Master of War Quotes

“Some years later, a Confederate officer would remark to General Joseph Johnston (the best of the Southern generals after Lee) that Thomas “did not know when he was whipped.” Johnston replied curtly, “Rather say he always knew very well when he was not.”
― Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas

“Yet so much of the fighting was chaotic that the great German field marshal Helmuth von Moltke would describe the four long years of war as presenting “two armed mobs chasing each other around the country, from which nothing could be learned.”
― Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas

“In the end, it was not so much agitation in the North for the abolition of slavery, but aggressive measures for its extension that brought on the war.”
― Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas

“A number of Southern officers—including Robert E. Lee—claimed after the Civil War that it was this teaching which gave them the legal and ethical basis for taking up arms. Lee apparently told Bishop William Holland Wilmer of Louisiana: “If it had not been for the instruction I got from Rawle’s textbook at West Point I would not have left the Old Army and joined the South.” However, since others came to a different conclusion, despite the same teaching, Lee seemed to be saying that he had failed to reason the matter out rightly for himself.”
― Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas

“Having done what you conscientiously believe to be right, you may regret, but should never be annoyed, by a want of approbation on the part of others.”
― Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas

“the idea of the contented slave under the care of a benevolent overlord was a sentimental myth.”
― Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas