I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.

I am as willing to serve now as in the beginning in any capacity and at any post where I can do good. The lower the position, the more suitable to my ability and the more agreeable to my feelings.

There is always hazard in military activity, but we must decide between the positive loss of inactivity and the risk of action.

Whither shall I flee? To no country on earth that I know of where there is as much liberty as yet remains to me even in Virginia.

Read history, works of truth, not novels and romances

Life Insurance trusts I consider sacred. To hazard the property of the dead & to lose the scanty earnings of fathers & husbands, who have toiled & saved that they may leave something to their families deprived of their care & the support of their labour, is to my mind the worst of crimes.

Go home all you boys who fought with me and help build up the shattered fortunes of our old state