Quotes from William Tecumseh Sherman

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

I hereby state, and mean all that I say, that I never have been and never will be a candidate for President; that if nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline; and even if unanimously elected I should decline to serve.

People are deceived and drawn on step by step, till war, death and destruction are upon them.

La guerra es el infierno

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

My aim then was, to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.

Somehow, our men had got the idea that South Carolina was the cause of all our troubles; her people were the first to fire on Fort Sumter, had been in a great hurry to precipitate the country into civil war, and therefore on them should fall the scourge of war in its worst form.

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

You may as well say, 'That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.

I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come-if alive.

My aim then was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.

I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant. I want him to hold what he has earned and got. I have all the rank I want.

The way to success is strategically along the way of least expectation and tactically along the line of least resistance.

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.

There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.

The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

I intend to make Georgia howl.

This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.