Quotes About War

FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR, Abraham Lincoln recognized the pivotal role of Kentucky, a centrally located buffer state between North and South. "I hope to have God on my side," he admonished colleagues, "but I must have Kentucky.

He immediately had Rawlins summon stretcher bearers, but was dismayed when they removed the Union officer and overlooked the Confederate private. "Take this Confederate, too," he said. "Take them both together; the war is over between them." Grant seemed sickened by the carnage. "Let's get away from this dreadful place," he told an officer. "I suppose this work is part of the devil that is left in us all.

Rawlins was soon sidetracked from the war effort, however, by word from his wife, Emily, staying with her family in Goshen, New York, that she suffered from consumption; Rawlins would shortly leave to join her.

The Republican marching club was known as the Galena Wide Awakes—Orvil Grant was a member—and as they tramped along, clad in dark oilcloth capes and caps, their martial air portended war. Grant rebuffed an effort, spearheaded by John Rawlins

Both Grant and Sherman were damaged souls who would redeem tarnished reputations in the brutal crucible of war.

I shall conclude [by] saying I wish there was a war. Alex. Hamilton.

raiders, the United States wanted Great Britain to foot the bill for the entire war cost after Gettysburg, some $2 billion, the logic being that after Gettysburg, the Confederacy had abandoned offensive operations, except at sea. If the British hadn't provided naval aid, the South couldn't have prolonged the war and Great Britain was therefore liable for the extra astronomical expenses incurred.

Sherman did not want to have to feed its citizens or assign extra troops to guard a sullen, restive population and ordered the evacuation of all residents. When the mayor pleaded that such an exodus would result in "appalling and heart-rending suffering," Sherman replied in lapidary prose: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it . . . You might as well appeal against the thunder storm

Confederate forces were being whittled down and could not be replaced by the South's smaller population.

May we not justly say . . . that the liberty which Mr. Lincoln declared with his pen General Grant made effectual with his sword—by his skill in leading the Union armies to final victory?

Grant notified the president that he had vacated the office and no longer functioned as war secretary. Faced with this fait accompli, Johnson was furious, believing Grant should have resigned his post and allowed him to name a successor.

This relentless price war forced Tidewater to operate at half capacity.

Hamilton probably spent little more than two years at King's and never formally graduated due to the outbreak of the Revolution. By April 6, 1776, King's College, tarred by its earlier association with Myles Cooper, was commandeered by patriot forces and put to use as a military hospital.

Thomas Jones, a Loyalist judge in New York, wrote that not "a stick of wood, a spear of grass or a kernel of corn could the troops in New Jersey procure without fighting for it.

in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.

He favored granting Congress supreme power in war, peace, trade, finance, and foreign affairs.

To believe America able to withstand England is a dreadful infatuation.

In 1807, Burr was arrested for treason and for trying to incite a war against Spain. He was acquitted by Chief Justice John Marshall, who applied a strict definition of treason. The acquittal only sharpened Jefferson's contempt for "the original error of establishing a judiciary independent of the nation

From his reading of history, Hamilton concluded a few essays later that war was an inescapable fact of life: "the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace."54

This early experience made Grant tend to view war as a hard-luck saga of talented, professional soldiers betrayed by political opportunists plotting back in Washington.

coaxed America into war for profit.

During the war he had learned that it was better to let power seek him rather than to pursue it; a good general waited to be summoned by his superiors. p610

It now seemed futile to try to halt a British advance upon the capital.

Delenda est Carthago: Carthage must be destroyed and obliterated.