Civil War Quotes and Sayings about Civil War – Inspire Quotes
Famous Civil War Quotes
“The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“The greatest curse that can befall a free people, is civil war.” —Alexander H. Stephens
“Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.” —James Longstreet
“I did not come here for the purpose of surrendering my command.” —Nathan Bedford Forrest
“Virtually all of Africa’s civil wars were started by politically marginalized or excluded groups.” —George Ayittey
“This is a hard fight and we had better all die than lose it.” —James Longstreet
“If I owned Texas and Hell, I’d rent out Texas and live in Hell.” —Philip Sheridan
“Send for a clergyman, I wish to be baptised. I have been basely murdered.” —William Nelson
“I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.” —Baron de Montesquieu
“I know why we lost the Civil War. We must have had the same officials.” —Bum Phillips
“My family has served the country in almost every major war since the Civil War.” —Jack Scalia
“If they don’t close these [nuclear] reactors down, we’ll have civil war in five years.” —Ralph Nader
“A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.” —Robert E. Lee
“Stand by General Burnside as you have stood by me and all will be well.” —George B. McClellan
“Before this war is over, I intend to be a Major General or a corpse.” —Isaac R. Trimble
“We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing.” —Robert E. Lee
“I know only two tunes: one of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.” —Ulysses S. Grant
“Lee’s army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.” —Ulysses S. Grant
“Like many people who live in the South, I’m drawn to the history of the Civil War.” —Nicholas Sparks
“There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.” —Simon Schama
“There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.” —Victor Hugo
“Once we destroyed the Saddam regime, we knew there was going to be a civil war.” —William Eldridge Odom
“If you don’t have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we’ll eat your mules up, sir.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“We hope never to live in a Republic where one section is pinned to the other section by bayonets.” —Horace Greeley
“The state of Europe is so bad that I cannot see any future in Europe other than its Islamization or a civil war.” —Dennis Prager
“I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.” —James Longstreet
“In the name of the constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her.” —Sam Houston
Abraham Lincoln Civil War Quotes
“I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” —Abraham Lincoln
“As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.” —Abraham Lincoln
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” —Abraham Lincoln
“With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” —Abraham Lincoln
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” —Abraham Lincoln
“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” —Abraham Lincoln
“I would rather be assassinated than see a single star removed from the American flag.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” —Abraham Lincoln
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.” —Abraham Lincoln
“The struggle of today is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” —Abraham Lincoln
“I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.” —Abraham Lincoln
“We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” —Abraham Lincoln
“My Dear McClellan, if you don’t want to use the army I should like to borrow it for a while. Yours respectfully.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” —Abraham Lincoln
“One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.” —Abraham Lincoln
“I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.” —Abraham Lincoln
“I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses, Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?” —Abraham Lincoln
“Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.” —Abraham Lincoln
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” —Abraham Lincoln
“It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” —Abraham Lincoln
“With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” —Abraham Lincoln
“One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.” —Abraham Lincoln
“What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States’ Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew. The war was about a new birth of freedom.” —Bruce Catton
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here so nobly advanced.” —Abraham Lincoln
“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.” —Abraham Lincoln
“That we we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” —Abraham Lincoln
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.” —Abraham Lincoln
“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. –as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAM.” —Abraham Lincoln
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” —Abraham Lincoln
“But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or to detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.” —Abraham Lincoln
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. I have here stated my purpose according to my official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.” —Abraham Lincoln
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.” —Abraham Lincoln
“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” —Abraham Lincoln
American Civil War Quotes
“Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.” —Ulysses S. Grant
“It is always good men who do the most harm in the world.” —Henry Adams
“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.” —Oscar Wilde
“I was always a friend of southern rights, but an enemy of southern wrongs.” —Benjamin Butler
“If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.” —Jefferson Davis
“It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.” —Robert E. Lee
“On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.” —H. Allen Smith
“You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.” —John Mason Brown
“Before the war it was always the United States are, after the war it was the United States is… it made us an is.” —Shelby Foote
“My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on Bobby Lee, for I shall have none.” —Joseph Hooker
“Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“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.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“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.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.” —Alexander H. Stephens
“Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?” —Robert E. Lee
“I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.” —Robert E. Lee
“The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it, and over 600,000 men, 2 percent of the population, died in it.” —Bruce Catton
“America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided.” —Sam Watkins
“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.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“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.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“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?” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” —Ulysses S. Grant
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” —Alexander H. Stephens
“Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.” —Sam Houston
“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.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
Short Quotes about Civil War
“Conquer or be conquered.” —David Farragut
“Headquarters in the Saddle.” —John Pope
“Slavery can never be abolished.” —James Henry Hammond
“There’s the devil to pay.” —John F. Reynolds
“Well, it made you famous.” —John S. Mosby
“The Almighty has His own purposes.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Civil wars leave nothing but tombs.” —Alphonse de Lamartine
“Now he belongs to the ages.” —Edwin M. Stanton
“Mars is not an aesthetic God.” —John Brown Gordon
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Know what you’re talking about.” —George H. W. Bush
“It was not war, it was murder.” —Daniel Harvey Hill
“Civil War was recorded by the original line-up.” —Dizzy Reed
“A war between Europeans is a civil war.” —Victor Hugo
“It’s a disagreeable thing to be whipped.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“War’s Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Know what you are talking about.” —Pope John Paul II
“Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war.” —Charles Duhigg
“Care for him who shall have borne the battle.” —Abraham Lincoln
“My God! My God! What will the country say?” —Abraham Lincoln
“Grant stood by me when I was crazy.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“Of the people, by the people, for the people.” —Sun Yat-sen
“We may be annihilated, but we cannot be conquered.” —Albert Sidney Johnston
“I would fight them if they were a million!” —Albert Sidney Johnston
“We want to keep the actual Civil War experience alive.” —Bobby Riggs
“I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.” —George Pickett
“There is nothing finer in history than Thomas at Chickamauga.” —Henry M. Cist
“To tell the truth, I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker.” —Joseph Hooker
“That living specimen of gall and hatred, that individual.” —P. G. T. Beauregard
“Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.” —Robert E. Lee
“Let us strive on to finish the work we are in.” —Abraham Lincoln
“You’re at your best when you don’t know what you’re doing.” —Paul Stanley
“It will be all right if it turns out all right.” —Ulysses S. Grant
“It is glorious to see such courage in one so young.” —Robert E. Lee
Captain America Civil War Quotes
‘My name is Bucky.’
‘Mission report. December 16. 1991.’
‘In her defense, I’m a handful.’
‘Move, or you will be moved.’
‘Bird costume? C’mon.’ ‘I didn’t write it.’
‘You really think he’d be on our side?’
‘You got heart, kid. Where you from?’ ‘Queens.’ ‘Brooklyn.’
‘Manchurian Candidate, you’re killing me. There’s a truce here.’
‘If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose.’
‘Staying together is more important than how we stay together.’
‘Do you even remember them?’ ‘I remember all of them.’
‘You know he knew you. Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky.’
‘If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer.’
‘Vengeance has consumed you. It’s consuming them. I’m done letting it consume me.’
‘She kept so many secrets. I didn’t want her to have one from you.’
‘So. You’re the spider…ling. Crime-fighting spider. You’re Spider-Boy?’ ‘Spider-Man.’ ‘Not in that onesie you’re not.’
‘It’s my fault.’ ‘That’s not true.’ ‘If you turn the TV vsback on, they’re being very specific.’
‘Look, I wanna say, I know you know a lot of super-people, so. Thinks for thanking of me.’
‘I’m not getting that shield back, am I?’ ‘Technically it’s the government’s property. Wings too.’ ‘That’s cold.’ ‘Warmer than jail!’
‘When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.’
‘Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say “No. You move.”’
Civil War Quotes and Sayings
“We’ll fight them, sir, ’til hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will fight them on the ice.” —Shelby Foote
“To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war.” —Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
“Civil wars leave nothing but tombs.” —Alphonse De Lamartine
“The civil war which has so long prevailed between Spain and the Provinces in South America still continues, without any prospect of its speedy termination.” —James Monroe
“War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.”
“With one terrible exception, the Civil War, law and the Constitution have kept America whole and free.” —Anthony Lewis
“The Civil War has a tremendous moral and emotional force.” —Donald McCaig
“You know, the thing that struck me about Civil War music was how bloody it was; it was full of hatred. There was incredible vitriol in it.” —T Bone Burnett
“In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.” —Ulysses S. Grant
“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” —William Tecumseh Sherman
“Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few men’s hands, and that no certain means are provided to keep all men from a necessity either to beg, or steal, or be Soldiers.”
“Away with the idea of getting independence first, and looking for liberty afterwards… Our liberties, once lost, may be lost forever.” —Alexander H Stephens
“Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.” —Jefferson Davis
“War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” —Nathan Bedford Forrest
“There is no clear or meaningful difference between insurgency and civil war, or between national terrorism and civil war for that matter.” —Anthony H. Cordesman
“That in a civil war there is continuous fighting, based on grievances that are forever changing.” —Nuruddin Farah
“The American Civil War produced carnage that has often been thought reserved for the combination of technological proficiency and inhumanity characteristic of a later time.” —Drew Gilpin Faust
“All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers… Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.” —Francois Fenelon
“I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.” —Montesquieu
“A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.” —Robert E. Lee
“The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things… It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.” —Shelby Foote
“I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” —John Brown
“It’s just like a liberal, they import slaves, they hold slaves, they fight for slavery, and they go to war in a civil war to defend slavery. They then install legal discrimination against blacks for a hundred years.” —Ann Coulter
“Few Americans born after the Civil War know much about war. Real war. War that seeks you out. War that arrives on your doorstep – not once in a blue moon, but once a month or a week or a day.” —Nick Turse