American Civil War Quotes

The Proclamation opened the door to self-liberation by the Negro upon which he immediately acted by deserting the plantations in the South and joining the Union armies in the North.

The Emancipation Proclamation shattered in one blow the slave system, undermining the foundations of the economy of the rebellious South; and guaranteed that no slave-holding class, if permitted to exist in defeat, could prepare a new and deadlier war after resuscitation.

You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less.

Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. There were no laws segregating the races then.

Silly people, and there are many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand bloodletting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch.

Thus ended the great American Civil War, which must upon the whole be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass conflicts of which till then there was record.

So much of promised usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed, as in his fall.

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.

If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it.

General McClellan and myself are to be photographed ... if we can be still long enough. I feel General McClellan should have no problem.

The North responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone kills no rebels.

In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.

I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.

It is gratifying to know that the patriotism of the people has proved equal to the occasion, and that the number of troops tendered greatly exceeds the force which Congress authorized me to call into the field.

I have been unwilling to go beyond the pressure of necessity in the unusual exercise of power.

The people of the South have too much of good sense, and good temper, to attempt the ruin of the government ... At least, so I hope and believe.

I have desired as sincerely as any man - I sometimes think more than any other man - that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood.

Our men are not moles, and can't dig under the earth; they are not birds, and can't fly through the air. There is no way but to march across, and that they must do.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.