Civil War Fiction Quotes

Chamberlain raised his saber, let loose the shout that was the greatest sound he could make, boiling the yell up from his chest: Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! He leaped down from the boulder, still screaming, his voice beginning to to crack and give, and all around him his men were roaring animal screams, and he saw the whole Regiment rising and pouring over the wall and beginning to bound down through the dark bushes, over the dead and dying wounded, hats coming off, hair flying, mouths making sounds, one man firing as he ran, the last bullet, last round. ~ Michael Shaara

Please, dear brother, do much more with that Bible of yours besides carry it for luck. It will bring you no such luck. But if opened, it will bring you life. ~ A.M. Heath

You must remember also that He would never make any mistake in creating you. No matter what harsh and hateful words have been said to you, no matter the wrong actions against you, those opinions are not valid. The only valid opinion in which we can place true merit is that of God, and ultimately, your own.--Olivia Worthington of River Oaks Plantation ~ Lisa M. Prysock

Hell is full of polite men with bone saws. ~ Miles Watson

War has been glorified by men who have never been shot at. ~ Bobbye L. Hudspeth

The Lord spared the fitten and the rest he seen fitten to die. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The hen is the wisest of all the animal creation, because she never cackles until the egg is laid. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Down our way we're always had a theory that the Civil War was not brought on by Secession of Slavery or the State's Rights issue. These matters contributed to the quarrel, but there is a deeper reason. It was bought on by some Yankee coming down south and putting nutmeg in a julep. So our folks up and left the Union flat. ~ Irvin S. Cobb

Yes, the small village that we live in, in Virginia, is a very interesting place, in terms of its Civil War history, because it was a town that was founded by Quakers in 1733. ~ Geraldine Brooks

I was so tired of this ceaseless, day-to-day tug-of-war between my hormones and my head, my vanity and my virtue. I felt very much as though I were caught in the middle of some dreadful battle in which taking a side of my own would mean certain misery in either case. ~ Emily Tomko

The words, gestures, and threats of our officers were thrown away upon men who had lost all presence of mind and only longed for absence of body. ~ Andrew Potter

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

Polarization affects families and groups of friends. Its a paralyzing situation. A civil war of opinion. ~ Mick Jagger

Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I talk to entrepreneurs today, I feel like the grandfather who was in the Civil War. ~ Marc Andreessen

It was easy to imagine the beginning of time here, but also, perhaps, its end. ~ Chris Womersley

Here, in the dread tribunal of last resort, valor contended against valor. Here brave men struggled and died for the right as God gave them to see the right. ~ Adlai Stevenson I

Hephaestus told Phyllis that she owed her name to the lovely girl whom Acamas left behind in Thrace after the Trojan War, promising to return.The poor girl waited in vain & out of desparation, hanged herself.The Goddess Nemesis took pity on the girl & turned her into a leafless almond tree.When Acamas at last returned,he was overcome with grief & embraced the tree which immediately sprouted green leaves, which gave the Greeks their word "phylla" meaning "green leaves" & all the botanists of the world their "phylla" words.Hephaestus also said that Vicky stood for Victory[Nike].[MMT] ~ Nicholas Chong

People who are anxious to bring on war don't know what they are bargaining for; they don't see all the horrors that must accompany such an event. ~ Stonewall Jackson

Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible. ~ Janice Rogers Brown

I love general history. That's all I read really. I don't read novels, I read history. I love it. I live in an area that's really rich in Civil War history. I live in Kentucky on a farm. A lot of revolution, a lot of military history I love. ~ Steve Zahn

Thank you father, thank you. I know you watched me from above and protected me. I promise I shall serve the Magnarian Confederation with all my body and soul. I shall dedicate myself fully to our confederation, the family that you so loved. And I love it too. I shall protect, love and respect it always. This is my promise and commitment. Thank you ~ Chayada Welljaipet

For that particular community, for my community, the massage has long been clear: The Civil War is a story for white people - acted out by white people, on white people's terms - in which blacks feature strictly as stock characters and props. We are invited to listen, but never to truly join the narrative, for to speak as the slave would, to say that we are as happy for the Civil War as most Americans are for the Revolutionary War, is to rupture the narrative. Having been tendered such a conditional invitation, we have elected - as most sane people would - to decline. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

We hope never to live in a Republic where one section is pinned to the other section by bayonets. ~ Horace Greeley

I think a lot of Civil War stuff is written - As they say, history is written by the victors. And one of the things that I think is fascinating about this from a purely dramatic perspective is whether someone is right or wrong, you understand where they're coming from in this. ~ Josh Radnor

You might be a redneck if more than one living relative is named after a Southern Civil War general. ~ Jeff Foxworthy

With this honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so under God it will sustain you. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Had the Battle of Franklin ever really ended? Carrie walked her cemetery, and around her the wounds closed up and scarred over, but only in that way that an oak struck by lightning heals itself by twisting and bending around the wound: it is still recognizably a tree, it still lives as a tree, it still puts out its leaves and acorns, but its center, hidden deep within the curtain of green, remains empty and splintered where it hasn't been grotesquely scarred over. We are happy the tree hasn't died, and from the proper angle we can look on it and suppose that it is the same tree as it ever was, but it is not and never will be. ~ Robert Hicks

Signs of communist domination of the andartes were not difficult to find, but at the same time there was no indication that the KKE desired to seize power by force. On the contrary, what evidence there is suggests that the KKE - in so far as its divided leadership was capable of any decisions at all in the absence of a clear lead from Moscow - had decided not to seize power at a time when it could easily have done so. ~ Mark Mazower

The whiskered goddess had two natures; as Sekhmet the lioness, she was a mighty queen of sun-fire and war, and a harbinger of raw spiritual powers. As Bast the cat, she was the gentle bringer of love and domestic joy. ~ Zita Steele

If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong. ~ Howell Cobb

I am not going to kill you. First I'm going to beat on you for a few hours.
Then I might move on to the cutting. ~ Marc Guggenheim

As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war. ~ Victor Hugo

This combat between proletariat and plutocracy is, after all, itself a civil war. Two inferiorities struggle for the privilege of polluting the world. ~ H.L. Mencken

Once upon a time there was war, and starvation, and death. Once upon a time we would kill our brothers and sisters, fearing for our own lives. Once upon a time the characters turned from us, and we wept. Now we do not war, nor do we fear, nor do we weep. We Redact. ~ F.D. Lee

She remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. Rome had slaves, some Southerners had argued, so why shouldn't we?
Annabeth shivered. She loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects. ~ Rick Riordan

When I was growing up in Virginia, the Civil War was presented to me as glorious with dramatic courage and military honor. Later, I realized how death was central to the reality. It was at the core of women's lives. It's what they talked about most. ~ Drew Gilpin Faust

I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage and heroic endurance with the descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and Yorktown. For this reason I predict the civil war which is now at hand will be stubborn and of long duration. ~ Sam Houston

No one lives long in a war. ~ Sanchit Gupta

I think we're creating a situation that's incredibly dangerous. There's a lot of chat at the moment about the war on terror and whilst there are many causes for acts of terrorism, what kind of society are you creating if you allow civil society in Africa to die and create millions upon millions of orphans? Where are they going to go? What kind of cults, what kind of militias, what's going to happen? The accession of violence in those countries, the possibility of that, to me is very terrifying. ~ Emma Thompson

To be straight, I was kind of a dork, and in order to fulfill the creative fires burning inside me, I participated vigorously as a Civil War re-enactor through most of my teenage years, traveling across the country to participate in large scale reenactments - grandiose plays enacted by over weight history buffs and war enthusiasts alike. ~ Cary Fukunaga

Many Germans nowadays say they were not Nazi, and many were not, but they were nearly ALL Party members. It was safer ... and if you were not, you could end up in a 'camp' for retraining ... so they mostly all paid 'lip service' to the Nazi Party. ~ Alfred Nestor

I am more anxious than I can express that my men should be not only good soldiers of their country, but also good soldiers of the cross. ~ Stonewall Jackson

I went to live in Barcelona in 1975, when I was twenty. Even before I went there, I knew more about the Spanish Civil War than I did about the Irish Civil War. I liked Barcelona, and then I grew to like a place in the Catalan Pyrenees called the Pillars, especially an area between the village of Flavors and the high mountains around it. ~ Colm Toibin

Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defense of our rights, or those of our Southern brethren. ~ Isham G. Harris

Havana is like Beirut, without having gone through the civil war to achieve the destruction. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

I used to think that the Civil War was our country's greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features in Watergate. ~ Sam Ervin

Civil War was recorded by the original line-up ~ Dizzy Reed

YAZIDIS AND CHRISTIANS WANT TO BE FREE OF NIGHT MIST AND BEHEADING DRIFT! ~ Widad Akreyi

This [Magna Carta] has been forced from the King. It constitutes an insult to the Holy See, a serious weakening of the royal power, a disgrace to the English nation, a danger to all Christendom, since this civil war obstructs the crusade. Therefore?we condemn the charter and forbid the King to keep it, or the barons and their supporters to make him do so, on pain of excommunication. ~ Pope Innocent III