Henry Clay Work Quotes

This is one of the documented examples of the use of the phrase “God is on our side.”

This was the same man who as a Senator only 4 years before threatened the North that the South was economically and militarily invincible.

Lincoln and the Union leaders were still hopeful of ending the rebellion and getting things back to a pre-war footing economically. At this point they were trying to preserve components of the Southern Economy at no small cost. As that hope was shown to be futile, the Total War strategy of Grant and Sherman prevailed to the satisfaction of men like Opdycke. That actually ended the war quickly, but the Southern Economy was devastated in the process.

First published as a poem in the Atlantic Monthly, February 1862

Two days later Lee surrendered at Richmond, and the Civil War was over. On April 14, Lincoln was assassinated. He died the next day.

This was a decade before there was a Civil War. Secession and war had been advocated by many Southerners for years before. Most people are not aware that the move toward secession did not suddenly appear when Lincoln was elected President. It had been festering for over a decade. The other importance of the quotation is that the Southernors knew perfectly well that their actions would lead to a civil war. Some Southern apologists claim that the South never saw their actions as treason, rebellion or the cause of a civil war. This quote shows that they well knew what they were doing and the result was exactly as most Southern leaders expected.

This is an important quotation because it helps to dispel a myth that the Civil War was not about slavery. That was the reason that the rebelling states gave for secession, but apologists for the Confederacy have claimed that the average soldier on both sides did not care about slavery. (Two thirds of the Southern Soldiers came from families that did not own slaves; nonetheless it was clear that the main motivation of the Confederate Soldier was to protect the institution of slavery, while that of the Union soldiers was to destroy slavery.) Professor Manning found this in her book: What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War.

The Virginia Campaign of May 1864 was clearly the beginning of the end of the war. This was clear at the time, not only to the military leaders of both sides, but also to the media and thence the general public in the North. At the beginning of the war the Army of the Potomac, the largest Union Army was commanded by McClellan whose concerns were with his own political career and not winning the war. He had an aversion to heavy fighting and did not see the war strategically as Lincoln, Grant and Sherman did: To cripple the capacity of the South to wage war. So the early history of the Army of the Potomac was a series of undecisive battles which were either standoffs or the Confederates won despite the much larger and better armed and equipped Union army. As soon as McClellan was replaced, things began to turn around and when Grant was selected for Command of all Union Troops, the Army of the Potomac performed much better, including taking Richmond, the Confederate Capital.

That is the way he was killed. The phrase, “We are bound to believe that, anyhow” indicates that Stuart really realized how futile the Southern war effort would be but loyalty and patriotism required him to suspend his rational belief structure.

The Civil War produced more deaths than all other American wars put together. Lee’s skill and gentlemanly demeanor subdue the fact that his treasonous efforts caused more American soldiers to die than the entire Second World War—and yet some Americans regard him as a hero while others see him as a traitor.

This cry echoed throughout the North where the public wanted a full invasion of the capital of the Confederacy to put an end to the rebellion. However is was not clear what effect that would have on the Border States—Maryland and Kentuucky—and many politicians thought that the South would “come to its senses” once they realized what they had done. But the South would not change its course, and the Union Generals in Command were very reluctant to actually invade the South. It was only after the South attacked in the North that the Union Military began to realize that this was a Civil War that would not be resolved politically.

He was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of this speech. Gladstone was certain about most of his views on foreign policy but correct on only some with many blunders on his watch. This view was very important for the Confederacy as it was a prerequisite to diplomatic recognition. The latter never came.

General Grant had just accepted the “Unconditional Surrender” of the 15,000 Confederate troops and 48 large cannon. Yet the South described the battle as a “standoff” and a “draw”. This quotation is very significant because it illustrates two very important dynamics of the Confederacy. First that the Southerners consistently lied to themselves and to each other about their situation in the war. Whether this was the elite manipulating the mass of the people or large scale self-delusion by most has been debated since. Second, Chesnut’s statement illustrates that it was common knowledge that the reports about the war were false and exaggerated for the Confederate side and just part of the extensive propaganda campaign of the Confederacy.