Be inspired by the strength and resilience people exemplified during a great period of chaos with these civil war quotes.
Civil wars are bloody, intense wars that create a significant impact on history. It is something that’s able to change how a nation moves forward.
So, if you are fond of history and want to know more about civil wars, then you’ll surely enjoy this collection. Take a pause and appreciate the brave men who sacrificed their lives fighting for their beliefs and rights.
Start reading the complete list here.
Best Civil War Quotes
1. “We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
2. “America will not be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedom, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony.” – Robert E. Lee
4. “We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination, we will have.” – Jefferson Davis
5. “I have never advocated war except as means of peace, so seek peace, but prepare for war. Because war, war never changes. War is like winter and winter is coming.” – Ulysses S. Grant
6. “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “The only true rule for cavalry is to follow the enemy as long as he retreats.” – Stonewall Jackson
8. “The American Civil War produced carnage that has often been thought reserved for the combination of technological proficiency and inhumanity characteristic of a later time.” – Drew Gilpin Faust
9. “In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.” – Ulysses S. Grant
10. “A war between Europeans is a civil war.” – Victor Hugo
11. “To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war.” – Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
12. “Why do they call them civil wars when they always are so extraordinarily uncivil?” – Elizabeth Fitch
13. “There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.” – Victor Hugo
14. “Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn’t every war fought between men, between brothers?” – Victor Hugo
Also read: Warrior Quotes
Famous Civil War Quotes
15. “It is history that teaches us to hope.” – Robert E. Lee
16. “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
17. “The United States needed a civil war to unite properly.” – Umberto Eco
18. “I’ve got no respect for a young man who won’t join the colors.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
19. “I want my army to be an army of the living God.” – Stonewall Jackson
20. “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s.” – Stonewall Jackson
21. “Civil wars leave nothing but tombs.” – Alphonse de Lamartine
22. “War at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.” – Abraham Lincoln
23. “I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. I predict the civil war which is now at hand will be stubborn and of long duration.” – Sam Houston
24. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.” – Abraham Lincoln
25. “There is no need for bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it.” – Abraham Lincoln
26. “We have, as all will agree, a free government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man.” – Abraham Lincoln
27. “I will be in my coffin before I will fight again under your command.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
28. “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” – William Tecumseh Sherman
29. “I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.” – Baron de Montesquieu
Civil War Quotes to Inspire You to Fight
30. “Every moment lost is worth the life of a thousand men.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
31. “It is easy to see that, under the sharp discipline of the civil war, the nation is beginning a new life.” – Abraham Lincoln
32. “We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them.” – Robert E. Lee
33. “The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.” – Jefferson Davis
34. “The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became—good and bad things. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.” – Shelby Foote
35. “Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind. Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky and the affrighted steed ran on alone, do not weep. War is kind.” – Stephen Crane
36. “War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. To move swiftly, strike vigorously, and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.” – Stonewall Jackson
37. “The war is over, the rebels are our countrymen again.” – Ulysses S. Grant
38. “The time for war has not yet come, but it will come, and that soon; and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” – Stonewall Jackson
39. “In the present civil war, it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” – Abraham Lincoln
40. “We view ourselves on the eve of battle. We are nerved for the conquest and must conquer or perish.” – Sam Houston
41. “The past is dead. Let it bury its dead, its hopes, and its aspirations before you lie the future, a future full of golden promise.” – Jefferson Davis
Quotes From the Most Influential Leaders About What Civil Wars Entail
42. “Civil wars leave nothing but tombs.” – Alphonse de Lamartine
43. “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.” – Ulysses S. Grant
44. “I worked night and day for 12 years to prevent the war, but I could not.” – Jefferson Davis
45. “The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.” – Ulysses S. Grant
46. “Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!” – John H. Brown
47. “Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.” – Ulysses S. Grant
48. “The greatest curse that can befall a free people, is civil war.” – Alexander H. Stephens
49. “There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.” – Abraham Lincoln
50. “It will be all right if it turns out all right.” – Ulysses S. Grant
51. “It is something great and greatening to cherish an ideal; to act in the light of truth that is far away and far above; to set aside the near advantage, the momentary pleasure; the snatching of seeming good to self; and to act for remoter ends, for higher good, and for interests other than our own.” – Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
52. “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” – George S. Patton
Civil War Quotes That’ll Encourage You to Live
53. “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
54. “If you surrender you shall be treated as prisoners of war, but if you have to storm your works you may expect no quarter.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
55. “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” – Abraham Lincoln
Profound Civil War Quotes
56. “He who does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.” – Abraham Lincoln
57. “When I strike, the bees will begin to swarm, and I want you to help hive them.” – John H. Brown
58. “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.” – Abraham Lincoln
59. “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” – Abraham Lincoln
Sorrowful Quotes on What It’s Like to Live During the Civil War
60. “Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.” – Jefferson Davis
61. “This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free.” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
62. “It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. They do not know its horrors. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.” – Stonewall Jackson
63. “There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.” – Ulysses S. Grant
64. “He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless.” – Stephen Crane
65. “I am more anxious than I can express that my men should be not only good soldiers of their country but also good soldiers of the cross.” – Stonewall Jackson
66. “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.” – Abraham Lincoln
Quotes on Fighting for Your Life During the Civil War
67. “The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.” – Jefferson Davis
68. “Union can achieve everything when sustained by gallant hearts and correct principles, while anarchy and insubordination must fail in the achievement of everything beneficial and glorious to mankind.” – Sam Houston
69. “Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy, and here we are. Let’s go and help them. What do you say?” – Nathan Bedford Forrest
70. “The dominant party cannot reign forever, and truth and justice will prevail at last.” – Robert E. Lee
71. “I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” – John H. Brown
72. “I would fight them if they were a million!” – Albert Sidney Johnston
73. “My men have sometimes failed to take a position, but to defend one, never!” – Stonewall Jackson
74. “My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on Bobby Lee, for I shall have none.” – Joe Hooker
75. “Don’t bring up your sons to detest the United States. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans.” – Robert E. Lee
76. “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” – Stonewall Jackson
77. “We may be annihilated, but we cannot be conquered.” – Albert Sidney Johnston
78. “In the name of the Constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her.” – Sam Houston
Quotes That Honor the Lives Taken During the Civil War
79. “From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.” – Abraham Lincoln
80. “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” – Abraham Lincoln
81. “That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” – Abraham Lincoln
Quotes to Display How Soldiers Were Expected to Act During the Civil War
82. “He that will not submit to it when corrected and improved by the experience of ages does not deserve the proud appellation of a soldier.” – Sam Houston
83. “The soldier who gropes for glory must submit himself to discipline.” – Sam Houston
84. “Subordination gives strength and security to an army.” – Sam Houston
Quotes That Zoom in on the Connection Between the Civil War and Slavery
85. “The cause of the great war of the rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery.” – Ulysses S. Grant
86. “When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from civil war times. And yet it goes on.” – Lisa Kristine
87. “Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery, it could not continue.” – Abraham Lincoln
88. “If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go.” – Ulysses S. Grant
89. “So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.” – Robert E. Lee
90. “I don’t think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.” – John H. Brown
91. “Talk is a national institution, but it does not help the slave.” – John H. Brown
Quotes on Why One Should Have Faith Amidst a Civil War
92. ”We, on our side, are praying to Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, look for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us?” – Abraham Lincoln
93. “Our men fought bravely, but the enemy repulsed me. Many valuable lives were lost. Our God was my shield.” – Stonewall Jackson
94. “In regards to this great book, the Bible, I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln
Eye-Opening Quotes on Civil Wars All Over the World
95. “In the end, no amount of American forces can solve the political differences that lie at the heart of somebody else’s civil war.” – Barack Obama
96. “With one terrible exception, the Civil War, law and the Constitution have kept America whole and free.” – Anthony Lewis
97. “In a civil war, there is continuous fighting, based on grievances that are forever changing.” – Nuruddin Farah
98. “This union has been divided like a civil war, brother against brother, sister against sister. And I’m pulling it together. We’ve already seen evidence of that in New York, in Pennsylvania, in California. The first thing is we have to get on the same page. We have to be united in one cause.” – James P. Hoffa
99. “The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it’s pointless and futile and ugly and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.” – Anthony Minghella
100. “Most historians agree that Abraham Lincoln was the most important man to ever occupy the White House because he abolished slavery and kept the states united through a bloody civil war.” – Kitty Kelley
101. “I think every day we look at the mess of the chaos of the Civil War in Iraq, I think every day people become more and more convinced that the war was a mistake. I think we have to learn from the mistakes of our past.” – Rand Paul
102. “When you scan the globe’s hot spots, every civil war and massacre, every act of terror and every clash between states has its unique local circumstances.” – Atifete Jahjaga
103. “I think you can go back in history and look at what the effect in Asia and the world was of a divided, fractured China from, you know, the opium wars through the Chinese Civil War, and I don’t think it was pretty for Asia or the world.” – Dennis C. Blair
104. “Life in Somalia before the civil war was beautiful. When the war happened, I was eight years old and at that stage of understanding the world in a different way.” – Ilhan Omar
105. “Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.” – Margaret Atwood
106. “The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War; when I really think about them, they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea.” – Sarah Vowell
107. “When it comes to the Civil War, all of our popular understanding, our popular history, and culture, our great films, the subtext of our arguments are in defiance of its painful truths.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates
108. “President Abraham Lincoln never lost his ardor for the United States to remain united during the Civil War.” – Douglas Brinkley
Interesting Quotes That Describe How the World Copes During a Civil War
109. “I used to think that the Civil War was our country’s greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features in Watergate.” – Sam Ervin
110. “I began to see during the Civil War, in that part of the states of Missouri and Kansas where the doctors were shut out, the children did not die.” – Andrew Taylor Still
111. “My ancestors fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. I was raised in Natchez, Miss. I performed in the Confederate Pageant for a decade. I dug ditches and loaded trucks with black men who taught me more than any book ever could. And I graduated from Ole Miss. Anyone who survived that is a de facto expert on the South.” – Greg Iles
112. “The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars – all other American wars combined. More people died in that war than World War II, World War I, Vietnam, etc. And that was a war for white supremacy. It was a war to erect a state in which the basis of it was the enslavement of black people.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates
113. “My family has served the country in almost every major war since the Civil War.” – Jack Scalia
Quotes to Describe What People Went Through During Civil Wars
114. “If I owned Texas and hell, I would rent out Texas and live in hell.” – General Philip Henry Sheridan
115. “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” – Robert E. Lee
116. “It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.” – Stephen Crane
117. “All new states are invested, more or less, by a class of noisy, second-rate men who are always in favor of rash and extreme measures, but Texas was absolutely overrun by such men.” – Sam Houston
118. “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
119. “My God, is it possible that all the people have gone mad? This Civil War now being inaugurated will be as horrible as his satanic majesty could desire.” – Sam Houston
120. “I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?” – Abraham Lincoln
121. “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. If I killed them all there would be news from hell before breakfast.” – William Tecumseh Sherman
122. “If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone—died of a theory.” – Jefferson Davis
123. “I know why we lost the civil war. We must have had the same officials.” – Bum Phillips
More Civil War Quotes
124. “I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I do not share its dangers.” – George Armstrong Custer
125. “I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement, I have the best of the bargain.” – Abraham Lincoln
126. “At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.” – Stephen Crane
127. “As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.” – Abraham Lincoln
128. “The power of noble deeds is to be preserved and passed on to the future.” – Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
129. “I am often asked, ‘Why do Southerners still care about the Civil War?’ Because it is unique in the American experience. Defeat was total, surrender unconditional, and the land still occupied.” – Tim Heaton
130. “I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.” – Abraham Lincoln
Are You Brave Enough to Fight for Your Country and What You Believe In?
People have different definitions of what bravery is. But actually, bravery is the act of being able to stand for what you believe in.
Civil wars teach us that bravery is what keeps you going amidst the adversities you encounter. But, courage doesn’t only mean you have to lay down your life for your cause. Remember that there will also be other ways to fight for what you believe in and different ways to fight for change.
We hope that this collection was able to encourage you to be vigilant and never back down from fighting for what you believe in. Have courage, and remember that you are influential in your own way.
What do you think of these civil war quotes? Which quote struck you the most? Don’t forget to share your thoughts with us.