What are Some of Your Favorite Quotes Of The Civil War?

During the summer of 1861 pro-secessionist volunteers began organizing in Northeast Missouri. David Moore, a Mexican War veteran, began enlisting pro-Union home guards to oppose them. Moore placarded Clark County with a request for volunteers and a challenge:

Secessionists and rebel traitors desiring a fight can be accommodated on demand. D. Moore

On 5 August secessionists attacked Moore at Athens Missouri and were soundly whipped, ensuring Union control of Northeast Missouri.
 
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Gen. Wise speaking to R. E. Lee

" Country be ****ed! There is no country! There has been no country, General for over a year or more. You are the country to these men. They have fought for you. They have shivered through a long winter for you! Without pay or clothes, or care of any sort, their devotion to and faith in you have been the thing which has held this army together. If you demand the sacrifice, there are still thousands of us who will die for you. You know the game is desperate beyond redemption, and that, if you announce, no man or government or people will gainsay your decision. That is why I repeat that the blood of any man killed hereafter is upon your head."


Lee said nothing. He stood for a time at a open window as crowds of men fleeing the guns of war moved past them. The words sank in. He scribbled a message for the young Wise to take to Jefferson, and as Wise the younger walked away he heard the soft wooing of a redbird and behind that the sound of artillery booming and he thought, "In blood and flame and torture the temples of our lives were tumbling about our heads."
 
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During the summer of 1861 pro-secessionist volunteers began organizing in Northeast Missouri. David Moore, a Mexican War veteran, began enlisting pro-Union home guards to oppose them. Moore placarded Clark County with a request for volunteers and a challenge:

Secessionists and rebel traitors desiring a fight can be accommodated on demand. D. Moore

On 5 August secessionists attacked Moore at Athens Missouri and were soundly whipped, ensuring Union control of Northeast Missouri.
Interesting trivia on Moore is orginally applied for command in the anti Union MSG, he lost the position to Martin E Green who went on to become a CSA BG. Both were rival prewar democrats, so he joined the home guard out of spite, his sons however remained with the MSG.

I always wonder how many were motivated by petty or personal reasons such as that, the STL Irish largely joined the south because the STL Germans were Unionist and they didnt like each other.
 
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"There were never such men in an army before; they will go anywhere, and do anything if properly led."
Robert E. Lee
I like that one, but I'll go one better than THAT :smile coffee: :
"When I learned that Sherman’s army was marching through the Salk swamps, making its own corduroy roads at the rate of a dozen miles a day, I made up my mind that there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar."
C.S. Gen. Joe Johnston

Kevin Dally
 
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I like that one, but I'll go one better than THAT :smile coffee: :
"When I learned that Sherman’s army was marching through the Salk swamps, making its own corduroy roads at the rate of a dozen miles a day, I made up my mind that there had been no such army in existence since the days of Julius Caesar."
C.S. Gen. Joe Johnston

Kevin Dally
I'm surprised he didn't say Ghengis Khan.
 
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"Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision." Patrick Cleburne
 
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“Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.”

Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman
It is true Sherman and Grant were friends and Sherman also said this about his friend. "He is a mystery to me and I believe also to himself".
 
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"Almost makes the stones creep under foot" - Unknown observer on the tone of the vicious tirade that George Gordon Meade launched at David Birney for making excuses for not supporting his breakthrough on Lee's right flank. I've tried to find the full quote but no such luck.
Its probably true that some such tirades are warranted, others, a loss of control. It would be interesting to know which was which. That's worth sitting around the fire with a mug of coffee on a box o hard tack for I think.
 
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