William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

I intend to make Georgia howl.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

We can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.

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

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. War suits them.. 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.

This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.

War is at best barbarism.

The only good Indian is a dead Indian

I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash-and it may be well that we become so hardened.

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

The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak violence upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate.

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

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

Though I never ordered it, and never wished for it, I have never shed any tears over the event, because I believe that it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war.

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

War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.

The more Indians we can kill ... the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers.

I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.

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

[We] must stop these swarms of Jews who are trading, bartering and robbing.

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.

Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina; and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, - Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.

To secure the safety of the navigation of the Mississippi River I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad ... I think I see one or two quick blows that will astonish the natives of the South and will convince them that, though to stand behind a big cottonwood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off. For every bullet shot at a steamboat, I would shoot a thousand 30-pounder Parrots into even helpless towns on Red, Ouachita, Yazoo, or wherever a boat can float or soldier march.

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.

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.

Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.

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

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 Hell you can NOT refine it!

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?

The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.

An Army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army.

It's a disagreeable thing to be whipped.

To those who would submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance; but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saints of Heaven were allowed a continuous existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment. To such as would rebel against a Government so mild and just as ours was in peace, a punishment equal would not be unjust.

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.

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.

Oh, it is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization.

Hold the fort! I am coming!

I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come-if alive.

There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.

I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition ... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy ...

You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!

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

He belonged to that army known as invincible in peace, invisible in war.