Most of my inspiration, if that's the word, came from books themselves.

The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

A rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

A fact is not a truth until you love it.

North was only a direction indicated by a compass--if a man had one, that is, for otherwise there was no north or south or east or west; there was only the brooding desolation.

I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.

I've never known, at least a modern historical instance, where the truth wasn't superior to distortion in every way.