Quotes from the ACW

[Chamberlain]

"I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."

Attributed to Major General George Pickett when asked why the Confederates were defeated at Gettysburg

Chamberlain

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

"By god! If we can't hold the top of the hill we sirtantly can't hold the bottom of it!"
-General George Meade
Chanslersville

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

"My god are these all the men we have here? What Regiment is this?"-General Winnfield Scott Hancock
reply
"First Minnesotta."-Colonel William Colvill Jr.
Hancock pointing to the oncoming Rebel battle flags.
"Advance colonel and take those colors!"
Gettysburg

[Chamberlain]

"There are times when a corps commander's life does not count."

--Major General Winfield S. Hancock, US, at the Battle of Gettysburg

Chamberlain

[Hancock the Superb]

"This was the best fighting the XI Corps has ever done." Colonel Wainright - 2nd Day, G-burg.

[Jim]

"It was the saddest night on picket that I ever passed. The line ran across the field that had been fought over the day before, and the dead and wounded of the two armies, lying side by side, thickly strewed the ground. The mingled imprecations and prayers of the wounded and supplications for help were heart-rending. The stretcher-bearers of both armies were allowed to pass back and forth through the picket lines, but scores of wounded men died around us in the gloom, before any one could bring relief or receive their dying messages."

Col. Wheelock G. Veazey
Commanding 16th Regiment Vermont Volunteer Infantry
and Third Division Picket Line.
July 2-3, 1863

[Chamberlain]

“Goddamn McDowell, He’s never where I want him."

General Pope at 2nd Manassas on learning that McDowell was lost behind Federal lines.

Chamberlain

[Chris G.]

Go back, go back and do your duty,as i have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back, go back....I had rather die than be whipped. --Mortally wounded J.E.B. Stuart at Yellow Tavern, exhorting his troopers to fight on without him.



Our generals don't do that sort of thing.--A captured Federal officer at Gettysburg on seeing General Longstreet personally leading General Barksdale's Mississippians into the fray at the Peach Orchard.

[Chamberlain]

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

- William T. Sherman, backing his friend and then President Ulysses S. Grant

Chamberlain

[Armchair General]

As my signature reads, "Whoever saw a dead cavalrymen?"