Sunday, April 26, 2009

U. S. Grant to Henry Halleck,
re: the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg

"It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in the war. Such opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have."

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Union private Frank Wilkeson, re "calls of nature"

from Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac, by Frank Wilkeson, published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1886:

    "There was an unwritten code of honor among the infantry that forbade the shooting of men while attending to the imperative calls of nature, and these sharpshooting brutes were constantly violating that rule. I hated sharpshooters, both Confederate and Union, in those days, and I was always glad to see them killed."

Gen Francis C. Barlow, frustrated, May 1864:


"For Heaven's sake, at least face us in the right direction, so we shall not march away from the enemy and have to go around the world and come up in their rear!"

Saturday, April 4, 2009

William T. Sherman re: Judson Kilpatrick, 1864

"I know that Kilpatrick is a hell of a damned fool, but I want just that sort of man to command my cavalry on this expedition."