Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Bruce Catton

Quote by Bruce Catton

“They were teaching Hunt the lesson which artillerists have to learn anew in each generation—that a bombardment which will destroy buildings will not necessarily keep brave defenders from fighting on amid the wreckage.”

Quote by Bruce Catton

Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
Create image

Work

Mr. Lincoln's Army

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Bruce Catton
Bruce Catton

Bruce Catton was an American historian renowned for his works on the American Civil War. His writing style, marked by clarity and narrative power, made complex historical events understandable to a broad audience. Catton was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1953 for his book 'The Civil War: A Narrative'. more

You May Also Like

“Across the river he could see the burnt and crushed buildings of Fredericksburg, the debris piled along the streets, the scattered ruins of people's lives, lives that were changed forever. His men had done that. Not all of it, of course. The whole corps had seemed to go insane, had turned the town into some kind of violent party, a furious storm that blew out of control, and he could not stop it. The commanders had ordered the provost guards at the bridges to let no goods leave the town, nothing could be carried across the bridges, and so what the men could not keep, what they could not steal, they had just destroyed. And now, he thought, the people will return, trying to rescue some fragile piece of home, and they will find this...and they will learn something new about war, more than the quiet nightmare of leaving your home behind. They will learn that something happens to men, men who have felt no satisfaction, who have absorbed and digested defeat after bloody stupid defeat, men who up to now have done mostly what they were told to do. And when those men begin to understand that it is not anything in them, no great weakness or inferiority, but that it is the leaders, the generals and politicians who tell them what to do, that the fault is there, after a while they will stop listening. Then the beast, the collective anger, battered and bloodied, will strike out, will respond to the unending sights of horror, the deaths of friends and brothers, and it will not be fair or reasonable or just, since there is no intelligence in the beast. They will strike out at whatever presents itself, and here it was the harmless and innocent lives of the people of Fredericksburg.”

WarAmerican Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterFutileFredericksburg Campaign
Book:Gods and Generals
Create image

“There is no way to know Jackson’s thought process as he prepared to engage the Union army in front of him. He knew very little about it and certainly he had no idea that, at the moment he ordered his men to advance, he was actually outnumbered five to one. But it was characteristic of the man that his means of determining the enemy’s strength was to hit the enemy in the face and then see what happened. Typical, too, was his impatience to fight. As at Port Republic, he chose to attack before his full force had arrived.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterStonewall Jackson
Book:Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
Create image

“The end of the war was like the beginning, with the army marching down the open road under the spring sky, seeing a far light on the horizon. Many lights had died in the windy dark but far down the road there was always a gleam, and it was as if a legend had been created to express some obscure truth that could not otherwise be stated. Everything had changed, the war and the men and the land they fought for, but the road ahead had not changed. It went on through the trees and past the little towns and over the hills, and there was no getting to the end of it. The goal was a going-towards rather than an arriving, and from the top of the next rise there was always a new vista. The march toward it led through wonder and terror and deep shadows, and the sunlight touched the flags at the head of the column.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern Theater
Book:A Stillness at Appomattox
Create image

“Haupt’s head swam at the thought of dumping this howling mob down on a battlefield. Orders were orders, to be sure, but he was enough of an army man to know that there are ways and ways of rendering obedience. He delayed the train as long as he could; then, when he finally sent it off, he wired the officer in command at Fairfax Station to arrest all who were drunk.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern Theater
Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
Create image

“Buford didn’t dress for respect, he earned it. He didn’t try to get his name in the newspapers, instead he led with deeds that caused his men to follow his guidon with confidence and the full expectation of success.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacGettysburg CampaignBattle Of Gettysburg
Book:The Devils to Pay: John Buford at Gettysburg. a History and Walking Tour.
Create image

“However, in an attempt to rouse the dejected spirits of the troops, he directed that a ration of whiskey be issued to all ranks. Somehow the barrels were brought up in the night and the distribution made next morning. The result, in several cases - for the officers poured liberally and the stuff went into empty stomachs - were spectacular. For example, rival regiments from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts promptly decided the time had come for them to settle a long-term feud, and when a Maine outfit stepped in to try and stop the scuffle, the result was the biggest three-sided fist fight in the history of the world.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The Potomac
Book:The Civil War, Vol. 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian
Create image