Michael Korda Quotes

I don’t see how our country can produce such men as Robert E. Lee, John J Pershing, Eisenhower and Bradley and at the same time produce Custers, Pattons, and MacArthurs.

We will never forget those like my great-grandfather who fought at Vicksburg.

There is no disputing that Lincoln was a great man.

I love history, and Churchill is one of my favorite people to study. He's a fascinating, fascinating man.

While the scars of the monstrous Civil War still remain, the wounds have closed since 1865, in large part, because of the civility of Grant and Lee.

There are a lot of Civil War photographs of men in stove-pipe hats. But none of them looked like Abraham Lincoln …. Ulysses S. Grant did not wear an officer’s uniform blouse. He wore an enlisted man’s blouse with general’s stars—even when he was the highest ranking officer in the army…. Until he became a Senator, [J. F.] Kennedy dressed like a college student. After he entered the Senate he always wore elegant suits.

… without his [Abraham Lincoln’s] determined leadership the United States would have ceased to be.

I felt blessed by the existence of Horace Porter's 'Campaigning With Grant.'

His [Gen. Douglas MacArthur's] own heroes were Lincoln and Washington, and in some ways he resembled them. Like them, he was slandered and misunderstood.

I don't [even] know the number of books on Abraham Lincoln. Ten thousand, twelve thousand? I have seen various numbers. It seems like every generation is always trying to come to terms with Lincoln.

Here was the greatest and most moving chapter in American history, a blending of meanness and greatness, an ending and a beginning. It came out of what men were, but it did not go as men had planned.

Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us.

Grant is of medium stature, yet has a well-developed physique, sandy whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, earnest, thoughtful, and far-seeing, a cigar in his mouth, a knife in one hand, and a stick in the other, which he is whittling to a point. He whittles slowly towards him. His thoughts are not yet crystallized. His words are few. Suddenly he commences upon the other end of the stick, and whittles energetically from him. His mind is made up,--his plan matured. He is less reticent,--talks freely. He is dressed in plain blue; and were it not for the three stars upon his shoulder, few would select him as the Lieutenant-General commanding all the armies of the Union in the field.

Robert E. Lee was responsible for the deaths of more American soldiers than Hitler and Tojo.

Reelect Abraham Lincoln Save the Union Heal the Nation Give Me Another Shot

General McClellan argues indefinite procrastination.

Abraham Lincoln is the most powerful slave catcher in America.

Stupidity is not an accusation that could be hurled against such prominent early Republicans as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes.

I was born about 80 years too late. If you were a kid in 1910, the Fourth of July was a big deal. You knew all about the Revolution, and you still had Civil War veterans.

Abraham Lincoln went through 12 generals before he got Ulysses S. Grant. He had never done a Civil War before.

In the great battle of Antietam, still the bloodiest day in American history, Union forces were led by Gen. George McClellan, an incredibly cautious man.

It is important to understand how leaders have adapted and thought about war and warfare across their careers. 'The Autobiography of General Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs of the Civil War' is perhaps the best war memoir ever written.

In the South, there was absence of any leadership corresponding in breadth and courage to that of Abraham Lincoln.

Ultimately, the appraisal of Grant's presidency rests upon posterity's view of Reconstruction.

Interest in the Founders has risen and fallen over time, as has admiration for them and their accomplishments.