Sherman's March Quotes

“I've heard of more ways to die in this war than I knew there were corpses. I've heard there isn't a battle where both sides don't shoot their own men -- sometimes on purpose and sometimes for mercy, but most of the time by mistake. I've heard boys on both sides are killing themselves, so they don't burn or smother or drown or starve, or pass whatever they're dying of to others. I've heard about guerrillas and murders and firing squads. I've reached the point where I don't know if anyone ever just dies from the other side's bullets.”
― Cynthia Bass, Sherman's March

“The life of a soldier seemed like a climb up a stairway without any stairs, only the wooden supporting spine of preagreed ritual. Step away from that spine and anything might happen -- to you, by you.”
― Cynthia Bass, Sherman's March

“The only element still surprising was how rapidly Sherman was moving: for whichever direction I looked, he'd been here already, burning and emptying out. The smoldering wood made the air smell cruelly like Christmas.”
― Cynthia Bass, Sherman's March

“We're all being left out one way or the other. The survivors miss being heroes. The heroes miss being alive. The only ones not left out are the ones who never went in.”
― Cynthia Bass, Sherman's March

“I felt entangled now: this March, this South, this war, history. History could not possibly let the South get away with slavery; history would not possibly let us get away with what we were doing to the South. Somehow or other, we'd both have to pay.”
― Cynthia Bass, Sherman's March