All quiet along the Potomac to-night, no sound save the rush of the river, while soft falls the dew on the face of the dead, the picket's off duty forever.
When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.
There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare. There must be a battle, a brave boisterous battle, with pennants waving and cannon roaring, before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands.
The advantage of time and place in all practical actions is half a victory; which being lost is irrecoverable.
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
A battle won is a battle which we will not acknowledge to be lost.
My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.
France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war.
War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.
Pick battles big enough to matter, but small enough to win.
No battle is worth fighting except the last one.
In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win.
After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.
Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.