William Tecumseh Sherman Quotes

“He had bludgeoned the Southern will to resist the military strength of the United States. He had destroyed any realistic hope of ultimate Confederate success, and the people of the South realized that the Confederate armies could not protect them. The”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“Major Hitchcock expressed his disgust numerous times about “the most atrocious lies” that were spread about the conduct of the Yankee forces—“our uniform cruelty, our killing all the women and children, burning all the houses, forcing the negroes into our army in the front rank of battle, etc., etc.” He said that everywhere such stories were systematically and persistently circulated—alleging that Sherman actually ordered such terrible acts and his whole army carried them out—and the lies were believed, “even by intelligent people.”40”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“While many a Georgian condemned the Yankees for ravaging the countryside, it should be noted that the Confederates often treated Southerners just as badly, if not worse. Major”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“Sherman making a mockery of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s recent assertion, while visiting the Rebel army, that the Yankees would have to retreat from Georgia or starve, and predicting that the retreat would be “more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow.”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“Speeches rarely bring permanent, significant change.”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“Initial impressions of people, whether positive or negative, are obviously based on inadequate evidence, and frequently they are wrong.”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“Of course no one can guess what the wild unbridled passions of men may do.”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

“With pronounced disdain he viewed the young men of Carolina as snobbish indolents, “worthless sons of . . . proud . . . families,” boasting of “their state, their aristocracy, . . . their patriarchal chivalry and glory.” He pronounced it “all trash.”8”
― James Lee McDonough, William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life