Union Army Quotes

“Now I am not ordering you to go. If you are successful, you will strike a blow to the confederacy. If you are caught, you will be hanged. If not killed outright. Do you still want to go?" "Yes sir".”
― Phillip Urlevich, The Georgia Express: A Tale of the Civil War

“If they were determined to steal his train, he was equally determined to get it back”
― Phillip Urlevich, The Georgia Express: A Tale of the Civil War

“Let us catch those vile fiends, however since we cannot go forward, we will pursue them in reverse.”
― Phillip Urlevich, The Georgia Express: A Tale of the Civil War

“Burnside left even sooner, hard on the heels of a violent argument with Meade, an exchange of recriminations which a staff observer said “went far toward confirming one’s belief in the wealth and flexibility of the English language as a medium of personal dispute.”
― Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox

“The locomotive appeared as a mammoth apparition that came bearing down on them and seemed to stop just a few feet away.”
― Phillip Urlevich, The Georgia Express: A Tale of the Civil War

“Worse, Lee felt isolated. In Texas he skipped meals with others to avoid “uninteresting men,” wishing he was back by his campfire on the plains eating his meals alone.211 He avoided sharing quarters and found that he “would infinitely prefer my tent to my-self.”212 In a group he felt more alone than out on the prairie, and that “my pleasure is derived from my own thoughts.”
― William C. Davis, Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee--The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged

“To his left he saw the other regiments, men from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Men like these, he thought, just farmers and shopkeepers, and now we are soldiers, and now we are about to die.”
― Jeff Shaara, Gods and Generals

“Both men lost speech in their last days and hours. Both died at age sixty-three, Lee long since weary of life, and Grant ready to live it again. Their war made them national icons, and their war reputations dictated the balance of their lives, careers, and posterity.”
― William C. Davis, Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee--The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged

“Notwithstanding our boastful assertions to the world, for nearly a century, that our government was based on the consent of the people, it rests upon force, as much as any government that ever existed. - Robert E. Lee”
― William C. Davis, Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee--The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged

“Grant was forty-two and Lee fifty-seven, Grant at the peak of health and energy, while Lee feared his weakening body and lagging faculties. Each was defending his notion of home. Grant by now was the most popular man in the Union, arguably more so even than Lincoln. Lee was easily the most important man in the Confederacy, his popularity and influence, had he chosen to use it, far outstripping Davis’s. Unquestionably, they were at this moment the preeminent military figures in America, and arguably the world.”
― William C. Davis, Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee--The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged

“The whole brigade took a queer, perverse pride in the regimental band of the 6th Wisconsin—not because it was so good, but because it was so terrible. It was able to play only one selection, something called “The Village Quickstep,” and its dreadful inefficiency (the colonel referred to it in his memoirs as “that execrable band”) might have been due to the colonel’s quaint habit of assigning men to the band not for musical ability but as punishment for misdemeanors—or so, at least, the regiment stoutly believed. The only good thing about the band was its drum major, one William Whaley, who was an expert at high and fancy twirling of his baton. At one review, in camp around Washington, the brigade had paraded before McClellan, who had been so taken with this drum major’s “lofty pomposity” (as a comrade described it) that he took off his cap in jovial salute—whereupon the luckless Whaley, overcome by the honor, dropped his baton ignominiously in the mud, so that his big moment became a fizzle.4”
― Bruce Catton, Mr. Lincoln's Army

“Kearny had probably seen more fighting than any man on the field. He had served in Mexico as a cavalry captain; had remarked, in youthful enthusiasm, that he would give an arm to lead a cavalry charge against the foe. He got his wish, at the exact price offered, a few days later, leading a wild gallop with flashing sabers and losing his left arm. He once told his servant: “Never lose an arm; it makes it too hard to put on a glove.”
― Bruce Catton, Mr. Lincoln's Army

“and he became a communist. He was court-martialed but allowed to resign from the army. In the revolutions of 1848 he fought to overthrow his king and, failing, fled to America. There he became first a carpenter and then the editor of a German-language newspaper in Cincinnati with a slant so leftist he earned the nickname "Reddest of the Red." When the Civil War came, Willich recruited fifteen hundred Cincinnati Germans within a matter of hours and helped organize the Ninth Ohio-now marching with the XIV Corps.”
― Steven E. Woodworth, Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns

“Nashville was a prize. Johnston had left in a hurry, abandoning huge quantities of supplies — half a million pounds of bacon, much bread and flour, and bales of new tents, the latter greatly welcomed by the Federals, who had left their own tents far behind them. The Federals were having their first experience in occupying a Confederate capital, and they found numerous timid citizens who were ready to turn their coats and cuddle up to the invaders: dignified gentlemen who called on generals to explain that they personally had always been Union men, to identify leading Rebels in the community, to tell where Confederate supplies had been hidden, and in general to make themselves useful.”
― Bruce Catton, This Hallowed Ground: The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War

“He tossed on the pillow, trying to dislodge the flies that tormented him every waking hour. Had there always been so many? He had never noticed them so keenly before; but now, tied to this bed, he began to think that had he been Pharaoh, he would have let the Hebrew children go anywhere they wanted, with whatever they wanted, at the beginning of the fourth plague, without any more argument.”
― Sarah Brazytis, The Letter

“I am tired of the sickening sight of the battlefield with its mangled corpses & poor suffering wounded. Victory has no charms for men when purchased at such cost.”
― Civil War general George McClelland, quoted in Surgeon in Blue

“Even as McClellan conferred with his superiors, sounds of renewed battle came from the direction of Chantilly, a country estate a few miles north of Centreville and on the flank of Pope’s army.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam

“Both realized the political consequences of allowing the resignation of the first general to beat Robert E. Lee on the battlefield.”
― Bradley M. Gottfried, The Maps of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns: An Atlas of the Battles and Movements in the Eastern Theater after Gettysburg, Including ... 1864

“Without having planned it—and without any official sanction—Chamberlain suddenly gave the order for Union soldiers to “carry arms” as a sign of their deepest mark of military respect. A bugle call instantly rang out. All along the road, Union soldiers raised their muskets to their shoulders, the salute of honor.”
― Jay Winik, April 1865: The Month That Saved America

“Halleck wrathfully wrote to Sherman: “It seems but little better than murder to give important commands to such men as Banks, Butler, McClernand, Sigel and Lew Wallace, and yet it seems impossible to prevent it.”
― Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command 1863-1865

“And there it was. Grant could not make a routine military appointment without reflecting on the presidential election; indeed, the political tide was so strong and so confusing that routine military acts all became extraordinary, as if something great had to be fought out in men’s minds before anyone could act on the battlefield.”
― Bruce Catton, Grant Takes Command 1863-1865

“Reflecting on this order, which lays out a job of work and breathes the very spirit of unhurried calm, one is conscious of that queer feeling of exasperation which, even at this distance, McClellan's acts occasionally inspire. With everything in the world at stake, both for the country and for McClellan personally, why couldn't the man have taken fire just once?”
― Bruce Catton, Mr. Lincoln's Army

“In the midst of a grueling all-night march on October 6, the men of the 10th Indiana demonstrated that they had not lost their high spirits. They were taking a brief midnight break, many of them sleeping where they had stopped on either side of the road, when "General" Charles Gilbert came riding through with his staff and demanded that the exhausted troops form up and salute him properly. Colonel William Kise told Gilbert that after marching day and night for a week, "he would not hold dress parade at midnight for any d-d fool living'; the only salute the men offered was to jeer and apply their bayonets to the hindquarters of the horses of Gilbert and his staff, who continued down the road rather more promptly than they had come.”
― Gerald J. Prokopowicz, All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862

“The army had fought hard and endured much, it had pride and self-pity at the same time, and it was developing its own legend, which - like the profound emotional attachment which it had for its commanding general - would always set it apart from the other Union armies. It was acquiring what can only be called a sort of dogged pessimism, a fatalistic readiness to expect the worst, as if it sensed that its best efforts would be wasted but was not thereby made disheartened; and now as for months to come it would have to keep step with its rival, the Army of Northern Virginia.”
― Bruce Catton, Terrible Swift Sword

“Meade was more careful and calculating of the odds than Grant . . . and, too, he had the benefit of two years' experience fighting against Robert E. Lee. He took the tactical initiative by translating Emory Upton's feat at Rappahannock bridgehead back in November to seek a similar success against the Spotsylvania salient, as ordered by Grant for May 10. Upton's planning was timely, but not enough time was allotted to position a proper support fire; a day's delay might have awarded a victory to Upton's innovation. It was much the same for the hurried May 12 offensive - there was no time to plan a deliberate exploitation of whatever break might be made in the Confederate lines. This was a very large army with an entrenched high command, and Meade struggled to move it at Grant's arbitrary pace. On May18 (as John Gibbon pointed out the enemy was read, waiting, even anxious for the Yankees to attack, and Grant impatiently ordered this forlorn hope anyway.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Complaint was made, then and since, that Meade failed to coordinate his attacks, that he was not up to managing these offensive operations. But Cold Harbor was a stark demonstration that by 1864, whether coordinated or not, no frontal assault on the entrenched Army of Northern Virginia could possibly succeed. And at Cold Harbor Meade recognized that fact before Grant did.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

“Mead had not been invited to the surrender at the McLean house, but he determined to meet his opposite number before the armies parted. On April 10 he rode through the now-peaceful lines to meet his engineer corps comrade from the old army. "What are you doing with all that gray in your bead!" Lee exclaimed. "That you have a great deal to do with!" Meade replied.”
― Stephen W. Sears, Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac