Quotessence
Home / Authors / Stephen W. Sears

Stephen W. Sears Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllAmerican Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern VirginiaUnion ArmyChancellorsville CampaignGettysburg CampaignOverland CampaignRobert E LeeAppomattox Campaign

Famous Stephen W. Sears Quotes

“My friends,” he began with good cheer, “how do you like this way of coming back into the Union?” He went on to explain that he and his fellow soldiers had felt the need of a summer outing, “and thought we would take it at the North.” They might be conquerors, he said—“this part of Pennsylvania is ours today; we’ve got it, we hold it, we can destroy it, or do what we please with it”—but they were also Christian gentlemen and would act accordingly. “You are quite welcome to remain here and to make yourselves entirely at home—so long as you behave yourselves pleasantly and agreeably as you are doing now. Are we not a fine set of fellows?” With his honeyed words he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, only to be interrupted by a querulous, impatient Jubal Early. Old Jube forced his way through the onlookers to confront Extra Billy and snarled, “General Smith, what the devil are you about? Stopping the head of this column in this cursed town!” Not the least taken aback, Extra Billy replied, “Having a little fun, General, which is good for all of us, and at the same time teaching these people something that will be good for them and won’t do us any harm.”

American Civil WarPennsylvaniaCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of Northern VirginiaGettysburg CampaignPennsylvania History
Book:Gettysburg
Create image

“Meade was more careful and calculating of the odds than Grant . . . and, too, he had the benefit of two years' experience fighting against Robert E. Lee. He took the tactical initiative by translating Emory Upton's feat at Rappahannock bridgehead back in November to seek a similar success against the Spotsylvania salient, as ordered by Grant for May 10. Upton's planning was timely, but not enough time was allotted to position a proper support fire; a day's delay might have awarded a victory to Upton's innovation. It was much the same for the hurried May 12 offensive - there was no time to plan a deliberate exploitation of whatever break might be made in the Confederate lines. This was a very large army with an entrenched high command, and Meade struggled to move it at Grant's arbitrary pace. On May18 (as John Gibbon pointed out the enemy was read, waiting, even anxious for the Yankees to attack, and Grant impatiently ordered this forlorn hope anyway.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion ArmyOverland Campaign
Book:Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac
Create image

“Complaint was made, then and since, that Meade failed to coordinate his attacks, that he was not up to managing these offensive operations. But Cold Harbor was a stark demonstration that by 1864, whether coordinated or not, no frontal assault on the entrenched Army of Northern Virginia could possibly succeed. And at Cold Harbor Meade recognized that fact before Grant did.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion ArmyOverland Campaign
Book:Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac
Create image

“Mead had not been invited to the surrender at the McLean house, but he determined to meet his opposite number before the armies parted. On April 10 he rode through the now-peaceful lines to meet his engineer corps comrade from the old army. "What are you doing with all that gray in your bead!" Lee exclaimed. "That you have a great deal to do with!" Meade replied.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacRobert E LeeUnion ArmyAppomattox Campaign
Book:Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac
Create image

“the long roll called William Wofford’s Georgia brigade to fall in for duty. Orders were issued to fill haversacks with snowballs and form line of battle, and behind its color guards the brigade marched two miles to the camp of Joseph Kershaw’s South Carolina brigade. “We were in line of battle on a hill and Kershaw’s formed and come out to fight us,” Georgian Jim Mobley wrote his brother. “The field officers was on their horses and when they come against us, they come with a hollar! and, Benjamin, Great God, I never saw snow balls fly so in my life.” The order to open fire was given at 100 feet. Charge and countercharge were spirited by the Rebel yell. Combat was hand-to-hand, prisoners were taken. “I tell you it beat anything . . . ,” Mobley exclaimed. “There was 4000 men engaged on both sides, and you know it was something!”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of Northern VirginiaChancellorsville Campaign
Book:Chancellorsville
Create image

“At one point they passed a newly abandoned Rebel encampment, and Captain Bowers was surprised to see that it looked just like one of their own. “In every respect it was as good a camp as any we have had. . . .” (Rummaging through this campsite, men of the 2nd Maine came upon a packet of photographs of Federal soldiers. Someone recognized a name on one of them as a man in their brigade, and before long Sergeant Walter Carter, 22nd Massachusetts, was handed the pictures he had lost on the Fredericksburg battlefield five months earlier. And scavengers in the 83rd Pennsylvania recovered some of the fancy French knapsacks they had lost at Gaines’s Mill the previous June.)”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern VirginiaChancellorsville Campaign
Book:Chancellorsville
Create image

“Confederates in Jackson’s column reported seeing a Yankee balloon—it was the Eagle—and assumed that if they could see it, it could see them. Yet such were conditions aloft that not a single report reached General Hooker that day from the aeronautical corps that an enemy column was marching to the south and west of Chancellorsville.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern VirginiaChancellorsville Campaign
Book:Chancellorsville
Create image