290 Quotes About Civil-war

But if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of the men of science soften the asperities of national hostility.{Davy's remarks to Thomas Poole on accepting Napoleon's prize for the best experiment on Galvanism.}

They're right. We're not fighting for the people anymore, Falcon... Look at us. We're just fighting.

Whatever may have been my political opinions before, I have but one sentiment now: that is, we have a government, and laws, and a flag, and they must all be sustained. There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter.

The camp lived up to expectations as warmly dressed guards forced them to undress outside the gate where they searched them for valuables and weapons. The captives stood for a long time in ice and show on that grim December 5, numb and shaking, while guards robbed them, according to Copley. Chicago had now received prisoners from most major battlefields of the Civil War, except Gettysburg and Antietem.

The situation was fast approaching that of 1863, when Chicago doctors labeled the prison an extermination camp.

With the music of our singing in the background, I looked at the church candles and thought about the surreal connection between images and memory. The peaceful and joyous candles flickering there during the Christmas ceremony projected warmth, comfort, and familiarity – even though thy emitted the same kind of fiery energy as the flames caused by the war.

The Captain, so close as he was, didn’t warrant their attention. Even a fly on a horse’s hindquarters gets a tail whip. And that is the thick of it. We are less than flies to these foul foes.

The implications of the true story are existential and corrosive to our larger national myth. To understand that the most costly war in this country's history was launched in direct opposition to everything the country claims to be, to understand that this war was the product of centuries of enslavement, which is to see an even longer, more total war, is to alter the accepted conception of America as a beacon of freedom. How does one face this truth or forge a national identity out of it?

I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.