Ulysses S. Grant War Quotations

I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.

Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.

Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.

If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail.

Lee's army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.

The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.

If men make war in slavish observance of rules, they will fail. No rules will apply to conditions of war as different as those which exist in Europe and America...War is progressive, because all the instruments and elements of war are progressive.

The colored man has been accustomed all his life to lean on the white man, and if a good officer is placed over him, he will learn readily and make a good soldier.

It will be all right if it turns out all right.

Really, Mr. Lincoln, I have had enough of this show business.

I suppose this work is part of the devil that is in us all.

War is progressive because all instruments of war are progressive.

I will raid the arsenal and start a war to end slavery.

In 1856...I preferred the success of a candidate whose election would prevent or postpone secession, to seeing the country plunged into a war the end of which no man could foretell. With a Democrat elected by the unanimous vote of the Slave States, there could be no pretext for secession for four years.... I therefore voted for James Buchanan as President.

I never knew what to do with a paper except to put it in a side pocket or pass it to a clerk who understood it better than I did.

When news of the surrender first reached our lines our men commenced firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the victory. I at once sent word, however, to have it stopped. The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.

Retreat? NO. I propose to attach at daylight and whip them.

Quit thinking about what Bobby Lee's gonna do to us and start thinking about what we're going to do to him.

Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.

Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation [of Texas] was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.

...but for a soldier his duty is plain. He is to obey the orders of all those placed over him and whip the enemy wherever he meets him.

...I never heard him abuse an enemy. Some of the cruel things said about President Lincoln, particularly in the North, used to pierce him to the heart; but never in my presence did he evince a revengeful disposition.

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.

The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.

There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party.