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

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.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.

You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them?

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

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.