“Behind the rebel battle yells and the legendary spirit of the Confederate army, there was much reluctance to fight. A sympathetic historian of the South, E. Merton Coulter, asked "Why did the Confederacy fail? The forces leading to the defeat were many but they may be summed up in this one fact"The People did not will hard enough and long enough to win."Not money or soldiers, but willpower and morale were decisive.”

— Howard Zinn , book A People's History of the United States

Source: A People's History of the United States (1980), Ch.10, "The Other Civil War"

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Behind the rebel battle yells and the legendary spirit of the Confederate army, there was much reluctance to fight. A s…" by Howard Zinn?

Howard Zinn 69

author and historian 1922–2010

Related quotes

“Even in 1832 there were those in the South who confessed that the tariff was only a battlefield, not the war. If they did not fight their ground and win on the tariff, soon enough they would be fighting for something even closer to their hearths, slavery itself.”

William C. Davis (1946) American historian

Source: Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), p. 10

“It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Military Review (October 1948)

“Some Confederate soldiers switched sides, beginning as early as 1862. When Sherman made his famous march to the sea from Atlanta to Savannah, his army actually grew in number, because thousands of white southerners volunteered along the way. Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of the Confederate army disappeared through desertion. Eighteen thousand slaves joined Sherman, so many that the army had to turn some away. Compare these facts with the portrait common in our textbooks of Sherman's marauders looting their way through a united south. The increasing ideological confusion in the Confederate states, coupled with the increasing strength of the United States, helps explains the Union victory… Many nations and people have continued to fight with far inferior means and weapons… The Confederacy's ideological contradictions were its gravest liabilities, ultimately causing its defeat.”

James W. Loewen book Lies My Teacher Told Me

As quoted in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong https://books.google.com/books?id=5m23RrMeLt4C&pg=PT225&dq=%22Twenty+Nigger+Law%22+loewen&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitwZHxq7fKAhXFdR4KHVgMDrYQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=%22Twenty%20Nigger%20Law%22%20loewen&f=false (2007), New York: New Press, pp. 225–226
2000s, 2007, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (2007)

“I think it's time for all this discussion about the proper display of the Confederate flag, which in some quarters appears to obscure the enormity of the massacre at Charleston, to get to the heart of the matter. You tell me. Should the Confederate battle flag, including its versions as the Army of Northern Virginia flag, the Army of Tennessee flag, and the Confederate navy jack, be flown outside, period? Do you favor the removal of the Confederate flag flying on the grounds of the South Carolina State House? Why? If you believe that the flying of the Confederate battle flag on the grounds of the South Carolina State House should cease, are there any conditions when a Confederate battle flag should appear outside? Should the Confederate battle flag be banned from public display elsewhere? T-shirts, bumper stickers, headgear? Are your restrictions limited to the Confederate battle flag alone, or do they extend to other flags flown by the Confederacy, such as the trio of national flags?”

Brooks D. Simpson (1957) American historian

Brooks D. Simpson. "Simple Questions" https://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/simple-questions/ (21 June 2015), Crossroads, WordPress
2010s

“Beyond the war years the grim and tortured struggle of Negroes to win their own freedom is an epic of battle against frightful odds. If we have failed to do enough, it was not the will for freedom that was weak, but the forces against us which were too strong.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

“Anglican chaplains were remarkably out of touch with their troops. The Second Battalion chaplain, just before the Loos fighting, had preached a violent sermon on the Battle against Sin, at which one old soldier behind me had grumbled: "Christ, as if one bloody push wasn't enough to worry about at a time!"”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch. 17.

“My poetry is a declaration of war, not an exordium to defeat. It is not the defeated soldier's drumbeat of despair, but the fighting warrior's will to win. It is not the de-spirited voice of dejection but the stirring shout of victory.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

New York September 7, 2000 Asia Society Annual Dinner
Quotes from ataljee.org

“During the April battles the Armenian leadership was completely exposed because they suffered a heavy defeat and did not receive any political support. But, in fact, they relied on that support very much. And when they did not receive that support they, as usual, started to accuse different countries. At the end of the day, they were forced to admit their defeat in the April battles. First, they said that they did not lose the lands. Then they said that these lands are unimportant. Then they said that they will retake these territories. All this is totally untrue. The Armenian leadership has put itself in such a ridiculous situation that Armenia still feels grave consequences of this.”

Ilham Aliyev (1961) 4th President of Azerbaijan from 2003

While receiving a group of servicemen on the anniversary of the April victories of the Azerbaijani army (31 March 2017) http://en.apa.az/nagorno_karabakh/ilham-aliyev-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-is-azerbaijan-s-internal-affair.html
Nagorno-Karabakh

“Confederate soldiers from slaveholding families expressed no feelings of embarrassment or inconsistency in fighting for their own liberty while holding other people in slavery. Indeed, white supremacy and the right of property in slaves were at the core of the ideology for which Confederate soldiers fought”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

Source: 1990s, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 106
Context: These soldiers were using the word slavery in the same way that Americans in 1776 had used it to describe their subordination to Britain. Unlike many slaveholders in the age of Thomas Jefferson, Confederate soldiers from slaveholding families expressed no feelings of embarrassment or inconsistency in fighting for their own liberty while holding other people in slavery. Indeed, white supremacy and the right of property in slaves were at the core of the ideology for which Confederate soldiers fought.

“For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge -- including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now. Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought -- the cause of slavery -- was wrong -- the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Howard Zinn 69

Related quotes

Related topics