James Longstreet Quotes

• The next time we met was at Appomattox, and the first thing that General Grant said to me when we stepped inside, placing his hand in mine was, Pete, let us have another game of brag, to recall the days that were so pleasant. Great God! I thought to myself, how my heart swells out to such magnanimous touch of humanity. Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?

  James Longstreet

  Brother, War, Heart

  173 Copy quote

• Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.

  James Longstreet

  War, Errors, Truth Is

  90 Copy quote

• I have been a soldier all my life. I have commanded companies, I have commanded regiments. I have commanded divisions. And I have commanded even more. But there are no fifteen thousand men i the world that can go across that ground.

  James Longstreet

  War, Men, Soldier

  103 Copy quote

• Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?

  James Longstreet

  Brother, War, Fighting

  The New York Times, July 24, 1885.

  41 Copy quote

• The passions of the titanic struggle will finally enter upon the sleep of oblivion, and only its splendid accomplishments for the cause of human freedom and a united nation, stronger and richer in patriotism because of the great strife, will be remembered.

  James Longstreet

  Struggle, Passion, Sleep

  54 Copy quote

• I do not want to make this charge. I do not see how it can succeed. I would not make it now but that General Lee has ordered it and expects it.

  James Longstreet

  War, Want, Succeed

  39 Copy quote

• This is a hard fight and we had better all die than lose it.

  James Longstreet

  War, Fighting, Dies

  43 Copy quote

• My arm is paralyzed; my voice that once could be heard all along the line, is gone; I can scarcely speak above a whisper; my hearing is very much impaired, and sometimes I feel as if I wished the end would come; but I have some misrepresentations of my battles that I wish to correct, so as to have my record correct before I die.

  James Longstreet

  Voice, Wish, Battle

  47 Copy quote

• General, if you put every Union soldier now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, I will kill them all before they reach my line.

  James Longstreet

  War, Soldier, Unions

  52 Copy quote

• 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.

  James Longstreet

  Veterans Day, Our Veterans, Long

  38 Copy quote

• If the entire Union Army comes across here, I will kill them all!

  James Longstreet

  Military, Army, Unions

  29 Copy quote

• General, unless he offers us honorable terms, come back and let us fight it out!

  James Longstreet

  War, Fighting, Honorable

  35 Copy quote

• 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.

  James Longstreet

  Thinking, Views, Helping

  27 Copy quote

• I fancy that no good ideas upon that campaign will be mentioned at any time that did not receive their share of consideration by General Lee.

  James Longstreet

  Ideas, Campaigns, Fancy

  53 Copy quote

• If we only save the finger of one man, that's enough.

  James Longstreet

  War, Men, Enough

  11 Copy quote

• There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made and failed from the blows that could not be fended.

  James Longstreet

  Blow, Broken, Effort

  James Longstreet, Civil War Classics (2015). “From Manassas to Appomattox (Civil War Classics): Memoirs of the Civil War in America”, p.440, Diversion Books

  11 Copy quote

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