Ken Burns Quotes

In a very short time the army of Northern Virginia was face to face with the Army of the Potomac.

I am of Virginia and all my professional life I have studied of Lee and Jackson

I said I would remove him [Gen. George McClellan] if he let Lee's army get away from him and I must do so. He has got the slows.

General Sheridan says "If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender." Let the thing be pressed.

I was born about 80 years too late. If you were a kid in 1910, the Fourth of July was a big deal. You knew all about the Revolution, and you still had Civil War veterans.

Few generals were as brilliant as Robert E. Lee and few battles as titanic -- and puzzling -- as Gettysburg. Why did Lee fail? In Lost Triumph, Tom Carhart offers a bold and provocative new assessment. Agree or disagree, it is sure to stimulate debate among even the most seasoned Civil War buffs.

If you go to Gettysburg and take the time, maybe take a tour, maybe just drive around, read some of the monuments, read some of the plaques, you will come away changed.

That a great battle must soon be fought no one could doubt; but, in the apparent and perhaps real absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the precise scene of the encounter.

All quiet along the Potomac.

I don’t see how our country can produce such men as Robert E. Lee, John J Pershing, Eisenhower and Bradley and at the same time produce Custers, Pattons, and MacArthurs.

I regard it as a foregone conclusion that we shall ultimately whip the Yankees. We are bound to believe that, anyhow; but the war is going to be a long and terrible one, first. We've only just begun it, and very few of us will see the end. All I ask of fate is that I may be killed leading a cavalry charge

The war might be at an end this coming fall; but I see no probable end, so long as the present policy is continued. We are on a plantation of thirty-five hundred acres of excellent land, well cultivated, 500 acres in corn, in etc.: numbers of splendid horses, mules, and cattle, and hogs, all of which our army need badly; the owner is in the rebel service, doing all in his power to destroy our lives, while we protect his property.

In the great battle of Antietam, still the bloodiest day in American history, Union forces were led by Gen. George McClellan, an incredibly cautious man.

My great-grandfather and his two brothers fought at Gettysburg. They were in artillery, and they survived the war, thank goodness. So I revere what they did. I think their motivations were honorable when they undertook the war and participated in it along with other Southerners.

Lee tells his troops. After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.

Look at World War II, at Hitler's cruelty. The more cruelty, the more enthusiasm for revolution.

I'm reading "Team of Rivals'' I'll probably ending up reading a bunch of books about the Civil War. But I think my all-time favorite book about the war is the novel, "The Killer Angels'' by Michael Shaara.

When I read that I had to go to Gettysburg.

The Gettysburg Adress has been included, of late, in several anthologies of poetry. It actually meets the major requirement of all poetry: It is a mellifluous and emotional statement of the obviously not true. The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the Federals but the Confederates.

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.

Rations were scarcely issued, and the men about preparing supper, when rumors that the enemy had been encountered that day near Gettysburg absorbed every other interest, and very soon orders came to march forthwith to Gettysburg.

Not a moment had been lost by General Hooker in the pursuit of Lee.

I love general history. That's all I read really. I don't read novels, I read history. I love it. I live in an area that's really rich in Civil War history. I live in Kentucky on a farm. A lot of revolution, a lot of military history I love.

I was handed a chocolate bar and an M-1 rifle and told to go kill Hitler.

There were almost 11,000 American soldiers killed in Germany in April of 1945, the last full month of the war. That's almost as many as died in June, 1944. Right to the very end, it was absolutely brutal.