"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling."
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People from OhioMemoirists from the United StatesGenerals of the Union ArmyUnited States Military Academy alumniCommanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff of the United States Army
Original Language: English
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The first two sentences are sometimes mis-cited as a "retort to a lady of Confederate sympathies, who berated him for the wasting of Mississippi by the Army of the Tennessee during the Meridian Campaign"; see The Civil War Generation, Norman K. Risjord, Rowman & Littlefield (2002), p. 143: and Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Allen C. Guelzo, Oxford University Press (2012), p. 439 :
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman
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William Tecumseh Sherman
(8 February 1820 – 14 February 1891) was a United States Army general during the American Civil War. He succeeded General Ulysses S. Grant as commander of the Western Theater of that war in the spring of 1864. He later served as Commanding General of the U.S. Army from 1869 to 1883. He is best known for his [[w:Sherm
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