I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

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

In our Country... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out.

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

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