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Civil War Quotes

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Civil War Quotes

“Why did people ignore the lessons of history and their own senses, deny a law of life immutable as the seasons, and erect twisted barriers against it in their minds? He didn't know why, but they did. They wept for the goodness of half-imaginary yesterdays, yesterdays beyond altering, instead of anticipating and helping to shape the good of possible tomorrows. They found things to blame for the flow of events they wanted to stop and could not. They blamed God, their wives, government, books, fanciful combinations of unnamed men--sometimes even voices in their own heads. They lived tortured and unhappy lives, trying to dam Niagara with a teacup.”

Civil WarResistance To Change
Book:Love and War
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“. . . we hadn't even noticed when all this had been happening, the words "turning point" and "dawn of a new era" were hardly out of our mouths when precisely this critical, time-bound nature of a turning point and a dawn was rendered ludicrous as we realized that all of a sudden we were living in a new world, had entered a radically new era, and we understood none of it, because everything we had was obsolete, including our conditioned reflexes, our attempts to understand the nature of a process, how "all of this" had "consequently" proceeded from there to here, everything was as obsolete as our conviction to rely on experience, on sober rationality . . .”

ChaosCivil WarFascismAlienationMagaTrumpismAmerican Nightmare
Book:The World Goes On
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“. . . it is already here by the time we realize that it has arrived again, always finding us unprepared, even though we ought to be aware that it is coming, that it is secured only temporarily, we ought to hear its chains scraping, loosening, the hiss of knots coming undone in the until then tight cordage, deep down inside us we ought to KNOW that it is about to break loose, and that is how it should have been this time too, we should have known that this is how it would be, that it was bound to come, but we only awoke to the realization, if we awoke at all, that it was here already, and that we were in trouble . . .”

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Book:The World Goes On
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“. . . suddenly my ears registered a grating noise, as if cumbersome chains were clattering in the distance, and my ears registered a slight scraping sound, as if securely knotted ropes were slowly slipping loose -- all I could hear was this grating clatter and this scary scraping, and once more I thought of my ancient language, and of the utter silence into which I had tumbled, I sat there staring at the outside and as complete darkness filled the room only one thing was completely certain: it had broken loose, it was closing in, it was already here.”

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Book:The World Goes On
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“He tossed on the pillow, trying to dislodge the flies that tormented him every waking hour. Had there always been so many? He had never noticed them so keenly before; but now, tied to this bed, he began to think that had he been Pharaoh, he would have let the Hebrew children go anywhere they wanted, with whatever they wanted, at the beginning of the fourth plague, without any more argument.”

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Book:The Letter
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“Blue and Gray veterans led the way in focusing public attention on the minute details of each battle, a move that tended to distract attention from larger questions of meaning. Few if any other wars have created among the public such a strange fascination with the concrete details of military tactics and strategy, and thus pride in knowing where and when General Daniel Sickles lost his leg at Gettysburg, but not in knowing when slaves were freed in the District of Columbia.”

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Book:Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
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“It is not the self respect and pride that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind to your children that matters. A strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations. Those blessed with a patriotic genetic legacy should run to the top of the mountain and roar with all fervency, “If they can over come, so will I!” When you know the ghosts that stand in support of you, you can begin to see life as they did—a life of joy, possibilities and freedom.”

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Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“Then Drago began the deliberate, precise, business-like process of killing.  A knee-buckling burst of fire and flash laid waste to men and material within seconds.  A Panhard vehicle to Silva’s left simply disappeared in an explosion that spraying metal parts willy-nilly in every direction in a spread so thorough that Drago thought they were under fire, and he yelled at his men to respond.  Another blast destroyed a six-wheeled reconnaissance vehicle, but it didn’t break it apart; it simply expanded as if swollen or bloated, like an air mattress or inflatable toy, though it still had weight and quickly collapsed over its own suspension.  Some trucks were overturned; a Jeep flipped end-over-end.  None were left unscathed.  In short order, what had been ten or twelve vehicles were reduced to a single steaming and smoking pile of metal.”

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Book:Magenta
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“Darks drifts covered the horizon. A strange shadow approaching nearer and nearer, was spreading little by little over men, over things, over ideas; a shadow which came from indignations and from systems. All that had been hurriedly stifled was stirring and fermenting. Sometimes the conscious of the honest man caught its breath, there was so much confusion in that air in which sophisms were mingled with truths. Minds trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of the storm. The electric tension was so great that at certain moments any chance-comer, thought unknown, flashed out. Then the twilight darkness fell again. At intervals, deep and sullen mutterings enabled men to judge of the amount of lightning in the cloud.”

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Author:Victor Hugo
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“We are told that in the course of this interview Stephens, seeing Lincoln not willing to grant the terms he asked, urged that even Charles I made certain concessions. To this...Lincoln answered: "I am not strong history; I depend mainly on Secretary Seward for that. All I remember of Charles is that he lost his head.”

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Book:The Story of the Americans
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“We are told that in the course of this interview Stephens, seeing Lincoln not willing to grant the terms he asked, urged that even Charles I made certain concessions. To this...Lincoln answered: "I am not strong on history; I depend mainly on Secretary Seward for that. All I remember of Charles is that he lost his head.”

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Book:The Story of the Americans
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“The evolution of national unity and equal rights is all about what America represents as a nation today: a manifestation of the historical episodes of Jefferson and Henry as well as the Civil War, the Women’s Suffrage movement, and the Civil Rights struggles.”

AmericaCivil WarEqual RightsCivil Rights MovementNational UnityThomas JeffersonWomen S SuffragePatrick Henry
Book:Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order
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“On the Penobscot River, on the opposite bank from the once-upon-a-time paper mill, stands Fort Knox, proudly named after the nation’s first Secretary of State Henry Knox, who lived in Thomaston, Maine. It was built between 1844 and 1869 to guard against the British in a border dispute with Canada. The fear was that if this part of Maine fell, the British would take over some of the best lumber-producing areas on the East Coast and this would cost the United States a most valued natural resource in the building of ships. Other than training recruits during the Civil War, the fort was never used and is now a scenic location overlooking the new bridge, crossing the Penobscot River.”

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Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One...."
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“Portland, Maine was the site of one of the northernmost skirmishes of the Civil War! Called the Battle of Portland Harbor, it happened in the waters off Portland harbor involving two ships flying the Confederate flag. On June 24, 1863, having been attacked by these ships, the Union Revenue Cutter Cushing was abandoned by her twenty-four crewmen. Captain Charles Reed a Confederate Navy Lieutenant Reed and the Captain of the Confederate raider, the CSS Tacony, ordered the Cushing torched, causing its munitions to explode. Late on June 26, 1863, Reed and an armed party came ashore dressed as fishermen and raided the city. Knowing that there was no chance of escaping, Captain Reed and his raiding party surrendered to Mayor McLellan and were held as prisoners of war at Fort Preble in South Portland. Because public sentiments were hostile against Reed and his men, they were taken to Boston and held at Fort Warren for the remainder of the Civil War.”

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Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Salty & Saucy Maine"
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“July 3; Lee rose by starlight, as he had done the previous morning, with equally fervent hopes of bringing this bloodiest of all his battles to a victorious conclusion before sunset. Two months ago today, Chancellorsville had thundered to its climax, fulfilling just such hopes against longer odds, and one month ago today, hard on the heels of a top-to-bottom reorganization occasioned by the death of Stonewall Jackson, the Army of Northern Virginia had begun its movement from the Rappahannock, northward to where an even greater triumph had seemed to be within its reach throughout the past 40-odd hours of savage fighting. Today would settle the outcome, he believed, not only of the battle — that went without saying; flesh and blood, bone and sinew and nerve could only stand so much — but also, perhaps, of the war; which, after all, was why he had come up here to Pennsylvania in the first place. (p. 525).”

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Book:The Civil War, Vol. 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian
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“I've heard of more ways to die in this war than I knew there were corpses. I've heard there isn't a battle where both sides don't shoot their own men -- sometimes on purpose and sometimes for mercy, but most of the time by mistake. I've heard boys on both sides are killing themselves, so they don't burn or smother or drown or starve, or pass whatever they're dying of to others. I've heard about guerrillas and murders and firing squads. I've reached the point where I don't know if anyone ever just dies from the other side's bullets.”

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Book:Sherman's March
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“The form that civil war has acquired today in world history is terrorism. If the Foucauldian diagnosis of modern politics as biopolitics is correct, and if the genealogy that traces it back to an oikonomical-theological paradigm is equally correct, then global terrorism is the form that civil war acquires when life as such becomes the stakes of politics. Precisely when the polis appears in the reassuring figure of an oikos - the 'Common European Home', or the world as the absolute space of global economic management - then stasis, which can no longer be situated in the treshold between the oikos and the polis, becomes the paradigm of every conflict and re-emerges in the form of terror. Terrorism is the 'global civil war' which time and again invests this or that zone of planetary space. It is no coincidence that the 'terror' should coincide with the moment in which life as such - the nation (which is to say, birth) - became the principle of sovereignty. The sole form in which life as such can be politicised is its unconditioned exposure to death - that is, bare life.”

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Book:The Omnibus Homo Sacer
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“You know what Forrest had the nerve to do?” “Son of a bitch has the nerve to do damn near anything. That's what makes him such a nuisance,” Major Bradford said. “What is it this time?” “He sent Memphis a bill for the five thousand and however many dollars Colonel Hurst squeezed out of Jackson while he held it,” Leaming said. Bradford laughed again, this time on a different note. “He better not hold his breath till he gets it, that's all I've got to say. He'll be a mighty blue man in a gray uniform if he does.”

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Book:Fort Pillow
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“Grant believed that generous terms were essential to pacification. In Grant's eyes, the surrender was a triumph of right over wrong: proof of the moral and material superiority of the North's free-labor democratic society over the South's slave-labor autocratic one. Grant's hope, in extending clemency, was to change hearts and minds--to effect Confederate repentance and submission. In Lee's view, by contrast, the United States' victory was one of might over right, attributable to brutal force, not to skill and virtue. Although Lee rejected the option of guerrilla warfare as impractical and dishonorable, he did not admit moral defeat or counsel submission.”

Civil WarRobert E LeeUlysses S GrantNorth Vs South
Book:Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South
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