The inmates of the White House are in a state of utmost trepidation. And Mr Lincoln in despair. The London Times
Little did I conceive of the greatness of the defeat. The magnitude of the disaster which curtailed upon the United States. So short-lived has been the American union that men who saw it rise may live to see it fall. The London Times, article William Russell
The triumph of the Confederacy would be a victory of the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the spirits of friends all over the civilised world. The American Civil War is destined to be a turning point for good or evil of the course of human affairs. John Stuart Mill
Woe to those who began this war if they were not in bitter earnest. Mary Chesnut
We are separated because of incompatibility of temper. We are divorced north from south. Because we hated each other so. Mary Chesnut
Darkest of all Decembers ever my life has known.
Sitting here by the embers stunned, helpless, alone. Mary Chesnut
My face dropped and I resigned myself to sit by the wounded and sooth them, or silently watch the dead. Walt Whitman
January 31 1862: Mud. Mud. Mud. Elisha Hunt Rhodes
I have never in my soldier’s life seen such a sight: the dead and wounded covered the ground. Elisha Hunt Rhodes
We can fight rebels, but not in the mud. Elisha Hunt Rhodes
May 7th: If we were under any other General except Grant I should expect retreat. But Grant is not that kind of soldier. Elisha Hunt Rhodes
Well the first year of so of the war does not go very well for the North. They lose most of the battles, particularly in the eastern theatre, Virginia. But if you ... looked at a map of the United States you’d be amazed how little territory had been recaptured from the Confederacy. Eric Foner, Columbia University New York
We may anticipate with certainty the success of the southern states. William E Gladstone
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. Frederick Douglass
The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. 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 when I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slave-holding 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, that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters. I am filled with unbottled loathing. Frederick Douglass
What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world’s ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin? The national edifice is on fire. Every man who can carry a bucket of water or remove a brick is wanted. Yet government leaders persistently refuse to receive as soldiers the slaves, the very class of men which has a deeper interest in the defeat and humiliation of the rebels than all others. Such is the pride, the stupid prejudice and folly that rules the hour. Frederick Douglass
Any attempt now to separate the freedom of the slave from the victory of the government, any attempt to secure peace to the whites while leaving the blacks in chains, will be labor lost. The American people in the government in Washington may refuse to recognise it for a time but the execrable logic of events will force it upon them in that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery. Frederick Douglass
We talk of the irrepressible conflict and practically give the lie to our talk. We wage war against slave-holding rebels yet protect and augment the motive which has moved the slave holders to rebellion. We strike at the effect and leave the cause unharmed. Fire will not burn it out of us. Water cannot wash it out of us. That this war with the slaveholders can never be brought to a desirable termination until slavery – the guilt cause of all our national troubles – has been totally and for ever abolished. Frederick Douglass
We shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree. Free forever. Frederick Douglass
The arm of the slaves is the best defence against the arm of the slaveholder. Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. I urge you to fly to arms and smite with death the power that would bury the government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave. This is our golden opportunity. Frederick Douglass, March 5th 1863
This war – disguise it they may – is virtually nothing more nor less than perpetual slavery against universal freedom. And to this end free states will have to come. Frederick Douglass
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. Frederick Douglass
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organised conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. Frederick Douglass
We ask you to consider that slavery is everywhere the inciting cause and sustaining base of treason. It seems to us the most obvious truth that whatever strengthens or fortifies slavery drives home the wedge intended to divide the Union. Horace Green, open letter to President August 20th 1862
All the word from all Republicans even on the most local level indicated that Lincoln couldn’t possibly win. The fortunes of war had turned too badly, too sour, for the Union. Stephen B Oates
The Wilderness is probably not the bloodiest battle in the war, but the most terrible battle in the war in many ways. Ed Bearss, historian
No one agent so much obstructs this army as the degrading vice of drunkenness. Total abstinence would be worth 50,000 men to the armies of the United States. General George McClellan
There is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Barnard Elliott Bee, Confederate general, re General T J Jackson
John Brown’s soul is marching on with the people after it. George Templeton Strong
Dear Mr President, the tide is setting strongly against us. Two especial causes are assigned to this great reaction in public sentiment: the want of military success at Petersburg and Atlanta, and the impression that we are fighting not for Union but for the abolition of slavery. Henry Jarvis Raymond, chairman Republican National Committee
All quiet along the Potomac to-night
No sound save the rush of the river
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead –
The picket’s off-duty forever. Ethel Lynn Beers, 1827-1879, The Picket Guard, 1861
It grew dark and we built a fire ... The dead were all around us. Their eyeless skulls seemed to stare steadily at us. Private Frank Wilkerson
We believed that it was most desirable that the North should win. We believed in the principle that the Union is indissoluble. We or many of us at least also believed that the conflict was inevitable and that slavery had lasted long enough. But we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred convictions that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every man with a heart must response those who give all for their belief. Oliver Wendell Holmes
We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youths our hearts were touched with fire. Oliver Wendell Holmes
The enemy throw a number of shells daily into Petersburg, but they do little damage. The women and children seem not to mind them at all. Harry Hammond