Quotessence
Home / Authors / Bruce Catton
Bruce Catton

Bruce Catton Quotes

Historian

Filter quotes by topic

AllAmerican Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterWarHistoryCivil WarArmy Of The PotomacMenUnion ArmyConfederate ArmyConfederate States Of AmericaMayMomentsAmericaArmy Of Northern VirginiaHumansSoldierYouthAbrahamAppomattox CampaignArmy

Famous Bruce Catton Quotes

“The Army of Northern Virginia was also developing its own distinctive character. It had a harder, more tragic fate, and yet there is more laughter in its legend - as if, in some unaccountable way, it worried less. Out of hardship, intermittent malnutrition, and desperately-won victories it was creating a lean, threadbare jauntiness. Beneath this was the great Characteristic which it derived from its commander - the resolute belief that it could not really be beaten no matter what the odds might be. It had paid many lives for that conviction and it would pay many more before it reached the last turn in the road, but what it got seems to have been worth the price.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaConfederate States Of America
Book:Terrible Swift Sword
Create image

“The Army of Northern Virginia kept moving, one heavy foot after another, marching through a trance. Hour after hour it diminished. Its line of march now was marked as it had never been marked now - by hundreds and hundreds of abandoned muskets, some just dropped by the roadside, other standing butt-upward, bayonets thrust in the ground: weapons discarded by men who had given up and drifted out of the ranks. Many of these men, beaten and weaponless, continued to tramp along with the army, staying where Lee was because he was the only man they could be sure about in their disintegrating world.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaConfederate States Of AmericaAppomattox Campaign
Book:Never Call Retreat
Create image

“It is recorded that during the long winter after the Battle of Fredericksburg, when the two rival armies were camped on opposite sides of the Rappahannock, with the boys on the opposing picket posts daily swapping coffee for tobacco and comparing notes on their generals, their rations, and other matters, and with each camp in full sight and hearing of the other, one evening massed Union bands came down to the river bank to play all of the old songs, plus the more rousing tunes like "John Brown's Body," "The Battle Cry of Freedom," and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching." Northerners and Southerners, the soldiers sang those songs or sat and listened to them, massed in their thousands on the hillsides, while the darkness came down to fill the river valley and the light of the campfires glinted off the black water. Finally the Southerners called across, "Now play some of ours," so without pause the Yankee bands swung into "Dixie" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Maryland, My Maryland," and then at last the massed bands played "Home, Sweet Home," and 150,000 fighting men tried to sing it and choked up and just sat there, silent, staring off into the darkness; and at last the music died away and the bandsmen put up their instruments and both armies went to bed. A few weeks later they were tearing each other apart in the lonely thickets around Chancellorsville.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern Virginia
Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
Create image