I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

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

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

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.

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

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.

The carping and bickering of political factions in the nation's capital reminds me of two pelicans quarreling over a dead fish.