Confederate military leaders

"Madam, don't bring up your sons to detest the United States government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans."

"We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them."

"I cannot consent to place in the control of others one who cannot control himself."

"Sir, if you ever presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this university."

"The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which imparts sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others."

"I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and have never seen the day when I did not pray for them."

"Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character."

"After it is all over, as stupid a fellow as I am can see that mistakes were made. I notice, however, that my mistakes are never told me until it is too late, and you, and all my officers, know that I am always ready and anxious to have their suggestions."

"Teach him he must deny himself."

"I should NOT be trading on the blood of my men."

"The education of a man is never completed until he dies."

"You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right … Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all do not appear to others what you are not."

"I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. It is particularly incumbent upon those charged with the instruction of the young to set them an example."

"The duty of its citizens, then, appears to me too plain to admit of doubt. All should unite in honest efforts to obilterate the effects of the war and restore the blessing of peace. They should remain, if possible, in the country; promote harmony and good feeling, qualify themselves to vote and elect to the State and general legislatures wise and patriotic men, who will devote their abilities to the interests of the country and the healing of all dissensions. I have invariably recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities, and have endeavored to practice it myself."

"The Abolitionist... must see that he has neither the right or power of operating except by moral means and suasion."

"In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence."

"Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?"

"You see what a poor sinner I am, and how unworthy to possess what was given me; for that reason, it has been taken away."

"I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual Union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession: anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and all the other patriots of the Revolution. … Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense will draw my sword on none."

"Since my interview with you on the 18th I have felt that I ought not longer retain my commission in the Army … It would have been presented at once, but for the struggle, it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life, and all the ability I possessed … I shall carry with me to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration and your name and fame will always be dear to me. Save for defense of my native state, I never desire again to draw my sword."

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

"What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world! I pray that, on this day when only peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them to peace. … My heart bleeds at the death of every one of our gallant men."

"Negroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition."

"I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving."

"We must consider its effect on the country as a whole. Already it is demoralized by the four years of war. If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy's cavalry would pursue them and overrun many wide sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from...And as for myself, you young fellows might go bushwhacking, but the only dignified course for me would be to go to General Grant and surrender myself and take the consequences of my acts."

"I am glad to see one real American here."

"The only question on which we did not agree has been settled, and the Lord has decided against me."

"I, Robert E. Lee of Lexington, Virginia do solemn, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Union of the States thereafter, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithful support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God."

"The questions which for years were in dispute between the State and General Government, and which unhappily were not decided by the dictates of reason, but referred to the decision of war, having been decided against us, it is the part of wisdom to acquiesce in the result, and of candor to recognize the fact."

"The interests of the State are therefore the same as those of the United States. Its prosperity will rise or fall with the welfare of the country. The duty of its citizens, then, appears to me too plain to admit of doubt. All should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war, and to restore the blessings of peace. They should remain, if possible, in the country; promote harmony and good feeling; qualify themselves to vote; and elect to the State and general Legislatures wise and patriotic men, who will devote their abilities to the interests of the country, and the healing of all dissensions. I have invariably recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities, and have endeavored to practice it myself."

"True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels them — the desire to do right — is precisely the same."

"I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them. That is no new opinion with me. I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation - gradual emancipation."

"I am of the opinion that all who can should vote for the most intelligent, honest, and conscientious men eligible to office, irrespective of former party opinions, who will endeavour to make the new constitutions and the laws passed under them as beneficial as possible to the true interests, prosperity, and liberty of all classes and conditions of the people."

"My engagements will not permit me to be present, and I believe if there I could not add anything material to the information existing on the subject. I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered."

"My experience through life has convinced me that, while moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard of morals and health."

"Honesty in its widest sense is always admirable. The trite saying that 'honesty is the best policy' has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The seems to be true. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy."

"Those who oppose our purposes are not always to be regarded as our enemies. We usually think and act from our immediate surroundings. The better rule is to judge our adversaries from their standpoint, not from ours."

"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I have rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be great for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied with this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained."

"My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them or indisposed me to serve them; nor in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors which I now see and acknowledge; or of the present aspect of affairs; do I despair of the future. The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope."

"Fold it up and put it away."

"Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less."

"Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand."

"Tell Hill he must come up … Strike the tent."

"General Lee now rode up and down the lines encouraging the men and ordering them to hold their fire until the enemy came within full range. He seemed, as I thought, to manifest some uneasiness. As he was passing by my company he told the men to keep cool. They turned round and laughed at him. His face reddened a little and with a smile he remarked, "Boys, I believe you are cooler than I am; you need no encouragement." Someone told him he had better dismount or he would be shot. He replied that he had been in seventeen battles and he was not born to be killed by a d----d Yankee."

"Robert E. Lee once said 'it is good that war is terrible, otherwise men would grow fond of it.' This is not an issue upon which we should have war. Our people do not need to bleed the color of red Georgia clay. This is an issue that demands cool heads and moderate positions. Preserving our past, but also preserving our future. And not allowing the hope of partisan advantage to prohibit the healing of our people."

"Under genial Southern skies, were reared the families that brought forth in America the two outstanding pietists of the nineteenth century, Robert E. Lee, whose lips were never profaned by an oath, whiskey, or tobacco, and Stonewall Jackson, who opened every battle with a prayer."

"Being a student at the Virginia Military Institute during the Civil War was both good and bad. The good part was knowing that General Lee and the leaders of the Confederacy were counting on you to help train troops for the fighting and to become an officer yourself once you finished your schooling. The bad part was that the wait to get out and fight was so terribly long and you couldn't help worrying that by the time you got old enough, the whole war would be over and you would have missed all the excitement."

"I think that's progress. I think that represents Americans coming to recognize what those statues were erected for. They weren't erected as memorials for the war. They were very much erected as symbols of Jim Crow, as symbols of white supremacy. I think it's the public beginning to come to the recognition that public space is ours to shape. Right? That when we put up memorials or monuments, we are trying to present a particular memory of the past that we want to remember. And do we want to remember, honor a past where someone like Robert E. Lee was a central figure, a figure of esteem?"

"Few casual acquaintances, knowing the gentle yet unbending character of Robert E. Lee in performance of his duties, could guess the intense struggle that this valiant hero of the War Between the States had waged with himself at the outset of those hostilities. Lee, a professional soldier of the highest attainments, had been suggested as commander of the United States forces. In a tumult of feeling he had refused command of the Federal Army and resigned his commission for "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace..." so setting himself free to serve his native Virginia."

"Lee, of course, was Lee. A South which had respected him, then come to adore him, now worshiped him. He was a man who grew in stature even as the cause for which he fought became less prosperous. The intensely religious Stonewall Jackson cared little for the glamor and trappings of war but believed in its righteousness with a fierceness that almost frightened those who did not know him. Comparatively, Lee was a gentle man with a mind that could not help seeing both sides of all controversies. Jackson first had to "see the right," then hell's fury could not deter him. Different as these two men were, they got along well, and each had great respect for the other. And when Lee was to hear of the wound to Jackson that later proved fatal, he wrote: "You have lost your left arm, but I have lost my right.""

"Even some of the most vitriolic in the North had respect and downright admiration for Robert E. Lee. Accordingly, his image would turn up regularly in Northern journals, underlined "The Rebel General," in some such pose as holding his field glass in oe hand while resting the other on his sword. In his middle fifties when the war broke out, Lee, just under six feet in height, made a fine appearance and carried with him wherever he went what was described as "an aura of grandeur." Lee once remarked modestly to a worshipful attendant that he felt he was only as good as the generals with whom he could surround himself."

"Robert E. Lee carried two banners toward fame and immortality. First, as a soldier, he was a leader of supreme ability, highly successful by any measure of that profession. Second, he was a man of great mental capacity, of rare integrity and spiritual force. There are those historians who believe Lee suspected from the beginning that the cause of the South was virtually hopeless. He was certainly a man who by intellectual gift had to see a fact for what it was without disguising reality behind wishful thought. Yet once he had carefully examined his conscience and chosen his course, he wholeheartedly dedicated all his great military wisdom and intuition to further the Confederate cause. General Lee emerged from the War Between the States not as a vanquished commander, but as one of the great heroes of American history, and the admiration felt for him throughout the North was no less sincere than the affection he inspired among all people in the South. Other men fell from favor on both sides. The two Presidents, Davis and Lincoln, were vilified in their own camp, as well as the enemy's. Other commanders, North and South alike, knew the bite of severe, persistent criticism. Even Grant and Sherman, finally to translate the overwhelming numerical and superiority of the North into victory, were not immune. But Lee rode serenely along, respected even by those who opposed the cause he served."

"The birthday of General Lee is not, I take it, for us an occasion of mourning or of sadness, but rather of pride and glorifying. His career ended in defeat, but it was not failure. His life is not a subject of sadness, but of inspiration. Before it I feel myself utterly unable to do justice to this occasion. I can add nothing to what has been said, but may touch a few points that to me loom as the highest in General Lee and the cause for which he stood. First, as a man. Above all who took part in that great struggle, Lee best represented his cause. In the field and in battle his soldiers were content, loved simply to look at him in silent admiration and reverence. His own people and the whole world, even his late enemies, now do the same. I say late enemies, for he has no more. They look, I say, largely in silence, because no man has yet been found equal to the expression of this man's character. All who have tried it have come away feeling that they have fallen far short and that silence would almost have been better. The man has found no interpreter; all that has been interpreted he has interpreted in himself, his own figure. This, it seems to me, is his wonderful characteristic as a man in history. Again, as a soldier and a leader. To him alone of all the leaders that the war produced on both sides the word 'matchless' has applied. That is true, but he is matchless among more than the leaders of his time; he is matchless, unique among the military leaders of all time. Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, Von Moltke- all had their systems of warfare that have been expounded and followed by succeeding generations of soldiers. Lee had his system; military men see and study it in his campaigns, but he alone has practiced it, he alone has dared to practice it. He stands thus in the annals of great soldier leaders, as Colonel Swift says, 'without apostles and with imitators,' matchless, unique. Third, as an American. Of an old, distinguished, aristocratic family, he was yet a democrat, the outstanding characteristic of an American. The proof is that he went with his people, he was guided by his people, and to the very best of his ability he executed the will of the people. An aristocrat, and yet a democrat; a paradox, but a fact. At the battle of the Wilderness, as leader of a trained, and, for its size, perhaps the most effective army ever created, he tries to fight in person beside his soldiers. I have seen the spot, marked by a little stone which wisely repeats only the words of his soldiers: 'Lee to the rear.' In all his capacities- as man, as leader, as American- he is to be regarded as you soldiers regard him, in reverent and mainly silent admiration."

"When Robert E Lee surrendered the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis was upset about it. He said "How dare that man resent an order From the president of the Confederate States of America" Then somebody told him that General Lee had made the decision himself In order to save lives because he felt that the battle comin' up Would cost about twenty thousand lives on both sides And he said two hundred and forty thousand dead already is enough. So this song is not about the North or the South but about the bloody brother war Brother against brother father against son the war that nobody won And for all those lives that were saved I gotta say: God bless Robert E. Lee."

"Well the mansion where the General used to live is burning down Cotton fields are blue with Sherman's troops I overheard a Yankee say yesterday Nashville fell So I'm on my way to join the fight General Lee might need my help But look away look away Dixie I don't want them to see What they're doing to my Dixie God bless Robert E. Lee."

"Opposing Grant and the Army of the Potomac was Robert E. Lee, the last great knight of battle. He was a god to his men and a scourge to his antagonists."

"Robert E. Lee's armies took special care to enslave free blacks during their northern campaign."

"The proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. It is to me a source of deep mortification and regret to see the name of that good and great man and soldier, General R. E. Lee, given as authority for such a policy. My first hour of despondency will be the one in which that policy shall be adopted. You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to negro soldiers your white soldiers will be lost to you; and one secret of the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the army is the hope that when negroes go into the Army they will be permitted to retire. It is simply a proposition to fight the balance of the war with negro troops. You can't keep white and black troops together, and you can't trust negroes by themselves. It is difficult to get negroes enough for the purpose indicated in the President's message, much less enough for an Army. Use all the negroes you can get, for all the purposes for which you need them, but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. But they won't make soldiers. As a class they are wanting in every qualification of a soldier. Better by far to yield to the demands of England and France and abolish slavery and thereby purchase their aid, than resort to this policy, which leads as certainly to ruin and subjugation as it is adopted; you want more soldiers, and hence the proposition to take negroes into the Army. Before resorting to it, at least try every reasonable mode of getting white soldiers. I do not entertain a doubt that you can, by the volunteering policy, get more men into the service than you can arm. I have more fears about arms than about men, For Heaven’s sake, try it before you fill with gloom and despondency the hearts of many of our truest and most devoted men, by resort to the suicidal policy of arming our slaves."

"On Palm Sunday, at Appomattox Court House, the spirit of feudalism, of aristocracy, of injustice in this country, surrendered, in the person of Robert E. Lee, the Virginian slave-holder, to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and of equal rights, in the person of Ulysses S. Grant, the Illinois tanner. So closed this great campaign in the 'Good Fight of Liberty'. So the Army of the Potomac, often baffled, struck an immortal blow, and gave the right hand of heroic fellowship to their brethren of the west. So the silent captain, when all his lieutenants had secured their separate fame, put on the crown of victory and ended civil war. As fought the Lieutenant-General of the United States, so fight the United States themselves, in the 'Good Fight of Man'. With Grant's tenacity, his patience, his promptness, his tranquil faith, let us assault the new front of the old enemy. We, too, must push through the enemy's Wilderness, holding every point we gain. We, too, must charge at daybreak upon his Spottsylvania Heights. We, too, must flank his angry lines and push them steadily back. We, too, must fling ourselves against the baffling flames of Cold Harbor. We, too, outwitting him by night, must throw our whole force across swamp and river, and stand entrenched before his capital. And we, too, at last, on some soft, auspicious day of spring, loosening all our shining lines, and bursting with wild battle music and universal shout of victory over the last desperate defense, must occupy the very citadel of caste, force the old enemy to final and unconditional surrender, and bring Boston and Charleston to sing Te Deum together for the triumphant equal rights of man."

"Like some tall cliff against whose solid base the angry waves are beating, and on whose massive breast the dark storm clouds are spread stands our Lee, with eternal sunshine on his good, grey head. Passing years have not dwarfed him. The new generation joins the remnant of his heroic followers in thanking God for the gift of Lee….We hail thee, thou best loved son of the South, and ranged round thee are thy people, their very hearts thy rampart."

"It is ridiculous to seek to excuse Robert Lee as the most formidable agency this nation ever raised to make 4 million human beings goods instead of men. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God."

"General Robert E. Lee's birthday on January 19th has been a holiday in the Commonwealth of Virginia since 1890. It was a day of remembrance for General Lee and later Stonewall Jackson whose birthday is the 21st of January. Lee's personal life was inspiring and even today provides lessons for us all: -As a citizen, during the challenges of the post [period], Lee advocated patience and reconciliation urging the veterans of the Confederate armies to turn their swords into proverbial ploughshares and help rebuild their communities; -As an educator, he assumed the Presidency of a financially strapped Washington College, established new and modern courses of study, and focused on developing young men to be good citizens, Christians and leaders in rebuilding an economically devastated South; -As a father, Lee communicated with his children often- advocating personal discipline, duty and responsibility. Stern at times, he was also tender and affectionate to their feelings; As a veteran, he wanted to document the heroic struggle of the Army of Northern Virginia to achieve Southern Independence and ensure the sacrifices of his men would not be forgotten or misinterpreted in history. In a letter to Jubal Early, Lee wrote, "My only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth to posterity, and do justice to our brave Soldiers.""

"Lee and Jackson came to symbolize their men, a devotion to the principles of Constitutional liberty, and the heroic defense of their homeland; concepts for which they and their men were willing to leave their families and surrender their lives. Their consciously made sacrifices are an example to be enshrined and emulated."

"General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.…From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained."

"Notwithstanding he was among the vanquished, Robert E. Lee is the South’s most revered hero. This circumstance indicates Southerners believe an individual has his grandest hour when he bravely fights against great odds for a lost cause he deems just."

"Robert E. Lee was one of the small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved. What he seemed, he was—a wholly human gentleman, the essential elements of whose positive character were two and only two, simplicity and spirituality."

"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 we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do."

"Lee, the result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the C.S. Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia."

"I had known General Lee in the old army, and had served with him in the Mexican War; but did not suppose, owing to the difference in our age and rank, that he would remember me, while I would more naturally remember him distinctly, because he was the chief of staff of General Scott in the Mexican War. When I had left camp that morning I had not expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the whole of the interview. What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."

"He was a large man, a handsome man of commanding presence, with a grave face, lighted by a rarely sweet and winning smile. Men looked up to him, loved him, fought for him. General Scott made no secret of his opinion that Lee was the best of American soldiers—and that long before the outbreak of the War Between the States."

"He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward."

"This noble man died 'a prisoner of war on parole'. His application for 'amnesty' was never granted, or even noticed, and the commonest privileges of citizenship which are accorded to the most ignorant negro were denied to this king of men."

"I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand."

"General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th inst: and to say that he much regrets the unwillingness of owners to permit their slaves to enter the service. If the state authorities can do nothing to get those negroes who are willing to join the army, but whose masters refuse their consent, there is no authority to do it at all. What benefit they expect their negroes to be to them, if the enemy occupies the country, it is impossible to say. He hopes you will endeavor to get the assistance of citizens who favor the measure, and bring every influence you can to bear. When a negro is willing, and his master objects, there would be less objection to compulsion, if the state has the authority. It is however of primary importance that the negroes should know that the service is voluntary on their part. As to the name of the troops, the general thinks you cannot do better than consult the men themselves. His only objection to calling them colored troops was that the enemy had selected that designation for theirs. But this has no weight against the choice of the troops and he recommends that they be called colored or if they prefer, they can be called simply Confederate troops or volunteers. Everything should be done to impress them with the responsibility and character of their position, and while of course due respect and subordination should be exacted, they should be so treated as to feel that their obligations are those of any other soldier and their rights and privileges dependent in law & order as obligations upon others as upon theirselves. Harshness and contemptuous or offensive language or conduct to them must be forbidden and they should be made to forget as soon as possible that they were regarded as menials. You will readily understand however how to conciliate their good will & elevate the tone and character of the men…."

"Lee at Gettysburg who decided to attack, attack, attack, even though he knew that it was going to result in thousands of deaths. He made that decision because he thought it necessary in order to win that battle. And in turn perhaps to win the war, to accomplish his objectives. It's not quite so crude as 'the end justifies the means', but I think that all of these extremely difficult decisions, which in the context of a war do mean life and death for tens of thousands of people or destruction of property and the ruin of lives, were made on the grounds of absolute necessity in a crisis situation, not only a war but in some respects a revolutionary situation. The same kinds of things I suppose could be applied to any of the great revolutions in history, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and so on."

"The strategically insignificant Battle of Seven Pines had momentous consequences. Johnston was badly wounded, and on June 1 Davis appointed Lee to replace him. Nothing in the new commander's Civil War experience foretold the fame he would achieve leading the Army of Northern Virginia to destruction, and to immortality in military annals. Like Grant at Belmont, Lee began on an unpromising note. He was sent to oust the Federals from western Virginia; his strategy miscarried, and troops derisively called him "Granny Lee" and "Evacuating Lee". While commanding the southern Atlantic coast, he earned another unflattering nickname, "the King of Spades," by ordering his men to dig entrenchments. No nicknames have been less apt, because Lee's early wartime activities concealed his true character."

"No general surpassed him in audacity and aggressiveness. If McClellan took no risks, Lee perhaps took too many. He preferred the bold offensive, seeking in true Napoleonic fashion to destroy, not merely defeat, the enemy army. Dedicated to winning a battle of annihilation, he sometimes imprudently continued attacking beyond any reasonable prospect of success. Lee also needed to broaden his view of the war. Exhibiting a narrow parochialism, he believed Virginia was the most important war zone. He underestimated the problems Confederate commanders faced in the western and trans-Mississippi theaters and the significance of those theaters for southern survival. Yet Lee served the South well. Although costing the Confederacy dearly, his victories against great odds buoyed Confederate morale and depressed the North. Furthermore, Lee's emphasis on his native state was not entirely emotional. Richmond, the South's primary industrial center, acquired great symbolic value, and the Virginia countryside furnished men, mounts, food, and other logistical assets."

"Lee's problem, wrote the British military historian Sir Liddell Hart, was that he always went on the attack. A wiser course might have been to combine defensive strategy with defensive tactics, "to lure the Union armies into attacking under disadvantageous conditions." He was a general who "would rather lose the war than his dignity." Sure enough, he lost the war and preserved his dignity so well that he has gone down in history a martyr, our most overrated general."

"Whereas Grant and Sherman had no compunctions about laying waste to farms and doing harm to civilians standing in their way, Lee did. "It is well that war is so terrible," he said, "lest we grow too fond of it." As his armies advanced northward and captured farms, he instructed his soldiers that whatever food they took from the farmers, they pay for it. He, not Grant, won the moral advantage recognized by history."

"Had he been the Northern general, Lee- like George Washington, a Southerner presiding over a Northern country- would have been in a unique position to bridge the gap between the two sides and unify a war-torn nation. Worshipped by his men, he exuded calm leadership. Nominated for U.S. President in 1868, he would have made a far better president than his wartime opponent, Ulysses Grant. As it turned out, the bitterness of the defeated Southerners because of Grant's and Sherman's slash-and-burn methods resonated for a full century- a long time for America."

"Theodore Roosevelt, certainly a serious student of history and able to see both sides, being a Northerner with a Southern mother, said Robert E. Lee was our greatest American. Winston Churchill, even more adept at history, said the same. So, too, did Eisenhower. In a 1954 speech to the Boy Scouts of America, President Eisenhower cited Lee as one of his heroes."

"They had found a leader, Robert E. Lee—and what a leader! Fifty-five years old, tall, handsome, with graying hair and deep, expressive brown eyes which could convey with a glance a stronger reproof than any other general’s oath-laden castigation; kind at heart and courteous even to those who failed him, he inspired and deserved confidence. No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic devotion among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them on his horse Traveller. And, what a horse!"

"We were immediately taken before General Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away. We frankly told him that we considered ourselves free. He then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget. He then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mister Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by General Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty. We were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us. Accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered. General Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed. Not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, General Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done. * The evidence consisting against this account includes the testimony in 1863 in the Boston Liberator in Lee's defense, in addition that Amanda Parks, sister of one of the two accompanying escaped slaves with Norris tried to visit Lee in Washington in 1866, and failing to meet him at his hotel, later wrote him. Her letter has not survived but the General's response has and the nature of the content, combined with her attempted voluntary meeting with the man who would have whipped her brother, throws a considerable doubt upon the Norris account."

"That old man had my division slaughtered at Gettysburg."

"I am very happy to take part in this unveiling of the statue of General Robert E. Lee. All over the United States we recognize him as a great leader of men, as a great general. But, also, all over the United States I believe that we recognize him as something much more important than that. We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen."

"So it was in the civil war. Farragut's father was born in Spain and Sheridan's father in Ireland; Sherman and Thomas were of English and Custer of German descent; and Grant came of a long line of American ancestors whose original home had been Scotland. But the Admiral was not a Spanish-American; and the Generals were not Scotch-Americans or Irish-Americans or English-Americans or German-Americans. They were all Americans and nothing else. This was just as true of Lee and of Stonewall Jackson and of Beauregard."

"Lee is the greatest military genius in America, myself not excepted."

"One of the foundations of the Lost Cause myth was the near deification of Robert E. Lee as the perfect example of an educated Christian gentleman. A Marble Man without sin. Much of my life led me to glorify Robert E. Lee and Confederate soldiers. My first book, my first movie, my hometown, my college, even the U.S. Army and West Point honored Lee and his cause. I hope this book exposes the lies I grew up believing and why it took so long for me to see the evidence, the facts, that I now see so clearly. Eleven southern states seceded to protect and expand an African American slave labor system. Unwilling to accept the results of a fair, democratic election, they illegally seized U.S. territory, violently. Together, they formed a new "Confederacy," in contravention of the U.S. Constitution. Then West Point graduates like Robert E. Lee resigned their commissions, abrogating an oath sworn to God to defend the United States. During the bloodiest war in American history, Lee and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers than any other enemy, ever. And they did it for the worst reason possible: to create a nation dedicated to exploit enslaved men, women, and children, forever."

"As a retired U.S. Army soldier and as a historian, I consider the issue simple. My former hero, Robert E. Lee, committed treason to preserve slavery. After the Civil War, former Confederates, their children, and their grandchildren created a series of myths and lies to hide the essential truth and sustain a racial hierarchy dedicated to white political power reinforced by violence. But for decades, I believed the Confederates and Lee were romantic warriors of a doomed but noble cause. As a soldier, a scholar, and a southerner, I believe that American history demands, at least from me, a reckoning."

"Lee had beaten or ordered his own slaves to be beaten for the crime of wanting to be free; he fought for the preservation of slavery; his army kidnapped free black people at gunpoint and made them unfree—but all of this, he insisted, had occurred only because of the great Christian love the South held for black Americans. Here we truly understand Frederick Douglass’s admonition that “between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.”"

"There are former Confederates who sought to redeem themselves—one thinks of James Longstreet, wrongly blamed by Lost Causers for Lee’s disastrous defeat at Gettysburg, who went from fighting the Union army to leading New Orleans’s integrated police force in battle against white-supremacist paramilitaries. But there are no statues of Longstreet in New Orleans. Lee was devoted to defending the principle of white supremacy; Longstreet was not. This, perhaps, is why Lee was placed atop the largest Confederate monument at Gettysburg in 1917, but the 6-foot-2-inch Longstreet had to wait until 1998 to receive a smaller-scale statue hidden in the woods that makes him look like a hobbit riding a donkey. It’s why Lee is remembered as a hero, and Longstreet is remembered as a disgrace."

"Although Lee was an enthusiastic and hardworking officer, his promotions in the Army came slowly. Sometimes he may have been discouraged, but he never gave up. His work as an Army engineer was outstanding, but it was in the Mexican War that he distinguished himself in combat. His commander, General Winfield Scott, praised him highly. His reputation as a soldier grew with the years. Just after Lincoln's call for troops, he was offered command of the Union Army. This was the highest goal that any American officer could reach, but Robert E. Lee refused to accept it. Lee's conscience would not permit him to bear arms against his native state. He resigned from the United States Army. Lee's loyalty to the Union was great, but his loyalty to Virginia was greater. He did not want to fight against the United States, but if duty required him to defend his native state, he was determined to do so. When Virginia chose him as the commander of her forces, he accepted the offer on April 23, 1861, and threw all his talents into her defense. Robert E. Lee represented the best of Virginia's traditions and ideals."

"In 1864, black Union troops were involved in operations against Lee's army outside Richmond and Petersburg, and some of them are taken prisoner. Lee puts them to work on Confederate entrenchments that are in Union free-fire zones. When Grant gets wind of this, he threatens to put Confederate prisoners to work on Union entrenchments under Confederate fire unless Lee pulls out. So Grant was willing to embrace an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth retaliation policy based upon Confederate treatment of black prisoners. For Grant, it was the color of the uniform, not the skin, that mattered... The Lee myth. Lee being above slavery, Lee being in fact anti-slavery, is essential to the neo-Confederate argument that it's not about race, it's not about slavery. They've done a very good job of covering up Robert E. Lee's actual positions on this... In pre-war correspondence, Lee castigated the abolitionists for their political activity, and he never showed any qualms about the social order that he would later defend with arms. He also had a few slaves that he inherited as part of a will agreement, with provisions to emancipate those slaves. But in fact, he dragged his heels in complying with the terms of that will. And he never gave a second thought to the fact that his beloved Arlington mansion was run by slave labor."

"Once we understand that the flags in question are those of an army, we can have a more intelligent discussion about what those armies did, such as the fact that the Army of Northern Virginia was under orders to capture and send south supposed escaped slaves during that army's invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863./ That is a question of correctly understanding that since the adoption of the US Constitution in 1787 with the 3/5 and Fugitive Slave tenets, all Commissioned US officers, in swearing to uphold the constitution, swore to uphold the institution, via these tenets, regardless of personal sentiments, including all future Northern officers. William T. Sherman wrote his brother of this from Florida in 1842."

"I think Stone Mountain is amusing, but then again I find most representations of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson outside of Virginia, and, in Jackson's case, West Virginia, to be amusing. Aside from a short period in 1861-62, when Lee was placed in charge of the coastal defense of South Carolina and Georgia, neither general stepped foot in Georgia during the war. Lee cut off furloughs to Georgia's soldiers later in the war because he was convinced that once home they'd never come back. He resisted the dispatch of James Longstreet's two divisions westward to defend northern Georgia, and he had no answer when Sherman operated in the state. It would be better to see Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood on the mountain, although it probably would have been difficult to get those two men to ride together. Maybe Braxton Bragg would have been a better pick, but no one calls him the hero of Chickamauga. Yet Bragg, Johnston, and Hood all attempted to defend Georgia, and they are ignored on Stone Mountain. So is Joe Wheeler, whose cavalry feasted off Georgians in 1864. So is John B. Gordon, wartime hero and postwar Klansman. Given Stone Mountain's history, Klansman Gordon would have been a good choice."

"This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

"Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York." Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too.""

"Lee was the last of the great old-fashioned generals."

"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon; and when it does come my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard."

"If the general government should persist in the measures now threatened, there must be war. It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. They do not know its horrors. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils."

"Then, Sir, we will give them the bayonet!"

"Yesterday we fought a great battle and gained a great victory, for which all the glory is due to God alone. Although under a heavy fire for several continuous hours I received only one wound, the breaking of the longest finger of my left hand; but the doctor says the finger may be saved. It was broken about midway between the hand and knuckle, the ball passing on the side next to the forefinger. Had it struck the centre, I should have lost the finger. My horse was wounded, but not killed. Your coat got an ugly wound near the hip, but my servant, who is very handy, has so far repaired it that it doesn't show very much. My preservation was entirely due, as was the glorious victory, to our God, to whom be all the honor, praise, and glory. The battle was the hardest that I have ever been in, but not near so hot in its fire."

"My dear pastor, in my tent last night, after a fatiguing day's service, I remembered that I failed to send a contribution for our colored Sunday school. Enclosed you will find a check for that object, which please acknowledge at your earliest convenience and oblige yours faithfully."

"Nothing justifies profanity."

"Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. Captain, that is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave."

"In the Army of the Shenandoah, you were the First Brigade! In the Army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade! In the Second Corps of this Army, you are the First Brigade! You are the First Brigade in the affections of your general, and I hope by your future deeds and bearing you will be handed down the posterity as the First Brigade in this our Second War of Independence. Farewell!"

"Our men fought bravely, but the enemy repulsed me. Many valuable lives were lost. Our God was my shield. His protecting care is an additional cause for gratitude."

"I yield to no man in sympathy for the gallant men under my command; but I am obliged to sweat them tonight, so that I may save their blood tomorrow. The line of hills southwest of Winchester must not be occupied by the enemy's artillery. My own must be there and in position by daylight. … You shall however have two hours rest."

"The only true rule for cavalry is to follow the enemy as long as he retreats."

"Who could not conquer with such troops as these?"

"My men have sometimes failed to take a position, but to defend one, never!"

"I see from the number of physicians that you think my condition dangerous, but I thank God, if it is His will, that I am ready to go. … It is the Lord's Day; my wish is fulfilled. … I have always desired to die on Sunday."

"Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees."

"I like liquor — its taste and its effects — and that is just the reason why I never drink it."

"I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy."

"Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible."

"War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war."

"Through the broad extent of country over which you have marched by your respect for the rights and property of citizens, you have shown that you were soldiers not only to defend but able and willing to defend and protect."

"Once you get them running, you stay right on top of them, and that way a small force can defeat a large one every time."

"The Institute will be heard from today."

"My duty is to obey orders."

"We must make this campaign an exceedingly active one. Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength. A defensive campaign can only be made successful by taking the aggressive at the proper time. Napoleon never waited for his adversary to become fully prepared, but struck him the first blow."

"Duty is ours; consequences are God's."

"Be content and resigned to God's will."

"Easy, Mr. Pendleton. Easy. Good to have your dander up, but it’s discipline that wins the day."

"You may be whatever you resolve to be."

"Disregard public opinion when it interferes with your duty."

"Sacrifice your life rather than your word."

"Endeavor to do well with everything you undertake."

"Never speak disrespectfully of anyone without a cause."

"Spare no effort to suppress selfishness, unless that effort would entail sorrow."

"Let your conduct towards men have some uniformity."

"Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."

"Speak but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."

"Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself ; waste nothing."

"Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off unnecessary actions."

"Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly."

"Wrong no man by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."

"Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries as much as you think they deserve."

"Be not disturbed at trifles, nor at accidents, common or unavoidable."

"It is man's highest interest not to violate, or attempt to violate, the rules which Infinite Wisdom has laid down. The means by which men are to attain great elevation may be classed in three divisions — physical, mental, and moral. Whatever relates to health, belongs to the first; whatever relates to the improvement of the mind, belongs to the second. The formation of good manners and virtuous habits constitutes the third."

"A man is known by the company he keeps."

"Good-breeding, or true politeness, is the art of showing men by external signs the internal regard we have for them. It arises from good sense, improved by good company. It must be acquired by practice and not by books."

"Be kind, condescending, and affable. Any one who has anything to say to a fellow-being, to say it with kind feelings and sincere desire to please; and this, whenever it is done, will atone for much awkwardness in the manner of expression."

"Good-breeding is opposed to selfishness, vanity, or pride. Never weary your company by talking too long or too frequently."

"Always look people in the face when addressing them, and generally when they address you."

"Never engross the whole conversation to yourself. Say as little of yourself and friends as possible."

"Make it a rule never to accuse without due consideration any body or association of men."

"There stands Jackson like a stone wall — rally round the Virginians!"

"In the ranks and among the officers there had been heavy losses at Bull Run, the most grievous of which was that of General Bee whose claim to fame, aside from his bravery, comes from his rallying cry to his men during the battle: "There stands Jackson like a stone wall..." And from then on, it was as though Jackson had shed his rightful name of Thomas Johnathan to become forever "Stonewall"."

"Lee, of course, was Lee. A South which had respected him, then come to adore him, now worshiped him. He was a man who grew in stature even as the cause for which he fought became less prosperous. The intensely religious Stonewall Jackson cared little for the glamor and trappings of war but believed in its righteousness with a fierceness that almost frightened those who did not know him. Comparatively, Lee was a gentle man with a mind that could not help seeing both sides of all controversies. Jackson first had to "see the right," then hell's fury could not deter him. Different as these two men were, they got along well, and each had great respect for the other. And when Lee was to hear of the wound to Jackson that later proved fatal, he wrote: "You have lost your left arm, but I have lost my right.""

"Stonewall Jackson was an intensely religious man. Once when arms were not forthcoming from Ordnance, Jackson suggested that greater trust was needed in God, whereupon an irreligious soldier proclaimed that there were more prayers in Jackson's camp than muskets. When Lee congratulated him on the course of events at Chancellorsville, Jackson replied, "The General is very kind, but the praise belongs to God." There were those who remembered him as a stern disciplinarian, a driving drill master. But all respected him as a military leader and as a man. Wearing a battered old flat-topped forage hat that everybody knew, he would bring new heart to those who, upon seeing him, would shout to their fellows over the din of battle, "Here comes Old Jack!""

"As for Lee, long afterward in speaking of Gettysburg, he is reported to have remarked that he thought he could have carried the day if Stonewall Jackson had been at his side."

"Jackson fought for the constitutional rights of the South, and any one who imagines he fought for slavery knows nothing of Jackson."

"It cannot well be denied that Jackson possessed every single attribute which makes for success in war. Morally and physically he was absolutely fearless. He accepted responsibility with the same equanimity that he faced the bullets of the enemy. He permitted no obstacle to turn him aside from his appointed path, and in seizing an opportunity or in following up a victory he was the very incarnation of untiring energy. … A supreme activity, both of brain and body, was a prominent characteristic of his military life. His idea of strategy was to secure the initiative, however inferior his force; to create opportunities and to utilise them; to waste no time, and to give the enemy no rest. ...That he felt to the full the fascination of war's tremendous game we can hardly doubt. Not only did he derive, as all true soldiers must, an intense intellectual pleasure from handling his troops in battle so as to outwit and defeat his adversary, but from the day he first smelt powder in Mexico until he led that astonishing charge through the dark depths of the Wilderness his spirits never rose higher than when danger and death were rife about him. With all his gentleness there was much of the old Berserker about Stonewall Jackson, not indeed the lust for blood, but the longing to do doughtily and die bravely, as best becomes a man. His nature was essentially aggressive. He was never more to be feared than when he was retreating, and where others thought only of strong defensive positions he looked persistently for the opportunity to attack."

"In early 1861, Professor Thomas Jonathan Jackson was an unhappy, unpopular professor of artillery, optics, mathematics and astronomy at the Virginia Military Institute. Remarried after the death of his first wife, the deeply religious Jackson believed in predestination: Everything that happened to him was intended to happen. Conversely, one of his frequently stated maxims was, "You can be whatever you will." Guided by these two contradictory ideas, he became a fearless commander. If the Civil War had not happened, Jackson likely would have passed the rest of his life as a teacher, spending his spare time boning up on unfamiliar subjects, practicing his lectures, and spending time with his daughter. Instead, he was thrust into leadership positions. The Civil War changed his life forever, and his death changed the course of the war."

"At the First Battle of Bull Run, three months after the opening of the war, Confederate troops were fleeing until Jackson took the field and not only stopped the retreat but ordered an attack. When he raised his left hand, it was shot through. He tied it up with a handkerchief and kept fighting. Soon the Union forces retreated, overrunning the spectators in carriages who had come out from Washington to "watch the war." Supposedly, General Barnard Bee pointed out Jackson and cried, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians." Thus Jackson acquired his nickname. After Bull Run, "Stonewall" Jackson was assigned to defend the Valley of Virginia, the "breadbasket of the Confederacy," a task he performed so brilliantly that military strategists still study his campaigns with awe. A strict disciplinarian, he drove his men almost to the breaking point, but after each battle he said prayers of thanksgiving and always reminded them that God was with them. In fact, Jackson's tactics were so effective that some military historians think that if the war had been fought only in Virginia, the Confederacy could have won. However, events elsewhere turned the tide. Jackson's part in the war lasted less than two years."

"According to legend, Jackson's final words were, "Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees." Then he died peacefully. When Jackson's body was taken through Richmond, accompanied by Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, thousands turned out to mourn. General Lee called Jackson the world's best executive officer and said, "Jackson lost his left arm, but in him I have lost my right." In two years Jackson went from being a colonel teaching at a small military school to being a general known and revered throughout the Confederacy. He is the best-known Civil War commander, after Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee."

"You are better off than I am, for while you have lost your left, I have lost my right arm."

"Jackson neither apologized for nor spoke in favor of the practice of slavery. He probably opposed the institution. Yet in his mind the Creator had sanctioned slavery, and man had no moral right to challenge its existence. The good Christian slaveholder was one who treated his servants fairly and humanely at all times."

"Returning home on leave following my second year at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who had joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen and had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee at Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of my grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in that order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, he was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence to the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt and stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to the inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to that same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Military Academy at West Point, New York." Uncle White was silent for what seemed like a long time. "That's all right, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too.""

"Get there first with the most men."

"I am opposed to it under any and all circumstances, and in our convention urged our party not to commit themselves at all upon the subject."

"I never see a pen but I think of a snake."

"When I entered the army I took forty-seven negroes into the army with me, and forty-five of them were surrendered with me. I said to them at the start: "This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free.""

"Every moment lost is worth the life of a thousand men."

"Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy, and here we are guarding a damned creek! Let's go and help them. What do you say?"

"The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that Negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners."

"War means fighting, and fighting means killing."

"If you surrender, you shall be treated as prisoners of war, but if I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter."

"Does the damned fool want to be blown up? Well, blow him up then. Give him hell, Captain Morton- as hot as you've got it, too."

"There is no doubt we could soon wipe old Sherman off the face of the earth, John, if they'd give me enough men and you enough guns."

"I've got no respect for a young man who won't join the colors."

"I'll officer you."

"That we are beaten is a self-evident fact, and any further resistance on our part would be justly regarded as the very height of folly and rashness."

"Preserve untarnished the reputation you have so nobly won."

"Men, you may all do as you damn please, but I'm a-goin' home."

"Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our power to do so, to cultivate friendly feelings towards those with whom we have so long contended, and heretofore so widely, but honestly, differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out; and, when you return home, a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect of your enemies. Whatever your responsibilities may be to Government, to society, or to individuals meet them like men."

"The attempt made to establish a separate and independent Confederation has failed; but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully, and to the end, will, in some measure, repay for the hardships you have undergone. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. Without, in any way, referring to the merits of the Cause in which we have been engaged, your courage and determination, as exhibited on many hard-fought fields, has elicited the respect and admiration of friend and foe. And I now cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the officers and men of my command whose zeal, fidelity and unflinching bravery have been the great source of my past success in arms."

"I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous."

"However much we differed with them while public enemies, and were at war, we must admit that they fought gallantly for the preservation of the government which we fought to destroy, which is now ours, was that of our fathers, and must be that of our children. Though our love for that government was for a while supplanted by the exasperation springing out of a sense of violated rights and the conflict of battle, yet our love for free government, justly administered, has not perished, and must grow strong in the hearts of brave men who have learned to appreciate the noble qualities of the true soldier."

"Let us all, then, join their comrades who live, in spreading flowers over the graves of these dead Federal soldiers, before the whole American people, as a peace offering to the nation, as a testimonial of our respect for their devotion to duty, and as a tribute from patriots, as we have ever been, to the great Republic, and in honor of the flag against which we fought, and under which they fell, nobly maintaining the honor of that flag. It is our duty to honor the government for which they died, and if called upon, to fight for the flag we could not conquer."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God's earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself."

"This day is a day that is proud to me, having occupied the position that I did for the past twelve years, and been misunderstood by your race. This is the first opportunity I have had during that time to say that I am your friend. I am here a representative of the southern people, one more slandered and maligned than any man in the nation."

"I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have always felt -- that I am your friend, for my interests are your interests, and your interests are my interests. We were born on the same soil, breathe the same air, and live in the same land. Why, then, can we not live as brothers? I will say that when the war broke out I felt it my duty to stand by my people. When the time came I did the best I could, and I don't believe I flickered. I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe that I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to bring about peace. It has always been my motto to elevate every man -- to depress none."

"I want to elevate you to take positions in law offices, in stores, on farms, and wherever you are capable of going."

"I have not said anything about politics today. I don't propose to say anything about politics. You have a right to elect whom you please; vote for the man you think best, and I think, when that is done, that you and I are freemen. Do as you consider right and honest in electing men for office. I did not come here to make you a long speech, although invited to do so by you. I am not much of a speaker, and my business prevented me from preparing myself. I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you to the white people. I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Use your best judgement in selecting men for office and vote as you think right."

"Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked me to protect them. I have placed myself between them and the bullets of my men, and told them they should be kept unharmed. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I'll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand."

"After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side...He had never read a military book in his life, knew nothing about tactics, could not even drill a company, but had a genius of strategy which was original, and to me incomprehensible.""

"The urgent need for supplies sometimes dictated audacious raids by Confederate squadrons. General Nathan Forrest, a serious, brooding man, with an instinct for war though he had little of the formal training received by most of his brother officers, launched a daring attack on Grant's rail communications at Jackson, Tennessee. Forrest, who ordered his men to "charge both ways" whenever surrounded by the enemy, did such a good job tearing up the track, burning trestles and taking whatever could be captured, that the railroad was useless for some time."

"Forrest ... used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. He liked horses because he liked fast movement, and his mounted men could get from here to there much faster than any infantry could; but when they reached the field they usually tied their horses to trees and fought on foot, and they were as good as the very best infantry"

"Shortly before Independence Day, 1867, Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, second only to Robert E. Lee as a hero of the South, presided over the inauguration of the racist, xenophobic hate group that today is the one still point in the otherwise changing universe of America's extreme right- the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan. The Kluxers actually had started around Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865, when six young Confederate veterans returned home and decided to start a "club" to cheer up their friends and neighbors who still hadn't shaken off the gloom of Appomattox. As legend has it, the six original Klansmen decided to dress up in costumes because it was faddish at the time to masquerade. With the South ravaged by the war, however, the only costumes they could find were the stiff linen sheets and bedding that their womenfolk had carefully husbanded. When the "pranksters" and their horses- also covered in white linen- rode about the Tennessee countryside on their revels, the racist legend has it, blacks became terrified, thinking they were being visited by the ghosts of rebel war dead. In 1867, however, General Forrest joined the Klan, took its reins, and transformed the group into a guerilla cadre dedicated to opposing "Northern oppression". Since the rules imposed for Reconstruction called for granting blacks the vote and allowing majority governments to form, much of the Klan's efforts focused on keeping former slaves from going to the polls. To that end Forrest and his troops developed the tactics of hate that latter-day Klansmen emulate today. Crosses were burned; blacks were told not to vote; lynchings were held in the dark of night. The Klan was anti-black for obvious reasons. After all, for Klansmen, the Civil War never ended."

"Like the neo-Nazi Silent Brotherhood (Bruder Schweigen), the Klan had a complex and highly secret rule book full of hidden meanings. It was called the Invisible Empire, for example, because the day Forrest held his seminal meeting at the Maxwell House he had presented a letter from Robert E. Lee saying that Lee supported the Klan but desired to remain "invisible" in its affairs. The leader was designated the Imperial Wizard because General Forrest had been nicknamed the "horse wizard" while a cavalry officer."

"In fact, in recognition of the desperate condition of far too many of that yeomanry, Union and Confederate authorities actually cooperated in places for their relief. In February 1865 a cartel was agreed between Northern General George H. Thomas and the Rebel cavalry commander General Nathan Bedford Forrest that the railroad track between their lines would be left unmolested so that destitute and starving citizens of northern Mississippi and Alabama could send some of their cotton north in exchange for desperately needed Yankee corn."

"Comrades, we are ordered to meet to revise our constitution and by-laws; it is in the hands of an able committee ably, I trust, they have perfected their labors, but while here assembled there is one incident that has transpired upon which I wish to throw your disapproval and have recorded in our archives, although performed by as gallant a cavalryman as ever used sabre over an enemy’s brain; yet let us prove that the old esprit du corps still lives, and that we endorse no action unworthy of a Southern gentleman. I speak of the address delivered before a black and tan audience by Gen. N. B. Forrest. With what a glow of enthusiasm and thrill of pride have I not perued the campaigns of Gen. Forrest’s cavalry, their heroic deeds, their sufferings and their successes under the leadership of one whom I always considered (in my poor judgment) second only to out immortal Hampton? And now to mar all the lustre attached to his name, his brain is turned by the civilities of a mulatto wench who presented him with a bouquet of roses. We would rather have sent him a car filled with the rarest exotics plucked from the dizziest peaks of the Himalayas or the perilous fastness of the Andes than he should have thus befouled the fair home of one of the Confederacy's most daring general officers. What can his object be? Ah! General Forrest!"

"Wherefore be it resolved, that we, the Survivor’s Association of the Cavalry of the Confederate States, in meeting assembled at Augusta, Ga., do hereby express our unmitigated disapproval of any such sentiments as those expressed by Gen. N. B. Forrest at a meeting of the Pole Bearers Society of Memphis, Tennessee, and that we allow no man to advocate, or even hint to the world, before any public assemblage, that he dare associate our mother’s, wives’ daughters’ or sisters’ names in the same category that he classes the females of the negro race, without, at least, expressing out disapprobation."

"My God, men, will you see them kill your general? I will go to his rescue if not a man follows me!"

"General Forrest was not cruel, nor necessarily severe, but he would not be trifled with."

"The affair at Fort Pillow was simply an orgy of death, a mass lynching to satisfy the basest of conduct – intentional murder – for the vilest of reasons – racism and personal enmity."

"In Memphis, last week, a number of Federal officers and soldiers participated at the decoration of Confederate graves. As a result, Generals Pillow and Forrest addressed a letter through the Memphis papers to surviving Confederate soldiers and veterans of 1812, Florida and Mexico, requesting them to participate in the Federal ceremonies on Sunday last."

"So did Forrest really join the Ku Klux Klan? Yes, he did. Was he really Grand Wizard of the group? Yes, he was. How do we know this? Because the old Klansmen who were there tell us so... By 1875, Tennessee was well on its way to re-establishing the antebellum social and racial order, and groups like the Pole Bearers posed little real challenge to the re-assertion of white power in the state. Men like Forrest could afford to be magnanimous with their words."

"According to Confederate ideology, blacks liked slavery; nevertheless, to avert revolts and runaways, the Confederate states passed the 'twenty nigger law', exempting from military conscription one white man as overseer for every twenty slaves. Throughout the war, Confederates withheld as much as a third of their fighting forces from the front lines and scattered them throughout areas with large slave populations to prevent slave uprisings. When the United States allowed African Americans to enlist, Confederates were forced by their ideology to assert that it would not work; blacks would hardly fight like white men. The undeniable bravery of the 54th Massachusetts and other black regiments disproved the idea of black inferiority. Then came the incongruity of truly beastly behavior by southern whites towards captured black soldiers, such as the infamous Fort Pillow massacre by troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest, who crucified black prisoners on tent frames and then burned them alive, all in the name of preserving white civilization."

"Massacring surrendered black troops was consistent with Forrest's character. Forrest biography Brian Wills notes that black opponents always inflamed Forrest. After his successful raid at Murfreesboro for instance, a Confederate officer brought before Forrest 'a mulatto man, who was the servant to one of the officers in the Union forces.' Forrest cursed him and asked what he was doing there. The man replied that he was a free man, not a slave, came out as the servant to an officer, whom he named. Forrest drew his pistol and blew the man's brains out. The Confederate officer, who knew the man from Pennsylvania and had never been enslaved, 'denounced the act as one of cold-blooded murder and declared that he would never again serve under Forrest,' according to Wills. Instead of the ‘Forrest Rested Here’ marker on the way into Murfreesboro, Tennessee might erect a marker telling this incident on the way out–'Forrest Murders African American, July 13, 1862'. Such a marker would tell much more history than ‘Rested,’ but it too will not get put up soon in Tennessee."

"We have infinitely more respect for Longstreet, who fraternizes with negro men on public occasions, with the pay for the treason to his race in his pocket, than with Forrest and Pillow, who equalize with the negro women, with only 'futures' in payment."

"It is in connection with one of the most atrocious and cold-blooded massacres that ever disgraced civilized warfare that his name will for ever be inseparably associated. 'Fort Pillow Forrest' was the title which the deed conferred upon him, and by this he will be remembered by the present generation, and by it he will pass into history. The massacre occurred on the 12th of April, 1864. Fort Pillow is 65 miles above Memphis, and its capture was effected during Forrest's celebrated raid through Tennessee, a State which was at the time practically in possession of the Union forces."

"His last notable public appearance was on the Fourth of July in Memphis, when he appeared before the colored people at their celebration, was publicly presented with a bouquet by them as a mark of peace and reconciliation, and made a friendly speech in reply. In this he once more took occasion to defend himself and his war record, and to declare that he was a hearty friend of the colored race."

"Follow Forrest to the death if it costs 10,000 lives and breaks the Treasury. There will never be peace in Tennessee till Forrest is dead."

"Nathan Bedford Forrest is overrated. Nathan Bedford Forrest usually gets knocked by historians for his role in the Ku Klux Klan, but praised by tacticians for the battles he won. So why is he here? Forrest often times won battles when his focus should have been elsewhere. For example, he had a great victory Brices Crossroads and faked out A. J. Smith near Memphis after losing the Battle of Tupelo, but won such glory during the time he was supposed to be destroying Sherman's supply lines, an even more important task critical to the CSA war effort. He similarly could do little against John Schofield after the Spring Hill escape."

"Similarly, he failed to defeat Yankees near Paducah, which might have made Union generals recall significant forces to defend against a raid into Ohio and other Northern states. But he was able to massacre a small force of White Tennesseans and African American soldiers at Ft. Pillow, which only inflamed Northern passions against Southern troops, which by and large didn't kill prisoners as Forrest did. Northerners were less likely to surrender to Confederates now, and prisoner exchanges that broke down the previous year (because the CSA would not release black soldiers and their white officers) never resumed. Whenever Forrest won, other Southerners lost."

"It is interesting that after the Civil War, both men sought to team up together when war looked likely to occur with Spain over Cuba in 1873. According to Eddy W. Davison, Forrest offered his services to Sherman, who wrote the War Department a glowing recommendation of Forrest's capabilities. It's probably because Sherman and Forrest were two peas in a pod, falsely lionized by their "accomplishments" in the Civil War, who seemed to fare better against the unarmed than the armed. They are two reasons we seem to have unresolved post-Civil War issues."

"General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position."

"That man Grant will fight us everyday and every hour until the end of the war."

"The surrender of the Confederate armies in 1865 involved: 1. The surrender of the claim to the right of secession. 2. The surrender of the former political relations of the negro. 3. The surrender of the Southern Confederacy. These issues expired on the fields last occupied by the Confederate armies. There they should have been buried. The soldier prefers to have the sod that receives him when he falls cover his remains. The political questions of the war should have been buried upon the fields that marked their end."

"The highest of human laws is the law that is established by appeal to arms. The sword has decided in favor of the North, and what they claimed as principles cease to be principles, and are become law. The views that we hold cease to be principles because they are opposed to law. It is our duty to abandon ideas that are obsolete and conform to the requirements of law."

"Great God! I thought to myself, how my heart swells out out to such magnanimous touch of humanity. Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?"

"If it wasn't about slavery, then I don't know what else it was about."

"You must take it; I cannot live with anything in my possession that is not mine... Pete, let us have another game of brag, to recall the days that were so pleasant."

"On the first day of July 1863, Confederate Lieutenant General James Longstreet, writing through his adjutant, ordered General George Pickett to bring up his corps from the rear to reinforce the main body of the Army of Northern Virginia. The lead elements of the armies of Robert E. Lee and George Meade had come together outside a small Pennsylvania market town called Gettysburg. The clash there would become the most famous battle of the American Civil War, and would be popularly regarded as a critical turning point not just of that conflict, but in American history."

"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."

"We have infinitely more respect for Longstreet, who fraternizes with negro men on public occasions, with the pay for the treason to his race in his pocket, than with Forrest and Pillow, who equalize with the negro women, with only 'futures' in payment."

"I think Stone Mountain is amusing, but then again I find most representations of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson outside of Virginia, and, in Jackson's case, West Virginia, to be amusing. Aside from a short period in 1861-62, when Lee was placed in charge of the coastal defense of South Carolina and Georgia, neither general stepped foot in Georgia during the war. Lee cut off furloughs to Georgia's soldiers later in the war because he was convinced that once home they'd never come back. He resisted the dispatch of James Longstreet's two divisions westward to defend northern Georgia."

"I have been appointed by the Convention of the State of Georgia, to present to this Convention, the ordinance of secession of Georgia, and further, to invite Virginia, through this Convention to join Georgia and the other seceded States in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. This, sir, is the whole extent of my mission. 1 have no power to make promises, none to receive promises; no power to bind at all in any respect. But still, sir, it has seemed to me that a proper respect for this Convention requires that I should with some fulness and particularity, exhibit before the Convention the reasons which have induced Georgia to take that important step of secession, and then to lay before the Convention some facts and considerations in favor of the acceptance of the invitation by Virginia. With your permission then, sit, I will pursue this course."

"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. This conviction, sir, was the main cause. It is true, sir, that the effect of this conviction was strengthened by a further conviction that such a separation would be the best remedy for the fugitive slave evil, and also the best, if not the only remedy, for the territorial evil. But, doubtless, if it had not been for the first conviction this step would never have been taken. It therefore becomes important to inquire whether this conviction was well founded."

"Is it true, then, that unless there had been a separation from the North, slavery would be abolished in Georgia? I address myself to the proofs of that case."

"In the first place, I say that the North hates slavery, and, in using that expression I speak wittingly. In saying that the Black Republican party of the North hates slavery, I speak intentionally. If there is a doubt upon that question in the mind of any one who listens to me, a few of the multitude of proofs which could fill this room, would, I think, be sufficient to satisfy him. I beg to refer to a few of the proofs that are so abundant; and the first that I shall adduce consists in two extracts from a speech of Lincoln's, made in October 1858. They are as follows: 'I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist; I have always been an old line Whig; I have always hated it and I always believed it in the course of ultimate extinction, and if I were in Congress and a vote should come up on the question, whether slavery should be excluded from the territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should.'"

"These are pregnant statements; they avow a sentiment, a political principle of action, a sentiment of hatred to slavery as extreme as hatred can exist. The political principle here avowed is, that his action against slavery is not to be restrained by the Constitution of the United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. I say, if you can find any degree of hatred greater than that, I should like to see it. This is the sentiment of the chosen leader of the Black Republican party; and can you doubt that it is not entertained by every solitary member of that same party? You cannot, I think. He is a representative man; his sentiments are the sentiments of his party; his principles of political action are the principles of political action of his party. I say, then; it is true, at least, that the Republican party of the North hates slavery."

"The Republican party is the permanent, dominant party at the North, and it is vain to think that you can put it down. It is true that the Republican party hates slavery, and that it is to be the permanent, dominant party at the North; and the majority being equivalent to the whole, as I have already stated, we cannot doubt the result."

"Is it true that the North hates slavery? My next proposition is that in the past the North has invariably exerted against slavery, all the power which it had at the time. The question merely was what was the amount of power it had to exert against it. They abolished slavery in that magnificent empire which you presented to the North; they abolished slavery in every Northern State, one after another; they abolished slavery in all the territory above the line of 36 30, which comprised about one million square miles. They have endeavored to put the Wilmot Proviso upon all the other territories of the Union, and they succeeded in putting it upon the territories of Oregon and Washington. They have taken from slavery all the conquests of the Mexican war, and appropriated it all to anti-slavery purposes; and if one of our fugitives escapes into the territories, they do all they can to make a free man of him; they maltreat his pursuers, and sometimes murder them. They make raids into your territory with a view to raise insurrection, with a view to destroy and murder indiscriminately all classes, ages and sexes, and when the base perpetrators are caught and brought to punishment, condign punishment, half the north go into mourning. If some of the perpetrators escape, they are shielded by the authorities of these Northern States-not by an irresponsible mob, but ,by the regularly organized authorities of the States."

"My next proposition is, that we have a right to argue from the past to the future and to say, that if in the past the North has done this, in the future, if it shall acquire the power to abolish slavery, it will do it."

"My next proposition is that the North is in the course of acquiring this power to abolish slavery. Is that true? I say, gentlemen, the North is acquiring that power by two processes, one of which is operating with great rapidity-that is by the admission of new States. The public territory is capable of forming from twenty to thirty States of larger size than the average of the States now in the Union. The public territory is peculiarly Northern territory, and every State that comes into the Union will be a free State. We may rest assured, sit, that that is a fixed fact. The events in Kansas should satisfy every one of the truth of that. If causes now in operation are allowed to continue, the admission of new States will go on until a sufficient number shall have been secured to give the necessary preponderance to change the Constitution. There is a process going on by which some of our own slave States are becoming free States already. It is true, that in some of the slave States the slave population is actually on the decrease, and, I believe it is true of all of them that it is relatively to the white population on the decrease. The census shows that slaves are decreasing in Delaware and Maryland; and it shows that in the other States in the same parallel, the relative state of the decrease and increase is against the slave population. It is not wonderful that this should be so. The anti-slavery feeling has got to be so great at the North that the owners of slave property in these States have a presentiment that it is a doomed institution, and the instincts of self-interest impels them to get rid of that property which is doomed. The consequence is, that it will go down lower and. lower, until it all gets to the Cotton States-until it gets to the bottom. There is the weight of a continent upon it forcing it down. Now, I say, sir, that under this weight it is bound to go down unto the Cotton States, one of which I have the honor to represent here. When that time comes, sir, the free States in consequence of the manifest decrease, will urge the process with additional vigor, and I fear that the day is not distant when the Cotton States, as they are called, will be the only slave States. When that time comes, the time will have arrived when the North will have the power to amend the Constitution, and say that slavery shall be abolished, and if the master refuses to yield to this policy, he shall doubtless be hung for his disobedience."

"If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished except in Georgia and the other cotton States, and I doubt, ultimately in these States also. By the time the North shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that? It is not a supposable case. War will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth. We will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back to a wilderness and become another Africa or Saint Domingo. Join the north and what will become of you? They will hate you and your institutions as much as they do now, and treat you accordingly. Suppose they elevated Charles Sumner to the presidency? Suppose they elevated Fred Douglass, your escaped slave, to the presidency? What would be your position in such an event? I say give me pestilence and famine sooner than that."

"The majority according to the Northern idea, which will then be the all-pervading, all powerful one, have the right to control. It will be in keeping particularly with the principles of the abolitionists that the majority, no matter of what, shall rule. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand that? It is not a supposable case. Although not half so numerous, we may readily assume that war will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth, and it is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back. They will then call upon the authorities at Washington, to aid them in putting down servile insurrection, and they will send a standing army down upon us, and the volunteers and Wide-Awakes will come in thousands, and we will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth; and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. That is the fate which Abolition will bring upon the white race."

"We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back into a wilderness and become another Africa or St. Domingo."

"Benning was a horror show, a fierce advocate for slavery and an ardent secessionist... The only thing in Benning's favor is that he fought hard."

"The proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. It is to me a source of deep mortification and regret to see the name of that good and great man and soldier, General R. E. Lee, given as authority for such a policy. My first hour of despondency will be the one in which that policy shall be adopted. You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to negro soldiers your white soldiers will be lost to you; and one secret of the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the army is the hope that when negroes go into the Army they will be permitted to retire. It is simply a proposition to fight the balance of the war with negro troops. You can't keep white and black troops together, and you can't trust negroes by themselves. It is difficult to get negroes enough for the purpose indicated in the President's message, much less enough for an Army. Use all the negroes you can get, for all the purposes for which you need them, but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution."

"If slaves make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. But they won't make soldiers. As a class they are wanting in every qualification of a soldier. Better by far to yield to the demands of England and France and abolish slavery and thereby purchase their aid, than resort to this policy, which leads as certainly to ruin and subjugation as it is adopted; you want more soldiers, and hence the proposition to take negroes into the Army. Before resorting to it, at least try every reasonable mode of getting white soldiers. I do not entertain a doubt that you can, by the volunteering policy, get more men into the service than you can arm. I have more fears about arms than about men, For Heaven’s sake, try it before you fill with gloom and despondency the hearts of many of our truest and most devoted men, by resort to the suicidal policy of arming our slaves."

"Political hatreds are always bitter, but none were ever more bitter than those which existed along the border line of Missouri and Kansas during my boyhood in Jackson county in the former state from 1856 to '60."

"In May 1864, Col. George S. Jackson and a force of about 300, myself among the number, were sent across the staked plains into Colorado to intercept some wagon trains, and to cut the transcontinental telegraph line from Leavenworth to San Francisco. We cut the ine and found the trains, but empty, and on our return were met at the Rio Grande by orders to detail a party to cross the continent on a secret mission for the Confederate states."

"One of the richest mines for the romancers who have pretended to write the story of my life was the fertile imagination of Belle Starr, who is now dead, peace to her ashes."

"During his absence from Franklin County, Thompson Scroggin lived in Kansas where he worked on a ranch and became acquainted with the James brothers and Cole Younger. ... One night, while Thompson was staying at a hotel, a man entered the room to share it with him. A tall slim man in a dress suit with a long, pin-striped coat, he introduced himself as Cole Younger and warned Thompson not to startle him during the night. He was a hunted man and would shoot at the slightest provocation."

"It was our misfortune that we were not prepared for war. We began behind a little and could never catch up. If the Louisiana forces had been equipped as well as the Virginia troops we would have sent all of Ben Butler's fleet to the bottom of the Mississippi River, and this lacked only a few days of being completed. And if Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston had not been killed at Shiloh we would have captured the Federal Army."

"I would like to say here that I was not fighting for a thing which I believed to be right, but for one which I knew to be right, the defense of the Constitution as our forefathers left it to us—the right to hold our slaves, and the right of the States to govern their own internal affairs. We went down, but the day will come when the doctrine of States Rights will be as clear to the American people as it was to Dixie. We had the right, but not the power to secede. Massachusetts set the example by threatening to secede if any more slave territory was added. We are now united, and it is a matter of pride with me that Dixie put up a good fight and that the American has proved to be the best soldier on earth. They have conquered in every war in which they have been engaged, and never were whipped till they fought each other. God grant that we may ever remain one people."

"Our loss was not a scratch to man or horse."

"Gentlemen, in ten minutes every man must be in his saddle!"

"General Consternation."

"Jine the cavalry."

"Our Southern ideals of patriotism provided us with the concepts of chivalry. I tried to excell in these virtues, but others provided a truer interpretation of gallant conduct. A devoted champion of the South was one who possessed a heart intrepid, a spirit invincible, a patriotism too lofty to admit a selfish thought and a conscience that scorned to do a mean act. His legacy would be to leave a shining example of heroism and patriotism to those who survive."

"Old Joe Hooker, will you come out of the Wilderness!"

"Charge! And remember Jackson!"

"While rashness is a crime, boldness is not incompatible with caution, nay, is often the quintessence of prudence."

"An attack of cavalry should be sudden, bold, and vigorous. The cavalry which arrives noiselessly but steadily near the enemy, and then, with one loud yell leaps upon him without a note of warning, and giving no time to form or consider anything but the immediate means of flight, pushing him vigorously every step with all the confidence of victory achieved, is the true cavalry; while a body of men equally brave and patriotic, who halt at every picket and reconnoiter until the precious surprise is over, is not cavalry."

"That individuality of action which so strongly characterizes the conduct of our troops in battle, if unguided or misdirected, can but produce confusion. But let the same idea control the mind of every man, let them apply these general principles to the incidents of battle as they arise, and success is certain."

"Indeed in this war more truly than in any other the spirit of lovely woman points the dart, hurls the javelin, ignites the mine, pulls the trigger, draws the lanyard and gives a fiercer truer temper to the blade in a far more literal sense than the mere muscular aggressions of man."

"Bear in mind that your telegrams may make the whole Army strike tents, and night or day, rain or shine, take up the line of march. Endeavor, therefore, to secure accurate information... Above all, vigilance! vigilance! vigilance!"

"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."

"Easy, but willing to die if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty."

"Doctor, I suppose I am going fast now. It will soon be over. But God’s will be done. I hope I have fulfilled my destiny to my country and my duty to God... I am resigned; God’s will be done."

"Dance away, young ladies; half of these young men will be dead or wounded next week."

"If we oppose force to force we cannot win, for their resources are greater than ours. We must substitute esprit for numbers. Therefore I strive to inculcate in my men the spirit of the chase."

"The instant the [Stars and Stripes] appeared, Stuart ordered the charge, and at them we went like the arrow from a bow."

"Shall I tell you when he was on the Rappahannock, and they telegraphed him his child was dying — his darling little Flora — that he replied that ‘I shall have to leave my child in the hands of God; my duty to my country requires me here.’"

"I not only wish them all dead but I wish them all in Hell."

"We haven't taken Washington, but we've scared Abe Lincoln like hell!"

"General Lee had not been conquered in battle, but surrendered because he had no longer an army with which to give battle. What he surrendered was the skeleton, the mere ghost of the , which had been gradually worn down by the combined agencies of numbers, steam-power, railroads, mechanism, and all the resources of physical science."

"The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards, with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead."

"Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the heedless air; Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave; She claims from war his richest spoil— The ashes of her brave."

"Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone, In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished age hath flown The story how ye fell; Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor Time's remorseless doom, Shall dim one ray of glory's light That gilds your deathless tomb."

"A dirge for the brave old pioneer! Knight-errant of the wood! Calmly beneath the green sod here He rests from field and flood The war-whoop and the panther's screams No more his soul shall rouse, For well the aged hunter dreams Beside his good old spouse."

"Look at the mighty Mississippi the Father of Waters—it rises in the nameless snows of North America—runs through twenty-three degrees of latitude, all our own soil, and washes the sides of ten young, flourishing, and powerful States; its tributaries drain the rains that fall in sight of the Atlantic and meet the streams that flow into the Pacific upon the summit of the Rocky Mountains—its broad tides bear on their buoyant bosom the clothing of half of the world, and the fertile valleys, which spread out from its ample banks are capable of producing food for the population of the whole earth for a thousand years to come."