Henry Adams Quotes
It is now conceded that all idea of British intervention is at an end... I want to hug the army of the Potomac. I want to get the whole army of Vicksburg drunk at my own expense. I want to fight some small man and lick him.
Adams, Henry. Letter to Charles Francis Adams, Jr. 17 July 1863. A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-1865, vol. 2, edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920, p. 54.
MacArthur’s solders had just executed a brilliant landing at Inchon cutting the North Korean forces. MacArthur, a man of great hubris, assured everyone that such a bold military stroke would certainly intimidate the Chinese Communists keeping them out of the conflict. He declared victory, and was more surprised than most when the Chinese did just the opposite of what he had assured they would do. Their troops crossed the Yalu river and attacked the American forces who suffered terrible casualties. The war was not over and the Third Division did not make it back to Fort Benning for Christmas. Many of the men never made it back at all. It would be over 50 years before another American official declared victory and when President George W. Bush did so in the Iraq War, the nation suffered the same fate—the victim of official leadership hubris.
Henry Brooks Adams was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. Presidents.
