Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by William Tecumseh Sherman

Image
...[We] must stop these swarms of Jews who are trading, bartering and robbing.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
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
Image
The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
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
Image
You people speak so lightly of war you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
If nominated, I won't run If elected, I won't serve.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
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
Image
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
Image
He belonged to that army known as invincible in peace, invisible in war.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline, and even if unanimously elected, I should decline to serve.
William Tecumseh Sherman