William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.

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

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

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

I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected.

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

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

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

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.

A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The only good Indian is a dead Indian

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

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.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy.

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

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

It's a disagreeable thing to be whipped.

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

You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm.

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

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.

I intend to make Georgia howl.

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

Hold the fort! I am coming!

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.

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

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

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

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.

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

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.

War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.

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.