Quotations - North and South 1 Quiz

Answer: Mary Chestnut

Mary Chestnut is perhaps one of the most famous, if not the most famous, diarist of the war. This quote concerns the shelling of Fort Sumter.

Answer: Richard Kirkland

This could have been said by any number of troops on both sides of the war. Typically, we tend to look at the war as Union and Confederate forces trying to kill the other side. But there were plenty of instances on both sides where soldiers tried to lend aid and comfort to the enemy on the battlefield. Sergeant Kirkland of the 2nd SC became one of the most famous for doing so when, on December 13, 1862, he began carrying water to the Union wounded on the Fredricksburg battlefield or, more accurately, on the Marye's Heights section of the battlefield. To make his efforts all the more heroic, his commander had to refuse his request to use a white handkerchief, no doubt out of fear that Union forces would have erroneously thought Kirkland's handkerchief meant surrender of the Confederate Forces on that part of the field. Though Union forces at first shot at Kirkland, they soon realized what he was doing and permitted him to continue his mission of mercy unmolested.

Kirkland became known as the "Angel of Marye's Heights" and is honored today with a statue on the Fredricksburg battlefield depicting him bringing water to an injured foe. His personal mission lasted an hour and a half and earned him cheers from both sides.

Answer: Joseph Hooker

Perhaps Fighting Joe Hooker should have been praying for General Lee to have mercy on him instead. Or even better, for General Jackson. Chancellorsville certainly wasn't what Hooker expected.

Answer: Edward Everett

Everett had been the twentith Secretary of State in the early 1850s, serving under President Fillmore. In 1863 he was considered the greatest orator in the country and so was picked to the the principle speaker at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetary at Gettysburg, which had initially been scheduled for September 23 of that year. Everett requested the dedication be postponed so as to be able to produce a more appropriate speech, one that lasted two hours when given November 19th. However, it was Lincoln's two minute speech, known today as the Gettysburg Adress, which became the better remembered of the two.

Ironically, Lincoln was asked to speak almost as an afterthought and then asked just to give a few appropriate remarks.

Answer: John Jones

In May of 1863, Jones was a clerk in the Confederate War Department. No doubt he was looking at Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville where smaller Confederate forces defeated larger Union forces. In fact at Chancellorsville the Confederate Army was less than half the strength of the Union army. Both battles were humiliating defeats for the Union.

Answer: Barnard E. Bee

This is certainly one of the most famous quotes from the war. I don't know about kids in school today, but I can remember at least a couple of years where part of the lesson on the Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) explained this was why Jackson was called Stonewall Jackson.

Bee didn't have much of a war career beyond 1861 as he was killed during First Bull Run (First Manassas). Obviously, his death was after this quote was supposed to have been made.

Answer: Philip Kearny

Perhaps General Kearny was refering to war making young men and boys mature faster than they would at home, or perhaps he was sdimply refering to the fact that so many die young in a war. Whichever was the case, there certainly were a lot of men and boys who entered the war at a young age. Looking at author Burke Davis's "The Civil War: Strange and Fascinating Facts" turns up the following stats for the Union army: "more the 2 million were 21 and under, more than 1 million were 18 and under, about 800,000 were 17 and under, about 200,000 were 16 and under, about 100,000 were fifteen and under, 300 were thriteen and under, and 25 were 10 and under." Compare this to a study where out of a million men "16,000 were 44 and 46,000 were 25 and up." Davis does point out that the authorities differ on the statistics, and that most of the really young listed often ended up as musicians.

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

1862 certainly wasn't a good year for Lincoln. At least not in the east. Though there were victories, the failures outweighed them. Richmond hadn't been captured. Major armies in the east failed to destroy smaller forces. Delays gave Confederates time to dig in. Smaller Confederate forces managed to defeat larger Union forces at the battles such as the Seven Days, Second Bull Run (Second Manassas), and Fredricksburg. Jackson ran roughshod over Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley.

The biggest victory, one that was tactically inconclusive for both sides, came at Antietam. Yet McClellan failed there to follow up his victory with the utter defeat of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. With Burnside's utter defeat at Fredricksburg and the large number of casulties the battle incured on the Army of the Potomac, it's little wonder Lincoln would have felt this way at the end of the year.

Answer: Robert E. Lee

This seems rather prophetic, as well as insightful as to how both sides viewed the other. One has to wonder just how many in May of 1861 were thinking the war was going to be as long as it was. Certainly going into First Bull Run (First Manassas) many expected all it would take was one big battle and the other side would back down.

By the time it all ended in 1865 there had been more than the single large battle so many were expecting was all it would take back in 1861.

Answer: Mary Chestnut

It seems fitting that I end this quiz with a quote from the same person I started it with. Jefferson Davis made a similar quote to Mrs. Chestnut's upon learning of Lincoln's assassination. We will never know what Reconstruction would have been like if Lincoln had survived, but we learn what it was like for the South with him dead.