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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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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
Decline
Serve
Either
Politics
Party
Unanimously
Political
Nominated
Even
Parliament
Elected

More quotes by William Tecumseh Sherman

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We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Though I never ordered it, and never wished for it, I have never shed any tears over the event, because I believe that it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war.
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 can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations pass away before they again appeal to it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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The young bloods of the South: sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard-players and sportsmen, men who never did any work and never will... They are splendid riders, first-rate shots and utterly reckless. These men must all be killed or employed by us before we can hope for peace.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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The way to success is strategically along the way of least expectation and tactically along the line of least resistance.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I see every chance of a long, confused and disorganizing civil war, and I feel no desire to take a hand therein.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see that in the end you will surely fail.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
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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I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come-if alive.
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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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 hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are.
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
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Hold the fort! I am coming!
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I think I understand what military fame is to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers.
William Tecumseh Sherman