William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.

There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.

If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.

War is at best barbarism.

The young bloods of the South: sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard-players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will... They are splendid riders, first-rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace.

The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak violence upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate.

It's a disagreeable thing to be whipped.

An army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every enactment, every change of rule which impairs this principle weakens the army, impairs its value, and defeats the very object of its existence.

There's many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory but it is all hell.

The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.

I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come-if alive.

We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals.

Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina; and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, - Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.

I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it.

War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.

The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.

We can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!

I'm a damned sight smarter than Grant; I know more about organization, supply and administration and about everything else than he does; but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight but it scares me like hell.

...[We] must stop these swarms of Jews who are trading, bartering and robbing.

War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.

We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children... during an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.

The North can make a steam engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth - right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

The only good Indian is a dead Indian

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about.

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.

You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

Wars are not all evil, they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed.

The way to success is strategically along the way of least expectation and tactically along the line of least resistance.

You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm.

War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.

If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir.

To secure the safety of the navigation of the Mississippi River I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad... I think I see one or two quick blows that will astonish the natives of the South and will convince them that, though to stand behind a big cottonwood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off. For every bullet shot at a steamboat, I would shoot a thousand 30-pounder Parrots into even helpless towns on Red, Ouachita, Yazoo, or wherever a boat can float or soldier march.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

I intend to make Georgia howl.

At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see that in the end you will surely fail.

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.

You may as well say, 'That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.