William Tecumseh Sherman War Quotations

If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

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.

The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.

War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.

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.

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.

He belonged to that army known as invincible in peace, invisible in war.

In our Country... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it 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.

There's many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory but it is all hell.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.

War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.

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.

It's a disagreeable thing to be whipped.

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.

War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.

Oh, it is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization.

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.

War is cruel and you cannot refine it.

You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!

Wars are not all evil, they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed.

You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

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.

Hold the fort! I am coming!

Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!

I see every chance of a long, confused and disorganizing civil war, and I feel no desire to take a hand therein.

War is Hell you can NOT refine it!

War is at best barbarism.

War is at best barbarism. Its glory is all moonshine...War is hell.

You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it...Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them?

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.

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. War suits them.. 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.

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.

You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm.

The North can make a steam engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth-right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.

The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak violence upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate.

We can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.

After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.

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.

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.