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Civil War Eastern Theater Quotes

Browse 74 quotes about Civil War Eastern Theater.

Civil War Eastern Theater Quotes

“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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.
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“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
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“The whole West Woods erupted in a volcano of gunfire so heavy that the color-bearer of the 34th New York was hit five times in rapid succession before he toppled to the ground. The attack of Sedgwick’s division had turned into a crimson nightmare. Men were falling everywhere.75 As the gap widened between Greene’s Twelfth Corps brigades and Sedgwick’s left, the situation became critical. Early’s and Anderson’s Confederate brigades, along with Barksdale’s Mississippians, surged around the church, up the Hagerstown Turnpike and into the fields in the rear of Sedgwick’s hapless division.76”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterAntietam Campaign
Book:Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander
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“To Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing and his men, the first sign of Hooker’s intention to abandon the Fredericksburg-Falmouth front came in the form of a telegram received at Second Corps headquarters on June 6, which directed that the soldiers of the corps have three days’ rations in their haversacks, and that all wagons be loaded with stores and the trains put in readiness for any order to move. The order, the telegram stated, “may possibly be given to move early tomorrow.”8”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacGettysburg CampaignAmerican Civil War Biography
Book:Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander
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“Wadsworth was riding at the front of the 20th Massachusetts along the Plank Road when the 8th Alabama fired its first volley (No. 1). The flash and surprise stunned his mount, and with Wadsworth pulling on the reins his horse headed straight for the Confederate lines. The division commander gained control of the horse before it entered the enemy’s ranks and was spurring his mount back toward the Bay Staters when a round of small arms fire exploded around him. One of the bullets slammed into his head and sprayed brain matter onto an aide riding next to him, who maintained enough presence of mind to dismount and catch the general as he fell from his horse. After carefully lowering Wadsworth to the ground, the aide concluded the general had been killed instantly, hopped onto the general’s horse, and galloped to safety.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacOverland Campaign
Book:The Maps of the Wilderness: An Atlas of the Wilderness Campaign, Including all Cavalry Operations, May 2-6, 1864
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“The whole scene so reeked of penny romance that it bordered on the ludicrous . . . It was all really happening, but more like fiction come to life, a Waverly novel gone mad. Years later, Mark Twain would only half in jest propose that the American Civil War was to be blamed on Sir Walter Scott, that the people of the South had somehow persuaded themselves that the mythical era of gallant knights and fair damsels of Ivanhoe had come to life in Dixie.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterConfederate States Of America
Book:Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War
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“Ironically, Meade won the campaign but lost the trust of his commander-in-chief, while Lee lost the campaign but Davis continued to hold him in high esteem. Lingering health concerns, however, including likely bouts of angina pectoris (heart problems), convinced Lee that he was no longer able to satisfy the rigorous demands of running an army in the field. His stamina was waning. Lee tended his resignation after Gettysburg, but Davis would have none of it. Who else could possibly command the Army of Northern Virginia as well as even a weakened Lee?”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E Lee
Book:The Maps of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns: An Atlas of the Battles and Movements in the Eastern Theater after Gettysburg, Including ... 1864
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“In the thirty days since Grant had first fired upon Lee in the Wilderness, his Army of the Potomac had lost 50,000 men. That same army had lost only twice that—100,000—in all the previous three years of war. A good many of his finest and bravest had fallen; far many more—another 100,000 alone in just that year—had refused to reenlist. Lincoln, stunned, soon pronounced that the “heavens are hung in black.” Across the North, Grants critics only raised their voices further and included the first lady: “Grant is a butcher and not fit to be at the head of an army,” Mary Lincoln protested. “He loses two men to the enemy’s one. He has no management, no regard for life.” Added one Union man, “We were all quick to criticize McClellan’s … fear of the Army of Northern Virginia,” but “anyone that has seen that army fight and march would, were he wise, proceed … with caution and wariness knowing full well that defeat by such an enemy might mean destruction.” Said another critic, “It is foolish and wanton slaughter.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacOverland Campaign
Book:April 1865: The Month That Saved America
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“Will you follow me back to where the fighting is going on?” The men—one hundred of them—responded with a resounding yes. Now Bee pointed to his left, up the slope toward the pine woods on the edge of Henry Hill. “Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall,” he said. “Let’s go to his assistance.”16”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterStonewall Jackson
Book:Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
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“A full appreciation of this crucial position requires an examination of the Confederate defense on this side of Antietam Creek and a walk across the famous Burnside Bridge to explore the IX Corps’ efforts to cross the span and push up to this high ground and beyond.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterAntietam Campaign
Book:A Field Guide to Antietam: Experiencing the Battlefield through Its History, Places, and People
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“My first recollection of that day was that early on the morning of September 17, we were all in the cellar with the mattresses off the beds being brought down. I was told I must stay there as there would be a battle. The noise of the battle was plainly heard, the popping of the guns, the rattling of the sabres, and the roaring of the cannon. … Soon General Burnside and his staff rode up to the front porch and dismounted. … I lost all fear of the bullets, and was soon on the porch beside my grandfather.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterAntietam Campaign
Book:A Field Guide to Antietam: Experiencing the Battlefield through Its History, Places, and People
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“As Franklin temporized, another dispatch arrived from McClellan: “It is important to drive in the enemy in your front, but be cautious in doing it until you have some idea of his force. . . . Thus far our success is complete, but let us follow it up closely, but warily.”2”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacAntietam Campaign
Book:The Maps of Antietam: An Atlas of The Antietam (Sharpsburg) Campaign, Including the Battle of South Mountain, September 2 - 20, 1862
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