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

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.

An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.

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 only good Indian is a dead Indian

I see every chance of a long, confused and disorganizing civil war, and I feel no desire to take a hand therein.

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