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Civil War Western Theater Quotes

Browse 19 quotes about Civil War Western Theater.

Civil War Western Theater Quotes

“He could do little. Brandy might help, he thought, but when he poured some into the hurt man’s mouth it ran back out again. Presently a colonel, Johnston’s chief of staff, came hurrying into the ravine. But he could do nothing either. He knelt down facing the general. “Johnston, do you know me? Johnston, do you know me?” he kept asking, over and over, nudging the general’s shoulder as he spoke. But Johnston did not know him. Johnston was dead.”

American Civil WarConfederate ArmyConfederate States Of AmericaCivil War Western TheaterBattle Of ShilohArmy Of Tennessee
Book:The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville
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“Nashville was a prize. Johnston had left in a hurry, abandoning huge quantities of supplies — half a million pounds of bacon, much bread and flour, and bales of new tents, the latter greatly welcomed by the Federals, who had left their own tents far behind them. The Federals were having their first experience in occupying a Confederate capital, and they found numerous timid citizens who were ready to turn their coats and cuddle up to the invaders: dignified gentlemen who called on generals to explain that they personally had always been Union men, to identify leading Rebels in the community, to tell where Confederate supplies had been hidden, and in general to make themselves useful.”

American Civil WarConfederate ArmyUnion ArmyConfederate States Of AmericaCivil War Western Theater
Book:This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War
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“Isaac, the black body servant of Colonel John Nisbet of the Sixty-sixth Georgia, joined his master in the breastworks from time to time to try his hand at shooting Yankees. Amos Rucker was technically a body servant in another Georgia regiment, but it was "well known that he was in the fights around Atlanta on several occasions". When Rucker died many years later, his former comrades-in-arms saw to it that he was laid to rest in the uniform of the Confederate States Army.”

American Civil WarConfederate ArmyCivil War Western TheaterAtlanta Campaign
Book:Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians During Sherman's Campaign – An Engrossing Military History from Buzzard Roost Gap to Savannah
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“Sam Watkins knew what it was like to march day after day, half starved and half clothed, in an army that looked like it was composed of homeless people but, in fact, contained some of the bravest and most dangerous warriors on the face of the earth. Soldiers on both sides knew what it was like to watch a seemingly endless wave of men come toward you across a field, intent in taking your life, or to charge a fortified line and see all your officers killed and your friends shot to pieces all around you. Shortly the survivors of the Army of Tennessee would also know what it was like to go home to a devastated country and try to put their lives back together. For the most part, the men on both sides were average folks, trying to get by in turbulent times, take care of their own and survive with a little dignity.”

American Civil WarConfederate ArmyConfederate States Of AmericaCivil War Western TheaterArmy Of Tennessee
Book:The Battle of Franklin: When the Devil Had Full Possession of the Earth
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“In the midst of a grueling all-night march on October 6, the men of the 10th Indiana demonstrated that they had not lost their high spirits. They were taking a brief midnight break, many of them sleeping where they had stopped on either side of the road, when "General" Charles Gilbert came riding through with his staff and demanded that the exhausted troops form up and salute him properly. Colonel William Kise told Gilbert that after marching day and night for a week, "he would not hold dress parade at midnight for any d-d fool living'; the only salute the men offered was to jeer and apply their bayonets to the hindquarters of the horses of Gilbert and his staff, who continued down the road rather more promptly than they had come.”

American Civil WarUnion ArmyCivil War Western Theater
Book:All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862
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“I could see their faces then, and the army became what it really was: forty thousand men—they were young men mostly, lots of them even younger than myself, and I was nineteen just two weeks before—out on their first march in the crazy weather of early April, going from Mississippi into Tennessee where the Union army was camped between two creeks with its back to a river, inviting destruction.”

American Civil WarCivil War Western TheaterBattle Of Shiloh
Book:Shiloh
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“That was when General Johnston rode up. He came right past where I was standing, a fine big man on a bay stallion. He had on a broad-brim hat and a cape and thigh boots with gold spurs that twinkled like sparks of fire. I watched him ride by, his mustache flaring out from his mouth and his eyes set deep under his forehead. He was certainly the handsomest man I ever saw, bar none; he made the other officers on his staff look small.”

American Civil WarCivil War Western TheaterBattle Of Shiloh
Book:Shiloh
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“Sherman making a mockery of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s recent assertion, while visiting the Rebel army, that the Yankees would have to retreat from Georgia or starve, and predicting that the retreat would be “more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow.”

American Civil WarCivil War Western Theater
Book:William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life
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“a gang of unpredictable ruffians by day who turned to enthralling storytellers after dark. "I would sometimes join them, and listen for a great part of the night to some of the finest fairy tales and most romantic legends it has ever been my fortune to hear.”

LegendsFairy TalesAmerican Civil WarStorytellersCivil War Western TheaterRuffians
Book:Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor
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“Before long the meeting at headquarters got down to a serious discussion of how General Bragg was to be dealt with, and Howard suddenly realized that he had never attended a strategy conference like this one: matters were not handled so informally in the Army of the Potomac. Grant and Thomas and Sherman simply talked things out, putting a whole campaign in review—Sherman bubbling with ideas, as always, Thomas full of solid facts about the roads and mountains and rivers where they would have to fight, Grant listening to both men and now and then putting in an observation of his own. Howard, who was not especially fanciful, felt that it was almost like being in a courtroom: Thomas was the learned judge, Sherman the brilliant advocate, and Grant was the jury whose verdict would settle everything.”

American Civil WarCivil War Western Theater
Book:Grant Takes Command 1863-1865
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“The Battle of Atlanta was an unusually confusing engagement for those who fought in it , with assaults coming from unexpected directions and the fortunes of battle changing directions from one moment to the next. Arkansas troops, pinned down in front of the Sixteenth Iowa's works, came in and surrendered, but before they could be moved to the rear other Confederate troops appeared from that very direction; the Iowans tried to put their prisoners between this new threat and themselves, but the Arkansans became belligerent and began to take up arms again. There was a period of total confusion; in the press an Iowa soldier asked an Arkansas which side was surrendering, and the Rebel answered with a laugh: "I'll be damned if I know". In the end it was the Sixteenth Iowa that went off in captivity.”

American Civil WarCivil War Western TheaterAtlanta Campaign
Book:Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians During Sherman's Campaign – An Engrossing Military History from Buzzard Roost Gap to Savannah
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