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If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.

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
Raises
Seeking
Answer
Answers
Barbarity
War
Howl
Great
Popularity
People
Cruelty
Raise

More quotes by 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.
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I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.
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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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 cannot change the hearts of the people of the South, but we can make war so terrible that they will realize the fact that however brave and gallant and devoted to their country still they are mortal and should exhaust all peaceful remedies before they fly to war.
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 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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...[We] must stop these swarms of Jews who are trading, bartering and robbing.
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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Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.
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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The whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak violence upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her fate.
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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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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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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War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
William Tecumseh Sherman
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In our Country... one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out.
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