William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes About War
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You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!
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The young bloods of the South: sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard-players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will... They are splendid riders, first-rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace.
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You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end.
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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.
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War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
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This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.
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We can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.
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I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.
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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.
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War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
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You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.
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Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina; and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, - Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.
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In our Country... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out.
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The war now is away back in the past, and you can tell what books cannot. When you talk, you come down to the practical realities just as they happened. You all know this is not soldiering here. 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, but if it has to come, I am there.
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Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!
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Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
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If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.
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I'm a damned sight smarter than Grant; I know more about organization, supply and administration and about everything else than he does; but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight but it scares me like hell.
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I see every chance of a long, confused and disorganizing civil war, and I feel no desire to take a hand therein.
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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 to-day than any of you to secure peace.
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We cannot change the hearts of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible that they will realize the fact that however brave and gallant and devoted to their country still they are mortal and should exhaust all peaceful remedies before they fly to war.
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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.
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Hold the fort! I am coming!
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War is at best barbarism.
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After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.
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You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm.
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The more Indians we can kill... the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers.
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I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.
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War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.
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There's many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory but it is all hell.
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William Tecumseh Sherman
- Born: February 8, 1820
- Died: February 14, 1891
- Occupation: U.S. General
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