William Tecumseh Sherman Quotations

Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.

If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.

The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.

There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.

War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.

If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.

This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.

If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.

An Army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.

I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes.

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.

You may as well say, 'That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.

I think I understand what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers.

My aim then was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.

A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets.

If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir.

He belonged to that army known as invincible in peace, invisible in war.

In our Country... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out.

The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.

I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.

There's many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory but it is all hell.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.

I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant. I want him to hold what he has earned and got. I have all the rank I want.

War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.

War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy...

If nominated, I won't run; If elected, I won't serve.

It's a disagreeable thing to be whipped.

Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina; and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, - Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.

War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.

Oh, it is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization.

I intend to make Georgia howl.

I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see that in the end you will surely fail.

War is cruel and you cannot refine it.

...[We] must stop these swarms of Jews who are trading, bartering and robbing.

An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.

You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!

Wars are not all evil, they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed.

You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

Though I never ordered it, and never wished for it, I have never shed any tears over the event, because I believe that it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war.

Hold the fort! I am coming!

Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!

I see every chance of a long, confused and disorganizing civil war, and I feel no desire to take a hand therein.

War is Hell you can NOT refine it!

The way to success is strategically along the way of least expectation and tactically along the line of least resistance.

If nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline, and even if unanimously elected, I should decline to serve.

We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals.

The carping and bickering of political factions in the nation's capital reminds me of two pelicans quarreling over a dead fish.

War is at best barbarism.

War is at best barbarism. Its glory is all moonshine...War is hell.

You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it...Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them?

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.

The young bloods of the South; sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will. War suits them.. They are splendid riders, first rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace.

We cannot change the hearts of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible that they will realize the fact that however brave and gallant and devoted to their country still they are mortal and should exhaust all peaceful remedies before they fly to war.

You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm.

I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash-and it may be well that we become so hardened.

To secure the safety of the navigation of the Mississippi River I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad... I think I see one or two quick blows that will astonish the natives of the South and will convince them that, though to stand behind a big cottonwood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off. For every bullet shot at a steamboat, I would shoot a thousand 30-pounder Parrots into even helpless towns on Red, Ouachita, Yazoo, or wherever a boat can float or soldier march.

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

The only good Indian is a dead Indian

The North can make a steam engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth-right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.

I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it.

I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come-if alive.

The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak violence upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate.

We can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.

To those who would submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance; but to the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. Satan and the rebellious saints of Heaven were allowed a continuous existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment. To such as would rebel against a Government so mild and just as ours was in peace, a punishment equal would not be unjust.

After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.

The more Indians we can kill... the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers.

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end.

We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children... during an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.