James Longstreet Quotations

If the blame (if there is any) can be shifted from him to me, I shall help him and our cause by taking it. I desire, therefore, that all the responsibility that can be put upon me shall go there and shall remain there.

Pickett's lines being nearer, the impact was heaviest upon them.

My command, less than ten thousand, had found the battle on the Plank road in retreat, little less than a panic. In a few hours we changed defeat to victory, the broken divisions of the Third Corps rallying in their rear.

The town caught fire in several places, shells crashed and burst, and solid shot rained like hail.

As full lines of battle could not be handled through the thick wood, I ordered the advance of the six brigades by heavy skirmish lines, to be followed by stronger supporting lines.

Bad as was being shot by some of our own troops in the battle of the Wilderness, - that was an honest mistake, one of the accidents of war, - being shot at, since the war, by many officers, was worse.

A little before noon I sent orders to all my batteries to open fire through the streets or at any points where the troops were seen about the city, as a diversion in favor of Jackson.

About the city, here and there, a few soldiers could be seen, but there was no indication of the heavy masses that were concealed by the houses.

That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end of the war.

In a very short time the army of Northern Virginia was face to face with the Army of the Potomac.

In the case of the armies at Fredericksburg it would have been, to say the least, very hazardous to give counter-attack, the Federal position being about as strong as ours from which we had driven them back.

Before my troops reached the little city, and before the people of Fredericksburg knew that any part of the Confederate army was near, there was great excitement over the demand for surrender.

General Pickett, finding the battle broken while the enemy was still reinforcing, called the troops off.

General Grant had no fixed plan of campaign beyond the general idea to avoid the strong defensive line occupied by General Lee behind Mine Run, and find a way to draw him out to open battle.

If we only save the finger of one man, that's enough.

I fancy that no good ideas upon that campaign will be mentioned at any time that did not receive their share of consideration by General Lee.

There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made and failed from the blows that could not be fended.

I cannot help but think that great results would have been obtained had my views been thought better of; yet I am much inclined to accept the present condition as for the best.

I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.

Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?

The passions of the titanic struggle will finally enter upon the sleep of oblivion, and only its splendid accomplishments for the cause of human freedom and a united nation, stronger and richer in patriotism because of the great strife, will be remembered.

I do not want to make this charge. I do not see how it can succeed. I would not make it now but that General Lee has ordered it and expects it.

General, unless he offers us honorable terms, come back and let us fight it out!

This is a hard fight and we had better all die than lose it.

My arm is paralyzed; my voice that once could be heard all along the line, is gone; I can scarcely speak above a whisper; my hearing is very much impaired, and sometimes I feel as if I wished the end would come; but I have some misrepresentations of my battles that I wish to correct, so as to have my record correct before I die.

If the entire Union Army comes across here, I will kill them all!

General, if you put every Union soldier now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, I will kill them all before they reach my line.

Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.

I have been a soldier all my life. I have commanded companies, I have commanded regiments. I have commanded divisions. And I have commanded even more. But there are no fifteen thousand men i the world that can go across that ground.

The next time we met was at Appomattox, and the first thing that General Grant said to me when we stepped inside, placing his hand in mine was, Pete, let us have another game of brag, to recall the days that were so pleasant. Great God! I thought to myself, how my heart swells out to such magnanimous touch of humanity. Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?