Quotes from Michael Shaara

It came to him in the night sometimes with a sudden appalling shock that the boys he was fighting were boys he had grown up with. The war had come as a nightmare in which you chose your nightmare side. Once chosen, you put your head down and went on to win.

Lee stopped, looked north. I twas working almost like a plan. It was possible to see Intention in it...he gave no further directions...it had never really been in his hands at all. And yet his was the responsibility.

And so it was not even patriotism but a new faith. The Frenchman may fight for France, but the American fights for mankind, for freedom; for the people, not the land.

thought, Lee wants a frontal assault. I guess he'll have one. He turned to the messenger.

It wasn't the dying. He had seen men die all his life, and death was the luck of the chance, the price you eventually paid. What was worse was the stupidity. The appalling sick stupidity that was so bad you thought sometimes you would go suddenly, violently, completely insane just having to watch it. It was a deadly thing to be thinking on. Job to be done here. And all of it turns on faith.

Then after that I asked this fella what rights he had that we were offendin', and he said, well, he didn't know, but he must have some rights he didn't know nothin' about.

different kind of army. If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something

something new. I don't Ã¢â'¬Â¦ this hasn't happened much in the history of the world. We're an army going out to set other men free.

I'll wave no more flags for home. No tears for Mother. Nobody ever died for apple pie.

A Frenchman may fight for France, but the American fights for mankind, for freedom; for the people, not the land.

W]e have a country here where the past cannot keep a good man in chains, and that's the nature of the war.

Everybody knows all the movements. General So and So should have done such and such. God knows we all try. We none of us lose battles on purpose. But now on this field what can we do that's undone?

The air was cool and wet and delicious to breathe: a slow, fine, soaking rain, a farmer's rain, gentle on the roof.

Kilrain saluted, grinning, and withdrew. The only professional in the regiment. The drinking would kill him. Well. He would die happy.

cannot even back away, I cannot leave him to fight it alone, they're my people, my boys. God help me, I can't even quit.

General, you may attack'...He gave no further directions...With that word it was out of his hands. It had never really been in his hands at all. And yet his was the responsibility.

This is the great battle. Tomorrow or the next day. This will determine the war. Virginia is here, all the South is here. What will you do tomorrow?

In this place at last a man could stand up free of the past, free of tradition and blood ties and the curse of royalty and become what he wished to become.

He shuddered. He remembered that day in church when he prayed from the soul and listened and knew in that moment that there was no one there

But he had heavy hands with thick muscular fingers and black fingernails and there was a look of power to him, a coiled tight set to the way he stood, balanced, ugly, slightly contemptuous, but watchful, trying to gauge Chamberlain's strength.

If men were equal in America, all these Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves.

Southern women like their men religious and a little mad.

There's nothing so much like a god on earth as a General on a battlefield.

If men were equal in America, all these Poles and English and Czechs and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as foreigner; there were only free men and slaves.