From George Frederick Root's 1862 song 'The Battle-Cry of Freedom.'
1862; Gen Grant's response to Confederate General Simon B. Buckner's request for terms during the Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee; led to the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant (U.S. Grant).
Lincoln to Gen McClellan in an unsent letter.
Nickname for General McClellan
1862; Lincoln on General Grant in response to demands for his dismissal after the Battle of Shiloh.
1862; Gen McClellan, upon receiving Gen Robert Lee's plans for the invasion of the North.
A statement supposedly stated by Lincoln about Gen Burnside after disastrous military defeats; the quote actually comes from a mistaken attribution to Lincoln on the inside cover of the 'Jaws of Victory” by Charles Fair.
1862; Gen Robert E. Lee at Fredericksburg
1863; Emancipation Proclamation
A slogan in both the North, where a draftee could buy his way out of service for $300, and in the South, where slaveholders were given exemptions.
Gen Lee on Gen Stonewall Jackson, after the latter died, being accidentally shot by his own troops, and having had his left arm amputated in an attempt to save his life.
1863; General George Pickett, exhorting his men at Gettysburg
1863; General George Pickett, critizizing General Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, after 3000 men and all 15 regimental commanders were killed in a charge
1863; General Robert E. Lee to General Wilcox, accepting responsibility for defeat at Gettysburg, though it failed because expected support never materialized
1863: Alleged statement by General Robert E. Lee
1863; President Lincoln upon receiving General Grants news about the fall of Vicksburg, summing up the years accomplishments along the Mississippi River
1863; From President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
1863; 21-year-old Confederate spy Samuel Davis, facing execution if he did not reveal his source of secret military information.