“General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.”

— James Longstreet

As quoted in General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier: A Biography https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0671709216 (1993), by Jeffry D. Wert, New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 283

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James Longstreet5

Confederate Army general 1821–1904

Michael Shaara book The Killer Angels

General Robert E. Lee, Part IV, CH 5: Longsteet, p.361
The Killer Angels (1974)

“In all my years as a soldier, I have never seen men fight so hard.”

Wilhelm Bittrich (1894–1979) German general

Commenting on the British Paratroopers at Arnhem (September 1944). Quoted in "Hitler's Generals" - Page 327 - by Correlli Barnett - History - 2003

“A nation fights well in proportion to the amount of men and materials it has. And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past.”

Norman Mailer book The Naked and the Dead

Gen. Edward Cummings, in Pt. 1, Ch. 6
The Naked and the Dead (1948)

“Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

As quoted in "International Arbitration" by W. H. Dellenback in The Commencement Annual, University of Michigan (30 June 1892) and in A Half Century of International Problems: A Lawyer's Views (1954) by Frederic René Coudert, p. 180.
Context: Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences, instead of keeping large standing armies as they do in Europe.

“My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Speech to the Third Army (1944)

“I state that the conduct. of the Negro soldier in Normandy, as well as all over Europe, was disgraceful, and that Negro soldiers have disgraced ·the fiag of their country. They consti-tute roughly one-twelfth of the Ameri-can Army, yet they are guilty ·of more than half tpe crime in-the Army.”

James Eastland (1904–1986) American politician

1940s

“one of my soldiers can handle three Communist soldiers”

Ma Hongkui (1892–1970) Republic of China general

China on the eve of Communist takeover, A. Doak Barnett, 1968, Praeger, 194, 2010-06-28 http://books.google.com/books?id=kt0gAAAAIAAJ&q=ma+hung-k'uei&dq=ma+hung-k'uei&hl=en&ei=GqCqTJ3FD4GC8gb66-XXBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA,

“Though I have been trained as a soldier, and participated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences, instead of keeping large standing armies as they do in Europe.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

“The soldier and the army, not Parliamentary majorities and decisions, have welded the German Empire together. I put my trust in the army.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Speech (18 April 1891), quoted in Michael Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times (London: Penguin, 1975), p. 158
1890s

“"I'm a Soldier, not a bloody clerk! I fetch bloody forage, count bloody shovels, and take punishment drills. It's yes, sir, no, sir, can I dig your latrine, sir, and it's not bloody soldiering!" "It is bloody soldiering! What the hell else do you think soldiering is? Do you think you can win a war without forage? Or without shovels? Or, God help us, without latrines? That is soldiering! Just because you've been allowed to swan about like a bloody pirate for years doesn't mean you shouldn't take your turn at real work."”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and Major Michael Hogan, p. 114
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Company (1982)

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