Sometimes we see the Civil War in movies and imagine these neatly aligned rows of men with muskets, walking in line to shoot each other. In reality the things that fascinated me were how absolutely ruthless and violent so many engagements were, how much suffering and how men were not prepared.

Elizabeth sheathed her sword, knelt behind him, and strangled him to death with his own large bowel.

We may all deserve hell, but some of us deserve it sooner than others.

I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. But, I literally work all day, every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and that's not an exaggeration.

Surely life has taught you that a thing can be both beautiful and vile.

My men have suffered greatly (from boredom), much blood has been shed (by mosquitoes), and I have swung my ax mightily (chopping firewood). Surely we have earned our place in the annals of history—for never has there been so little war in a war.

The true roll in determing to embrace or reject anything is not whether it have any evil in it but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good.