It has come that man has no longer an individual existence, but is counted in thousands and measured in miles. Clara Barton
Grant is a butcher and not fit to be at the head of an army. He loses two men to the enemy’s one. He has no management. No regard for life. I could fight an army as well myself. Mary Lincoln
The Wilderness was a useless battle fought with great loss and no result. Washington Roebling
I come from Alabama with my Banjo on my knee —
I’se gwine to Lou’siana my true lub for to see.
It rain’d all night de day I left, de wedder it was dry;
The sun so hot I froze to def — Susanna, don't you cry.
Oh! Susanna, do not cry for me;
I come from Alabama, wid my Banjo on my knee. Stephen Foster, Oh! Susanna
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 these wilds Stonewall had charged –
But the year and the man were gone. Herman Melville, The Armies of the Wilderness
Dear Mr President, General McClellan has almost ruined your administration and the country. He is a do-nothing. He is thinking of the presidency in 64. He is placating the rebels. That’s what ails him. Depend upon it. Joseph McDill
Wounded men were brought into our houses and laid side by side in our halls and first-storey rooms. Carpets were so saturated with blood as to be unfit for further use. Walls were blood-stained as well as books that were used for pillows. Jennie McCreary
No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works. Ulysses S Grant
I purpose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer. Ulysses S Grant
I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made. Ulysses S Grant
Dear Julia, I am no longer boss. Ulysses S Grant
The Conscription Act at one foul swoop strikes down the sovereignty of the States, trampled upon the constitutional rights and personal liberty of the citizens, and arms the president with imperial powers. Joseph E Brown, Governor Georgia
The Emancipation Proclamation became the symbolic turning point of the war. Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University
More than half a mile their front extends; more than a thousand yards the dull gray masses deploy, man touching man, rank pressing rank, and line supporting line. The red flags wave, their horsemen gallop up and down; the arms of eighteen thousand men, barrel and bayonet, gleam in the sun, a sloping forest of flashing steel. Right on they move, as with one soul, in perfect order, without impediment of ditch, or wall or stream, over ridge and slope, through orchard and meadow, and cornfield, magnificent, grim, irresistible. Lieutenant Frank Haskell
The Civil War rages on, and the North is on the verge of defeat. For President Abraham Lincoln time is running out. Desperate for a victory he will bring a new weapon to the battlefield – Lincoln becomes the first commander in chief to discover the power of electronic message. Lincoln @ Gettysburg, PBS 2014
Standing on the battlefield, Lincoln delivers the most famous two hundred and seventy two words ever spoken by an American. ibid.
Nearly 50,000 men have been killed or maimed at Gettysburg. ibid.
Abraham Lincoln is the most celebrated figure in American history ... An historic battle is being waged for the reputation of America’s sixteenth president ... Lincoln’s critics claim he plunged the nation into an unnecessary war. And that generations of historians have conspired to hide the fact that the great emancipator was in reality a racist who planned to deport the slaves out of America. Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner? BBC 2011
From the moment of his death the real Abraham Lincoln has been obscured by the almost religious cult that surrounds him. ibid.
His image is everywhere ... Hundreds of statues peppered across the nation. ibid.
From 1854 onward Abraham Lincoln campaigned against the expansion of slavery into the western territories. But the man ... did not call for the abolition of slavery ... The Great Emancipator appeared to stand on the sidelines. ibid.
The accusation that has been raged against Abraham Lincoln is that on coming to office he pushed the American people into a disastrous and avoidable conflict. ibid.
Abraham Lincoln prosecuted the Civil War ferociously. ibid.
There is another America: among some in the former states of the Confederacy the Civil War is remembered as a war of aggression, and Abraham Lincoln a war criminal. ibid.
The ferocity with which the Lincoln administration conducted war was not restricted to the south. Lincoln had gone to war to prevent slavery expanding into the west, and to defend the free soil ideology of his Republican Party. But the soil and the land of the west could only be made free for white settlers if first cleared of its original owners: the Native Americans. ibid.
Does Lincoln deserve his reputation as the Great Emancipator, or was the Emancipation Proclamation as much an act of war as it was an act of mercy? ibid.
The Civil War had consumed 630,000 lives. ibid.
Death would enter the experience of the American people and the body politic of the American nation as it never had before. Ric Burns, Death and the Civil War, PBS 2013
An estimated 750,000 people in all – more than in all other American wars combined. ibid.
April 6-7 1862 Shiloh: 23,741 casualties 3,477 dead. ibid.
No adequate ambulance corps to remove the dead and dying from the field of battle. ibid.
The new black recruits would be paid less than their white counterparts .. One in five would perish. Ibid
The North against the South. Brother against brother. America’s Civil War is the bloodiest in its history. America: The Story of the US e5: Civil War, History 2010
The minié-ball is used by the North and South alike. Demand for this killer bullet runs so high that an entire industry springs up supplying minié-balls to the front line. ibid.
Manufacturing, technology, infrastructure: it will change the face of America. For the first time in history industry is put behind the war effort. An approach to conflict that America will exploit in the First and Second World Wars. It is the beginning of a new integrated economy that will become the hallmark of the modern United States. ibid.
The Mason-Dixon line … the frontier between the Slave states and the Free states. Michael Portillo, Great American Railroad Journeys X: Wilmington & Havre de Grace, BBC 2016
I’m heading for Manassas – my guidebook tells me it was the scene of the first great battle of the Civil War fought July 21 1861 … another battle 1862. Michael Portillo, Great American Railroad Journeys XIV: Manassas to Richmond
An estimated eight hundred had been killed. The Union army had suffered its first defeat. The American Civil War, which many thought would only last for a few weeks, would drag on for four more even bloodier years. Blood and Glory: The Civil War, H2 2016
They were assisted by a powerful new medium that would change the way war and killing would be reported for ever – photography. ibid.
One of the most vocal and influential of the abolitionists was a former slave named Frederick Douglass. ibid.
By 1860 that number [of slaves] had grown to almost four million. ibid.
These were no ordinary warships – they were the Iron-Clads. Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Colour s1e2: Weapons of War
Modifications to weapons already in use – innovations that would make them more accurate and much more deadly. ibid.
Disease spread like wildfire, and dysentery, typhoid fever and malaria quickly ravaged both sides. Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Colour s1e3: Bloodbath
South Carolina: the CSS Planter … When Union troops boarded the ship they were shocked to find the captain was a runaway slave … he’d stolen the vessel from their masters. Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Colour s1e4: The Legacy of War
‘Insane’ soldiers have been found wandering about the country, in railroad depots, and about the streets of cities. ibid. Report from the association of Medical Superintendents 1864