Abraham Lincoln Army Quotations

Sending armies to McClellan is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard, not half of them get there.

I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses, Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.

All the armies of Europe combined could not by force make a track upon the Blue Ridge, or take a drink from the Ohio. If we are to be destroyed, we must do it ourselves.

It is not our frowning battlements...or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land....Our defence is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.

I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not...the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army...our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms....

The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression can not be restrained. In the midst of this, however, He, from Whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated.

What constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea-coasts, our army and our navy. ... Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. ... you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.