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Wars are not all evil, they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed.

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
Part
World
Governed
Machinery
Grand
Wars
Evil
War

More quotes by 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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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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The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.
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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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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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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The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.
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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An army to be useful must be a unit, and out of this has grown the saying, attributed to Napoleon, but doubtless spoken before the days of Alexander, that an army with an inefficient commander was better than one with two able heads.
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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I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I will accept no commission that would tend to create a rivalry with Grant. I want him to hold what he has earned and got. I have all the rank I want.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, - Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.
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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There will soon come an armed contest between capital and labor. They will oppose each other, not with words and arguments, but with shot and shell, gun-powder and cannon. The better classes are tired of the insane howling of the lower strata and they mean to stop them.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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I begin to regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash-and it may be well that we become so hardened.
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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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