U. S. Grant, re: Gen. John C. Frémont

"He sat in a room in full uniform with his maps before him. When you went in he would point out one line or another in a mysterious manner, never asking you to take a seat. You left without the least idea of what he meant or what he wanted you to do."

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest to Gen. Johnston, 6 April 1864

"I am of the opinion that everything is being concentrated against General Lee and yourself."

Grant to Sherman, 4 April 1864

"You I propose to move against Johnston's army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources."

Sherman to Grant, 10 April 1864

"I will not let side issues draw me off from your main plans in which I am to knock Jos. Johnston, and to do as much damage to the resources of the enemy as possible."

Charles A. Dana

"In peace there is a beautiful harmony in all the departments of life—they fit together like the Chinese puzzle; but in war all is ajar. Nothing fits, and it is the struggle between the stronger and the weaker; and the latter, however it may appeal to the better feelings of our nature, must kick the beam. To make war we must and will harden our hearts."

––Charles A. Dana
U.S. Assistant Secretary of War
21 April 1864

The Burnet House, Cincinnati

In mid-March 1864 Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman met in "Parlor A" of Cincinnati's Burnet House. They spread out their war maps and devised the strategy that resulted in the devastation of Georgia and South Carolina.
"Yonder began the campaign," Sherman was to say a quarter century later, standing before the hotel on the occasion of a visit to the Ohio city. "He was to go for Lee and I was to go for Joe Johnston. That was his plan. No routes prescribed.... It was the beginning of the end as Grant and I foresaw right here."
Parlor A became a shrine, of sorts, and for many years the Sons of Union Veterans held their meetings in it until around 1926, when the building was torn down for new development.

Jefferson Davis, re: Vicksburg

"... the nailhead that held the South's two halves together."

Gen. Sherman, re: Maj. Gen. Grant

"I am a much brighter man than Grant; I can see things much quicker than he can, and know more about books than he does, but I'll tell you where he beats me, and where he beats the world: he don't care a cent for what he can't see the enemy doing, but it scares me like hell!"

Lee & Hood, 17 Sep 1862

As the Battle of Antietam came to an end, General Robert E. Lee encountered Brigadier General John Bell Hood while inspecting the Confederate left flank.
Lee reportedly asked: "Great God, General Hood, where is your splendid division?"
Hood replied, "They are lying upon the field where you sent them, sir."

(Roughly two-thirds of Hood's brigade had been killed or wounded fighting in "The Cornfield.")

Walt Whitman, re: Sherman

"Have you seen Sherman? Try to picture Sherman—seamy, sinewy, in style—a bit of stern open air made up in the image of a man."

Sgt. Olney Andus, Union Army, 1864:

"They are fighting for different motives from us. We are fighting for the Union . . . a high and noble sentiment, but after all a sentiment. They are fighting for independence and are animated by passion and hatred against invaders. . . . It makes no difference whether the cause is just or not. You can get up an amount of enthusiasm that nothing else will excite."

Gen. James Longstreet, re: the Wilderness

Some years after the affair on the Plank road, General Hancock said to me,
"You rolled me up like a wet blanket, and it was some hours before I could reorganize for battle."

(from From Manassas to Appomattox, by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, CSA)

Stonewall Jackson's last words:

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

Horace Greeley, re: Chancellorsville

"My God! It is horrible--horrible; and to think of it, 130,000 magnificent soldiers cut to pieces by less than 60,000 half-starved ragamuffins."

Arms & the Men

In the midst of one of his most brilliant maneuvers, Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men on the night of May 2, 1863 during the the Battle of Chancellorsville. Dr. Hunter H. McGuire performed surgery on Jackson in a field hospital near Chancellorsville, where he amputated Jackson's twice wounded left arm and removed a ball from the General's right hand. Major General Robert E. Lee decided that Jackson should recuperate in a safe place well behind friendly lines. He selected the Chandler plantation in the rural community of Guinea Station, Virginia, as the best location for Jackson, because of its proximity to the railroad to Richmond and its familiarity to the wounded general.
Jackson's chaplain, B. Tucker Lacy, had a brother who owned a house near the hospital, and took Jackson's severed limb to his brother's family cemetery for burial. Lacy comforted the pious Jackson, holding devotions with him for the first two days spent at Guinea Station, but the chaplain soon returned to army headquarters. He requested that General Lee send another doctor to relieve the weary McGuire, who tried to provide round-the-clock care. In their conversation about Jackson's condition, Lee told Lacy, "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm."

(info from the National Park Service, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park)

Chancellorsville: Robert E. Lee, astride Traveller

Chancellorsville, May 1863, according to a staff officer:

"The fierce soldiers with their faces blackened with the smoke of battle, the wounded crawling with feeble limbs from the fury of the devouring flames, all seemed possessed with a common impulse. One long, unbroken cheer, in which the feeble cry of those who lay helpless on the earth blended with the strong voices of those who still fought, rose high above the roar of battle, and hailed the presence of the victorious chief. He sat in the full realization of all that soldiers dream of—triumph; and as I looked upon him in the complete fruition of the success which his genius, courage, and confidence in his army had won, I thought that it must have been from such a scene that men in ancient days rose to the dignity of gods.”

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, May 1864:

"I am heartily tired of hearing what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land on our rear and on both 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."

Gen. Joseph Hooker, post-Fredericksburg:

"May God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none."

Morgan Freeman, re: slavery in early America

"The perpetrators won't live it down , nor will the victims. But my wish is that, generationally, [we] won't call it closure. We will just realize that, ultimately, we all went through it, and we all had to survive it."

(from the PBS series African American Lives 2)