There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.
I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.
War is at best barbarism.
The carping and bickering of political factions in the nation’s capital reminds me of two pelicans quarreling over a dead fish.
We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals.
Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing!
Though I never ordered it, and never wished for it, I have never shed any tears over the event, because I believe that it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war.
I see every chance of a long, confused and disorganizing civil war, and I feel no desire to take a hand therein.
Hold the fort! I am coming!
The way to success is strategically along the way of least expectation and tactically along the line of least resistance.
If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.
Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!
Wars are not all evil, they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed.
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations yet to come. I look upon war with horror.
I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.
I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.
If nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline, and even if unanimously elected, I should decline to serve.
I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant. I want him to hold what he has earned and got. I have all the rank I want.
If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.