| Quotes |
"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time"
-President Abraham Lincoln
"There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians, boys!"
-Gen. B.E. Bee, minutes before his death.
"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer"
-Gen. Grant at Spotsylvania
"Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobbie Lee, I will be willing to go home!"
-Gen. George B. McClellan (He couldn't, and he did)
"Your men are green, it is true, but so are those of the enemy; you are all green alike"
-Abraham Lincoln, before First Bull Run
"I never would have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that thereby I was helping to found a nation of slaves"
-Marquis de Lafayette
"I never see one of Jackson's couriers approach without expecting an order to assault the North Pole."
-Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell
"We must kill all such gallant and brave officers."
-Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson
"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell."
-Gen. William T. Sherman, Columbus, Ohio, August 11, 1880
"I know Mr. Davis thinks that he can do a great many things that other men would hesitate to attempt. For instance, he tried to do what God had failed to do. He tried to make a soldier out of Braxton Bragg and you know the results. It couldn't be done."
-C.S.A. Gen. Joe Johnston
"If [blacks] make good soldiers, then our entire theory of slavery is wrong."
-C.S.A. Congressman Robert Toombs
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."
-Abraham Lincoln
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
-Gen. Robert E. Lee
"Sir, we will give them the bayonet."
-Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson, to Gen. B.E. Bee
"I beg to present to you, a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns, and about 25,000 bales of cotton."
-Gen. Sherman, to President Abraham Lincoln
"You call Grant a general? The man hauled cordwood! Cordwood, suh! Bobby Lee would never do such a thing."
-Anonymous Southern gentleman
"If I owned Texas, and I owned Hell, I'd live in Hell and let out Texas."
-Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
"I do not want them brave, I want them dead."
-Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson
"Cump is like a fine machine with every screw one half turn loose."
-Senator John Sherman
"Oh, no, mix them up. I am tired of state's rights."
-Maj. Gen. George Thomas in response to the question of whether to bury the dead according to state.
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies"
-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
"[If the] Northern states... desire to inflict upon us...a terrible responsibility will rest upon it, and the suffering of millions will bear testimony to the folly and wickedness of our aggressors"
-Jefferson Davis, Inaugural Address as Provisional CSA President, February 18, 1861
| Unusual Facts |
Quaker Guns
In March 1862, C.S.A. general Joseph E. Johnston pulled his army in Virginia out of Centreville. Union scouts, who had watched from a distance, had advised against attack because of Johnston's strong defenses. When the town was empty, troops under Gen. George B. McClellan immediately occupied it and found six earth forts bristling with Quaker guns, fake weapons made from logs. Similar formidable-appearing but harmless "cannon" fashioned from tree trunks and pasteboard cropped up at Munson's Hill and several other sites scattered from northern Virginia to Corinth, Mississippi.
Kentucky-born partisan leader Adam R. Johnson, later a Confederate brigadier, led a band of just twelve men against heavily defended Newburg, Indiana, on July 18, 1862. Union forces gave up without a fight when they saw a huge cannon headed directly toward them. Because the weapon the led to the capture of Newburg had been fashioned from a wagon and pieces of stovepipe, Johnson gained the nickname "Stovepipe," which stuck to him for the rest of his life.
Commander David D. Porter reasoned that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Fighting on the Mississippi River, he rigged up a fake warship, then armed it with logs and bluffed commanders of enemy vessels into thinking they were outgunned. It is a small wonder that leaders in Washington decided to make permanent his temporary rank of rear admiral.
Score Keeper
Brigadier General John D. Kennedy, C.S.A., was hit by a minié ball at First Bull Run. Having duly recorded the injury in his journal, he decided to keep score. Severely wounded at Gettysburg, he was sent South to recover. Fighting under Johnston in the Carolina campaign, he received his third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth wounds. In addition, he wrote, "On fifteen separate occasions I was hit by spent balls."
Sometimes Money Does Matter
Transportation magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt prized each of his ships. But as a patriotic gesture, he agreed to sell a 1,700-ton vessel that bore his name to the Federal governmentat his own price. He asked for, and received, exactly one dollar.
Rapidly taking steps toward forming the Confederate States of America, secessionists realized early in 1861 that they would need special currency. Early in March they placed an order for the printing of $1 million in paper money. Turned out on schedule, this job was completed not in Montgomery or in Richmondbut in New York City.
With men willing to enlist as substitutes demanding no less than $500 and as much more as they could get, Richard D. B. Taylor of Athens, Georgia, was desperate to stay out of uniform. Under terms of an 1863 contract, he managed to get John M. Cape to substitute for him in Company A of the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Georgia Volunteers for a mere $3,000 in cash.
Crew members of the U.S. Navy vessels split prize money awarded for the capture of enemy ships. When the CSS Atlanta brought $300,000, a ten-year-old powder monkey received $176.16. After another capture, however, an adult seaman was rewarded for his bravery by payment of just sixteen cents.
Two Lees at West Point Simultaneously
Fitzhugh Lee of Fairfax, Virginia, was overjoyed at news he would enter West Point in 1852. Destined to become a Confederate major general, he had decided upon a military career in early adolescence. Fitzhugh Lee graduated number forty-five in the class of 1856, thankful the he had survived.
Fitzhugh's Uncle Robert began a three-year term as superintendent in the year Fitzhugh entered. "Behavior not becoming an officer and a gentleman" brought the cadet into the office of his uncle. Acting as though he had never seen the cadet, Robert E. Lee stopped just short of expelling his nephew.
| Did You Know That... |
...By the middle of the war, many soldiers considered themselves lucky if they owned one full set of clothing?
...To meet the increasing demand for portraits, photographers opened business in army camps, and even in traveling wagons?
...When Southern paper was running low, it was common for soldiers to ask the recipient to pass the letter along for others to read?
...Many items were invented during the Civil War for battle use, including: landmines, grenades, ironclads, and machine guns?
...In performing amputations, many surgeons feared that anesthetics, such as chloroform, were too dangerous?
...In addition to trains and ambulances, both armies used riverboats to transport men?
...Cities throughout the North and South had wartime fund-raising exhibits and fairs to raise money for the care of soldiers?
...The money order system was developed primarily to provide a safe means for Union soldiers and their families to exchange money through the mail?
...Ulysses S. Grant's real name is Hiram Ulysses Grant and he was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio in 1822?
...The money order system was developed primarily to provide a safe means for Union soldiers and their families to exchange money through the mail?
