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I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected.

William Tecumseh Sherman

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William Tecumseh Sherman
Age: 71 †
Born: 1820
Born: February 8
Died: 1891
Died: February 14
Banker
Lawyer
Military Officer
U.S. General
William T. Sherman
General Sherman
Nominated
Elected
Serve
Accept
Military
Politics
Running

More quotes by William Tecumseh Sherman

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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. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war you don't know what you're talking about.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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The carping and bickering of political factions in the nation's capital reminds me of two pelicans quarreling over a dead fish.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Hold the fort! I am coming!
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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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.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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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.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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You people speak so lightly of war you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!
William Tecumseh Sherman
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We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children... during an assault, the soldiers cannot pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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If nominated, I won't run If elected, I won't serve.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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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?
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I'm a damned sight smarter than Grant I know more about organization, supply and administration and about everything else than he does but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight but it scares me like hell.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!
William Tecumseh Sherman
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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.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is at best barbarism.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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An army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every enactment, every change of rule which impairs this principle weakens the army, impairs its value, and defeats the very object of its existence.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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If nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline, and even if unanimously elected, I should decline to serve.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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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.
William Tecumseh Sherman