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| * "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this
one?" (Abraham Lincoln--  -- talking in jest of his own
countenance) |
| * "Let me tell you what is coming. After the
sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of
lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is
determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people
as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move
in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance
of a mighty avalanche." --- Gov. Sam Houston-Texas  Speaking as Civil War looms near- |
| * "And in the end it's not the years in your
life that count. It's the life in your years." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "John Brown's zeal in the cause of freedom was
infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the
burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him. The
American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize
it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them
in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and
against slavery." --- Frederick Douglass-- 
|
| * "Always bear in mind that your own resolution
to success is more important than any other one thing." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * Ingredients for homemade liquor-Union
Army- -bark juice -tar-water -turpentine -brown sugar -lamp oil -alcohol |
| * "Viewing the man from the genuine abolitionist
ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed cold, tardy, weak and unequal to the task. But,
viewing him from the sentiments of his people, which as a statesman he was
bound to respect, then his actions were swift, bold, radical and decisive.
Taking the man in the whole, balancing the tremendous magnitude of the
situation, and the necessary means to ends, Infinite Wisdom has rarely
sent a man into the world more perfectly suited to his mission than
Abraham Lincoln." --- Frederick Douglass-- |
| * "In firing his gun, John Brown has merely told
what time of day it is. It is high noon." --- William Lloyd Garrison--  |
| * "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be
a master. This expresses my idea of democracy." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "Little did I conceive of the greatness of the
defeat (at Bull Run), the magnitude of the disaster which it had entailed
upon the United States. So short-lived has been the American Union, that
men who saw it rise may live to see it fall." --- William Howard Russell--  |
| * "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool
than to speak out and remove all doubt." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "My very dear Sarah, The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days-perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing-perfectly willing-to lay down all the joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt. Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most grateful to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. How hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me-perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness. But, oh Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights...always, always. And if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, and as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again." --Sullivan Ballou-- (Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later at the battle of Bull Run)  | <
/tr>
| * "I claim not to have controlled events, but
confess plainly that events have controlled me. --- Abraham Lincoln, discussing the issue of slavery |
| * "I see the President almost every day. I see
very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face with its deep-cut lines,
the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. None
of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect
expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the
great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed." --- Walt Whitman--  |
| * "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser
today than he was yesterday." --- Abraham Lincoln-- |
| * "But out of that silence rose new sounds more
appalling still; a strange ventriloquism, of which you could not locate
the source, a smothered moan, as if a thousand discords were flowing
together into a key-note weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear, yet
startling with its nearness; the writhing concord broken by cries for
help, some begging for a drop of water, some calling on God for pity; and
some on friendly hands to finish what the enemy had so horribly begun;
some with delirious, dreamy voices murmuring loved names, as if the
dearest were bending over them; and underneath, all the time, the deep
bass note from closed lips too hopeless, or too heroic to articulate their
agony...It seemed best to bestow myself between two dead men among the
many left there by earlier assaults, and to draw another crosswise for a
pillow out of the trampled, blood-soaked sod, pulling the flap of his coat
over my face to fend off the chilling winds, and still more chilling, the
deep, many voiced moan that overspread the field." --- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain-20th Maine-- (At the end of the first day's fighting at Fredericksburg...)  |
| * "If I were to try to read, much less answer,
all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any
other business." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "Gen. Grant habitually wears an expression as
if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall and was about
to do it." --- A Union soldier-- |
| * "If you once forfeit the confidence of your
fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may
fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the
people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the
time." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "The hoarse and indistinguishable orders of commanding officers, the screaming and bursting of shells, canister and shrapnel as they tore through the struggling masses of humanity, the death screams of wounded animals, the groans of their human companions, wounded and dying and trampled underfoot by hurrying batteries, riderless horses and the moving lines of battle-a perfect Hell on earth, never, perhaps to be equaled, certainly not to be surpassed, nor ever to be forgotten in a man's lifetime. It has never been effaced from my memory, day or night, for fifty years." --- Massachusetts private--(At Gettysburg...) |
| * "I have come to the conclusion never again to
think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with
anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me." --- Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Mrs. O.H. Browning, April 1, 1838 |
| * "I think that Lee should have been hanged. It
was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted
conscientiously. It's always the good men who do the most harm in the
world." --- Henry Adams-- 
|
| * "The better part of one's life consists of his
friendships." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "In glades they meet skull after
skull Where pine cones lay-the rusted gun, Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat And cuddled up skeleton; And scores of such. Some start as in dreams, And comrades lost bemoan; By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged- But the year and the Man were gone." --- Herman Melville--  |
| * "It has been my experience that folks who have
no vices have very few virtues." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "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. If I killed them all there would be news from
Hell before breakfast." ~~~ * "I think I understand what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers." --- William Tecumseh Sherman-- 
|
| * "My father taught me to work; he did not teach
me to love it." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "If the Confederacy falls, there should be
written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory." --- Jefferson Davis--  |
| * "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if
you want to test a man's character, give him power." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "...On they come, with the old swinging route
step and swaying battle flags. In the van, the proud Confederate ensign.
Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood; men whom
neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death could bend from their
resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and
with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together
as no other bond; was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so
tested and assured? On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of
drum; not a cheer, nor word, nor whisper or vain-glorying, nor motion of
man, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the
passing of the dead!" --- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain-- (Confederate surrender at Appomattox...) |
| * "No man is good enough to govern another man
without that other's consent." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "On the Avenue in front of the White House
were several hundred colored people, mostly women and children, weeping
and wailing their loss. This crowd did not diminish through the whole of
that cold, wet day; they seemed not to know what was to by their fate
since their great benefactor was dead, and though strong and brave men
wept when I met them, the hopeless grief of those poor colored people
affected me more than almost anything else." --- Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy-- (After the death of Abraham Lincoln...)  |
| * "People are just as happy as they make up
their minds to be." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "We have shared the incommunicable experience
of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our
youths, our hearts were touched by fire." --- Oliver Wendall Holmes--  |
| * "Tact is the ability to describe others as
they see themselves." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "America has no north, no south, no east, no
west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the
compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion
of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided." --- Sam Watkins-1st Tennessee-- |
| * "The possibility that we may fail in the
struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to
be just." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives
itself." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "Whatever you are, be a good one." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "With the catching end the pleasures of the
chase." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "With the fearful strain that is on me night
and day, if I did not laugh I should die." --- Abraham Lincoln |
| * "I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage
the anguish of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of
the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid
so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." --- Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864.--- ATTRIBUTION: Letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who lost five sons killed in battle. |
"That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth." ~The last paragraph of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19,
1863.~
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondman's two-hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid
by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still
it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
~Second Inaugural Address March 4, 1865.~
"With malice toward none; with
charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, 3
let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his
orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves and with all nations." ~Second Inaugural Address. March 4,
1865.~
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