The Civil War (documentary) quotes

On the second day of fierce fighting, Rosecrans committed a fatal mistake, ordering his troops to close a gap in the Union line that wasn't there. In the process, he opened up a real one; and Longstreet's Confederates stormed through. The Union forces broke and ran.

The Civil War was fought in ten thousand places. At Big Bend, Big Sandy, and the Big Sunflower River. From Bunker Hill, West Virginia and Blue Springs, Tennessee, and Cairo, Illinois to Golgotha Church, Georgia, and Christianburg, Kentucky. At Citrus Point on the Cimarron River and along Cowskin Bottom. At Pebbly Run and La Glorieta Pass. And Gettysburg.

He spoke just 269 words. He started off by reminding his audience that just 87 years had passed since the founding of the nation, and then he went on to embolden the Union cause with some of the most stirring words ever spoken.

While Grant conferred with Meade, members of his staff described Grant’s triumphs in the West. Veterans of the Army of the Potomac were not impressed. "That may be," one said, "But Grant never met Bobby Lee."

In 1861, Lee refused command of the northern army and followed his state out of the Union, not because he approved of slavery or secession, but because he believed his first duty was to Virginia.

I did only what my duty demanded. I could have taken no other course without dishonor.

The man who stood before us...was the realized King Arthur. The soul that looked out of his eyes was as honest and fearless as when it first looked out on life. One saw the character as clear as crystal, without complication, and the heart as tender as that of ideal womanhood.

A Union girl watching Lee ride past her Pennsylvania home said, "I wish he were ours." Early in the War, he was ridiculed as "The King of Spades" because of his fondness for entrenching and "Granny Lee" because of his gray hair and strict ways. But after he drove McClellan off the Peninsula, stopped Pope at Second Manassas, demolished Burnside at Fredericksburg and destroyed Hooker at Chancellorsville, all despite overwhelming odds, he won the unshakable confidence of Jefferson Davis, and the unqualified love of his officers and men.

That man Grant will fight us everyday and every hour until the end of the war.

Never before in my lifetime did I ever see such a scene as was enacted when Lee pronounced these words. A yell rent the air which must've been heard for miles around. A courier riding by my side with tears coursing down his cheeks exclaimed 'I would charge hell itself for that old man!'

May 7. If we were under any other General except Grant, I should expect to retreat. But Grant is not that kind of Soldier.

Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate commander who now faced Sherman, was heartily disliked by President Jefferson Davis, but he was very nearly worshipped by his men. "I do not believe there was a soldier in his army but would gladly have died for him. With him, everything was his soldiers. He would feed his soldiers if the country starved. Sam Watkins." Outgunned, outsupplied and outnumbered 2 to 1, Joseph Johnston could only hope to slow Sherman’s advance and perhaps lure him into making the kind of doomed frontal attack that would help swing the election against Lincoln.

In the first years of the war, battle was bloody but sporadic. From now on it would be waged without a break. From the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, it would not stop for thirty days. It was, one Soldier wrote, 'Living night and day in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.'

Petersburg is a magnificent sloop to the durability of men, on both sides. It was just a rehearsal for World War I, trench warfare. And they stood up very well to it. But the Soldiers always did in that war; its to us almost an incredible bravery, considering the casualties.

June 23, 1864. The demand down here for killing purposes is far ahead of the supply. Thank God however for the consolation that when the last man is killed, the war will be over. This war you know differs from previous wars in having no object to fight for. It can't be finished until all the men on either the one side or the other are killed. Both sides are trying to do that as fast as they can because it would be a pity to spin this affair out for two or three years longer.