Skip to content

The risk of making a decision that's wrong is so enormous that sometimes it just crushes people so that they can't make any decision at all because they're afraid of making the wrong decision. And that's exactly what McClellan's problem was.

— James M. McPherson An Exchange With a Civil War Historian (1995)

Another quote →

More quotes by James M. McPherson

If Lincoln had been a failure, he would have lived a longer life.

James M. McPherson. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (2008)

Interpretations of the past are subject to change in response to new evidence, new questions asked of the evidence, new perspectives gained by the passage of time.

People are going to dislike you if you make a decision, even if it turns out to be the right one.

An Exchange With a Civil War Historian (1995)

The unending quest of historians for understanding the past — that is, 'revisionism' — is what makes history vital and meaningful.

The bottom line in the Civil War, after all is said and done, showed that every Confederate state was a slave state and every free state was a Union state. These facts were not a coincidence, and every Civil War soldier knew it.

All James M. McPherson quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James M. McPherson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.