Quote#Politics & Power
I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling…
Quote byNathan Bedford Forrest · 1821–1877
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Farewell address (1865).
English (original)
I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.
— Nathan Bedford Forrest
More from Nathan Bedford Forrest
Every moment lost is worth the life of a thousand men.
The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for two hundred yards. The approximate loss was upward of five hundred killed, but few of the officers escaping. My loss was about twenty killed. It is hoped that these facts will …
I am opposed to it under any and all circumstances, and in our convention urged our party not to commit themselves at all upon the subject.
When I entered the army I took forty-seven negroes into the army with me, and forty-five of them were surrendered with me. I said to them at the start: "This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free."
Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy, and here we are guarding a damned creek! Let's go and help them. What do you say?
War means fighting, and fighting means killing.