Dabney Herndon Maury

“ Take a boy of sixteen from his mother's apron strings, shut him up under constant surveillance for four years at West Point, send him out to a two company post upon the frontier where he does little but play games of seven-up and drink whiskey at the sutler's and by the time he is forty five years old he will furnish the most complete illustration of suppressed mental development of which human nature is capable, and many such specimens were made generals on both sides when the war began. ”

“ When the battle ended, eighteen thousand of them lay killed and wounded. No army of modern war in the Old World or the New ever suffered such a loss and won the field. The enemy's losses were very great, including five thousand prisoners. His own reports show that he began and fought the battle with forces superior to Bragg's. The reason given by the latter for not following up a victory so signal was, in Forrest's opinion, not justified by the facts of the condition of the two armies when the battle ended by the retreat from the field of the Federal army. ”

“ On hearing this, Taylor telegraphed Canby, "Please send that railroad official up here under guard to me." What was the horror of the man when a corporal and file of soldiers took him from his home and bore him up to Taylor, into whose presence he came with well grounded fear, for report said the general had shot men for less crimes than that. Taylor administered in his his fluent style such a tongue lashing as only he could utter, and concluded by saying: "You have often heard how an honest man feels when he falls among rogues. ”

“ There was then living in New Orleans a very wealthy and kindly Southern gentleman, who had conceived the hopeless idea of reconciling the opponents in the war about his dinner table, and whenever he gave a dinner he would invite as many Confederate gentlemen as Federal. ”