James Longstreet Quotes & Sayings

“Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?”

“I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.”

“If the blame (if there is any) can be shifted from him to me, I shall help him and our cause by taking it. I desire, therefore, that all the responsibility that can be put upon me shall go there and shall remain there.”

“That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end of the war.”

“The town caught fire in several places, shells crashed and burst, and solid shot rained like hail.”

“I cannot help but think that great results would have been obtained had my views been thought better of; yet I am much inclined to accept the present condition as for the best.”

“In a very short time the army of Northern Virginia was face to face with the Army of the Potomac.”

“Bad as was being shot by some of our own troops in the battle of the Wilderness, - that was an honest mistake, one of the accidents of war, - being shot at, since the war, by many officers, was worse.”

“My command, less than ten thousand, had found the battle on the Plank road in retreat, little less than a panic. In a few hours we changed defeat to victory, the broken divisions of the Third Corps rallying in their rear.”

“Before my troops reached the little city, and before the people of Fredericksburg knew that any part of the Confederate army was near, there was great excitement over the demand for surrender.”