Request for "flavor quotes"

[Alex Gilbert]

Only a small part of this is a quote, but it is a wonderful description of a poignant moment:
 
During the afternoon at Antietam (shortly after Burnside forced his way across the bridge):
 
Soon, from the Confederate left, there crept the shattered wreck of a battery-- two disabled guns and one piece that seemed still servicable.  A handful of begrimed and staggering cannoneers followed the exhausted horses.  The captain of the battery, with a few of his men, came up to Lee for instructions.  The officer in command proved to be Captian W.T. Poague, in whose battery Bob Lee was serving.  The boy himself was among the survivors.  Lee listened to Poague and then ordered him to take the remaining gun and the best horses to Jackson's front, to share in the offensive that "Stonewall" was preparing.
  "General," said Robert, as Poague turned to go, "are you going to send us in again?"
  "Yes, my son," he answered, "you all must do what you can to help drive these people back."
 
Quoted in D.S. Freeman, R.E. Lee, vol II p. 397.

[jkBluesman]

"When Pope got into his fortified lines Gen. Lee turned his troops toward Leesburg. His army had aquired that magnificent morale which made them equal to twice their numbers, & which they never lost even to the surrender at Appomattox."
Edward Porter Alexander in Fighting for the Confederacy

[shenandoah]

[font="times new roman"]I have never seen more intense rage and profound disgust than was expressed by the weary, foot-sore, battle-torn Confederate soldiers when they discovered that their officers had allowed their prey to escape.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]- Mississippian Rhett Thomas[/font]
[font="times new roman"][/font] 
[font="times new roman"]I got this quote from a website of quotes from the battle of Franklin.  battleoffranklin.wordpress.com/     I looked around and could only find a Major Thomas Rhett who was under Gen Loring who commanded Mississippians.  [/font]

[jkBluesman]

"A retreat is said to be impossible without disaster, so that this requires careful management and safety consists in keeping the exact moment concealed."
Richard S. Ewell in a letter to his fiancee on the eve of the evacuation of the Manassas line in March 1862.

[shenandoah]

Brig Gen Colston said about his camp upon hearing the death of his friend and commander, Gen Stonewall Jackson “the sounds of merriment died away as if the Angel of Death himself had flapped his muffled wings over the troops.”  
I don't think Colston wrote an autobiography about his life but did write papers on his life that are part of the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina.

[jkBluesman]

"This was no ordinary war and the brave and gallant Federal officers were the very kind that must be killed. Shoot the brave officers and the cowards will run away and take the men with them."
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in aconversation with Richard S. Ewell after the battle of Port Republic where Ewell had ordered his men to stop firering on a brave Union officer.

[Gil R.]

I like that one. Thanks.

[jkBluesman]

"Now a larger army manouvers a smaller out of position by sending a part of its superior force to threaten its opponent's rear. The latter can only live for a few days if its supply trains are cut off; therefor it must fall back when its rear is seriously threatended. But in such manouvering the larger army is necessarily divided into two parts, & a skillful antagonist may find an opportunity to concentrate his whole force upon one of them & destroy it."
Edward Porter Alexander in his personal recollections "Fighting for the Confederacy".

[Gil R.]

Thanks. I like that one, and just put it in the file.

[jkBluesman]

ORIGINAL: jkBluesman

"I cannot do many things that I could do with a trained army. The soldiers know their duty better than the general officers do, and they have fought magnificently. You'll have to do what I do: when a man makes a mistake, I call him to my tent, talk to him, and use the authority of my position to make him do the right thing the next time."
Robert E. Lee to A.P. Hill in May 1864

I finally found the source for the quote during my research on Hill. His chief-of-staff Colonel Palmer told Douglas S. Freeman about Lee's and Hill's conversation in 1920. According to Palmer it had taken place at Spotsylvania after Gen. Wright had messed up an assault.

[Callahan]

"It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake."
- Frederick Douglass

"In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky—her grand old woods—her fertile fields—her beautiful rivers— her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slaveholding, robbery and wrong,— when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing, and led to reproach myself that any thing could fall from my lips in praise of such a land."
- Frederick Douglass in a letter to William Lloyd Garrison (January 1, 1846)

"We have received no mail for several days and do not like it. A soldier can do without hard bread but not without his letters from home."
- Entry in Elisha Hunt Rhodes` diary (March 6, 1865)

"I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four, the orders are, he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. Michael's bells chime out and I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I prayed as I never prayed before."
- Entry in Mary Chesnut`s diary (April 12, 1861)

"In glades they meet skull after skull
Where pine cones lay - the rusted gun,
Green shoes full of bones, the mouldering coat
And cuddled up skeleton;
And scores of such. Some start as in dreams,
And comrades lost bemoan;
By the edge of those wilds Stonewall had charged-
But the year and the Man were gone."
- Herman Melville "The Armies of the Wilderness"

[Gil R.]

Thanks. I think I'll use at least two of them.

[General Quarters]

Some of the good quotations that originally came with the game have not been appearing on the public beta. I hope they are not gone forever. The love the Vicksburg menu and hope to use the quote about not being able to go forward or backward and wishing for a hole in the ground in something I'm writing.

[Gil R.]

That's just a bad dice roll you're getting -- nothing has changed in the file. In fact, I'm going to be adding another 10-15 quotes for this patch, but haven't delivered the file to Eric yet. On the one hand, this will make each quote that much less likely to appear, but on the other hand, veteran players will get some new ones.

[General Quarters]

Sounds good.

[shenandoah]

Gen. Thomas Jackson at 1st Manassas talking to 4th and 27th regiments defending Henry House Hill. The significance of this is that this was the first time of the "rebel yell".

“Reserve your fire until they come within fifty yards! Then fire and give them the bayonet! And when you charge, yell like furies.”

[Gil R.]

Thanks! Just added.

[jkBluesman]

"Thus during all the fourth we were in preparation for the rear movement that must begin that night. Lee's position had become serious, but undismayed were the Confederate Chief and his three corps commanders. He knew he could count on their tried courage and experience." G. Moxley Sorrel about the aftermath of Gettysburg in his Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer

[jkBluesman]

"The mountain roads were filled with broken regiments and companies and it was very late before they got to the foot of the mountain and in some sort of order. The material of our army was such that it did not take long for the men to shape up after disaster."
Gilbert Moxley Sorrel about the march of Longstreets' corps to South Mountain in his Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer

[Callahan]

Private Henry R. Berkeley, an artilleryman in the ANV, about Iverson`s repelled charge at Gettysburg:
"There were seventy-nine North Carolinians laying dead in a straight line. I stood on their right and looked down their line. It was perfectly dressed. Three had fallen to the front, the rest had fallen backwards; yet the feet of all these dead men were in a perfectly straight line. They had evidently been killed by one volley of musketry and they had fallen in their tracks without a single struggle. I turned from this sight with a sickened heart and tried to eat my breakfast, but had to return it to my haversack untouched."