gettysburg campaign one of Hood's Texas Brigade noted that a patriotic woman of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, had pinned the national colors to her ample bosom, and remarked, "Take care, madam, for Hood's boys are great at storming breastworks when the Yankee colors is on them," which prompted her to "beat a prcipitate retreat."


When, at a meeting in mid-August of 1861, Lincoln heard William T. Sherman state that he had a strong desire to serve in a subordinate capacity, the president expressed immediate agreement with the request, noting that, "My chief trouble is to find places for the many generals who want to be at the head of affairs, to command armies, and so forth."
 
"Gen. Lee this is now place for you, go back General, we will drive'em back, these men are Virginians and they have never failed me and will not fail me, will ya boys?!"

Gen. JB Gordan to Gen. Lee
Spottsylvania (counter attack against federal troops
 
April 5th, at Shiloh:

When one of Sherman's units tangled with a Confederate picket line, Sherman scolded the colonel and said, "Take your damned regiment back to Ohio. There is no enemy nearer than Corinth!" In response to another report of a strong Southern presence, Sherman condescendingly dismissed the information with the observation, "You militia officers get scared too easy."
 
Union General Martin T. McMahon, writing some years after the war about Cold Harbor:

Although Grant had correctly believed that the Confederate defenses around Cold Harbor made up the "last formidable Confederate works before Richmond," the commanding general was anxious to push through them before Lee could get the bulk of his army in position. According to McMahon, these movements "brought us in front of the most formidable position yet held by the enemy." No single position offered a good overview of the battleground in front of the army. McMahon concluded: "The time of actual advance was not above eight minutes. In that little period more men fell bleeding as they advanced than in any other like period during the war."

For his part, Grant confessed to his officers, "I regret this assault more than any one I ever ordered."
 
Fort Fisher, 1864
On Dec. 17, Admiral David Dixon Porter sent instructions to A.C. Rhind, commander of the Louisiana: "You will proceed when ready, with the Louisiana, under your command to the east bar, New Inlet, and place the vessel as close to Fort Fisher as the water will permit, even to running her on the beach. When she is there she is to be exploded by means of clocks, slow matches, etc., which have been furnished you, at such time as your judgement may seem best." He noted, "I think that the concussion will tumble magazines that are built on framework, and that the famous mound will be among the things that were, and the guns buried beneath the ruins."
 
In the fighting before Atlanta, Georgia, Union troops sometimes became seperated from their units or were captured on raids into the surrounding countryside.

Where prisoners were collected in public places, they were apt to receive some verbal abuse; women would call them "vandals' and old men would shake their fists at them. Most instances of physical violence against captured soldiers went unrecorded, occurring in remote places.

But in one instance abuse of a prisoner prompted a strong recation from the usually mild-mannered General Wheeler. An old farmer knocked a Union prisoner down, and the Confederate guard who was there then knocked the farmer down. The old man went to Wheeler and protested. Wheeler told him:

"If you want to fight, go join a company and fight, but don't hit a prisoner."

Unionblue
 
Although not in the same era, this is worthy of remembrance, I believe.




"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." --Patrick Henry
 
In a letter from Confederate General D.H. Hill to Confederate General Jubal Early, in the years following the South's subjugation, he writes, "Why has the South become so toadyish and sycophantic? I think it is because the best and noblest were killed off during the war."
 
"US strategy should maximize fatalities among the enemy rather than expedite the quickest possible cessation of hostilities." --General William Tecumseh Sherman

Corrected for accuracy
 
  • Full Citation: Amory K. Allen, "Civil War Letters of Amory K. Allen," Indiana Magazine of History 31, no. 4 (December 1935): 338-386.
  • Home: Martin County (Loogootee)
  • Year: 1861-1865
  • Regiment:14th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Co. C
  • Engagements: Cheat Mountain, Siege of Richmond, Antietam, Gettysburg, Battle of the Wilderness, Siege of Petersburg
  • Abstract: Allen (d. 1885) wrote letters to his wife throughout the war, from May 17, 1861-Apr. 23, 1865. He was involved in many of the war's major engagements. He often complains that his wife does not reciprocate his letters to her often enough, and that he misses her and their children very much. In his description of Antietam, in two separate letters (Sept. 20, 1862 and Oct. 15, 1862), he notes with some wonder that he was the only man in his company who was not killed or hurt. He does not think much of Emancipation, but constantly reiterates his dislike of Confederates and Southern sympathizers. He is injured in the Battle of the Wilderness, but returns to his regiment in August 1864 after it was merged with the 20th Indiana. He is injured again in early April 1865, and is in Seminary Hospital in Washington, D.C., when Lincoln is assassinated.
  • Sample Text:
    1. "We was in the very heart of the fight....The fight was awful we fought for 4 hours and got out of amunition [sic] and shot away all that the dead and wounded had left...So no more only I was in the fight and was not hurt." (near Sharpsburg, Md., Sept. 20, 1862)
    2. "I suppose you hear plenty of talk about the free negroes I don't know how the folks like it nor don't kear [sic] if it will only bring the war to an end any sooner....We are in war and anything to beat the south." (Jan. 8, 1863, Ft. Barnard, Va.)
    3. "The rebellion is bound to be put down and if it can't come down no other way it will be put down by force the last man in the Southern confederacy will be swept from the face of the earth rather than give them independance [sic] over us of the north and the union." (Petersburg, Va. Nov. 26, 1864)
    4. "Well I guess you have heared [sic] all about the president being kill [sic] by an assassin the most terrible of all circumstances that ever happened in the United States. I was not able to go to the funeral but I went out on the Street and Saw the hearse and procession pass which was the biggest thing of the kind I ever Saw." (Washington, D.C., April 23, 1865)
  • LC Subject Headings:
    1. United States. Army. Indiana Infantry Regiment, 14th (1861-1864)
    2. United States. Army. Indiana Infantry Regiment, 20th (1861-1865)
    3. Cheat Mountain, Battle of, W. Va., 1861
    4. Richmond (Va.) History Siege, 1862
    5. Peninsular Campaign, 1862
    6. Peninsular Campaign, 1862 Personal narratives.
    7. Antietam, Battle of, Md., 1862
    8. Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863
    9. Wilderness, Battle of the, Va., 1864
    10. Petersburg (Va.) History Siege, 1864-1865
    11. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Assassination Public opinion Sources.
 
Back
Top