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"Every moment lost is worth the life of a thousand men."

"If you surrender, you shall be treated as prisoners of war, but if I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter."

"However much we differed with them while public enemies, and were at war, we must admit that they fought gallantly for the preservation of the government which we fought to destroy, which is now ours,…"

"Does the damned fool want to be blown up? Well, blow him up then. Give him hell, Captain Morton- as hot as you've got it, too."

"That we are beaten is a self-evident fact, and any further resistance on our part would be justly regarded as the very height of folly and rashness."

"The attempt made to establish a separate and independent Confederation has failed; but the consciousness of having done your duty faithfully, and to the end, will, in some measure, repay for the hards…"

"Get there first with the most men."

"I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can …"

"I want to elevate you to take positions in law offices, in stores, on farms, and wherever you are capable of going."

"This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free."

"I've got no respect for a young man who won't join the colors."

"I will say to you and to the colored race that men who bore arms and followed the flag of the Confederacy are, with very few exceptions, your friends. I have an opportunity of saying what I have alway…"

"I have not said anything about politics today. I don't propose to say anything about politics. You have a right to elect whom you please; vote for the man you think best, and I think, when that is don…"

"There is no doubt we could soon wipe old Sherman off the face of the earth, John, if they'd give me enough men and you enough guns."

"The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. I…"

"Preserve untarnished the reputation you have so nobly won."

"Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy, and here we are guarding a damned creek! Let's go and help them. Wh…"

"Men, you may all do as you damn please, but I'm a-goin' home."

"This day is a day that is proud to me, having occupied the position that I did for the past twelve years, and been misunderstood by your race. This is the first opportunity I have had during that time…"

"War means fighting, and fighting means killing."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for…"

"Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked …"

"Civil war, such as you have just passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings; and as far as it is in our powe…"

"Let us all, then, join their comrades who live, in spreading flowers over the graves of these dead Federal soldiers, before the whole American people, as a peace offering to the nation, as a testimoni…"

"After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side...He had never read a military book in his life, knew nothing about tactics, could not even drill a company…"

"I am opposed to it under any and all circumstances, and in our convention urged our party not to commit themselves at all upon the subject."