Ulysses S. Grant Quotes

Of your own indefatigable labor from early dawn and of your explicit instructions, that the batteries should reserve their ammunition, until the grand charge should commence, for which the enemy were undoubtedly preparing.

The only difficulty I had in declaring war arose from the incompetency of the men to whom the principle management of it was to be given.

Generals do not always run wars the way they would like to, nor the troops under them.

Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.

I believe that one can't command sitting on one's ass in the rear. One has to up among the forward brigade commanders, even as far as battalion commanders, especially if one is fighting a defensive action. One simply has to know what is going on.

We started at once to dig our trenches, half of my platoon stepping forward abreast, the men being placed an arm's length apart. After laying their rifles down, barrels pointing to the enemy, a line was drawn behind the row of rifles and parallel to it.

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

General Pickett, finding the battle broken while the enemy was still reinforcing, called the troops off.

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

'm a general, I do something. I go out and fight wars and win them.

Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.

Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men.

General Sherman looked upon journalists as a nuisance and a danger at headquarters and in the field, and acted toward them accordingly, then as throughout his great war career.

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts.

To go to war, you must always think of, can you win?

If we are going to win the next war, in my opinion, 50 percent of the time of training should be allotted to night training.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

Never try to take a fortified hill, especially if the Army on top is bigger than you are.

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.

Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle.

Falling little wind, it was five before I could form my line, or distinguish any of the enemy's motions; and could not judge at all of their force, more than by numbers, which were seventeen, and thirteen appeared large.

As Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, 'I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.'

As not infrequently happens in the affairs of war, it is easier to point out mistakes after they are committed, than to see and avoid them amid the difficulties and dangers by which the military commander is at the moment surrounded.

All military history records the triumphs of discipline and courage far more frequently than numbers and resources

The country is going to ruin for a want of a proper Head to the War Department.