I once read a boffo quote in, IIRC, one of Bruce Catton’s (?) books about the start of the Civil War. I tried finding it on Google and in a military quote book, but I came up emptyhanded.
The line, I think, came from a retribution-seeking Northern politician or general (maybe right after Ft. Sumter) in response to those who still sought to avert a war with the South. He said:
"We will make a silence and call it peace."
Or something like that.
Does anyone know the exact quote, speaker (or author), date and circumstances?
I may want to use the line in the next few days/weeks and I want to get it right. Thanks all.
Apologies for the triple post, but I just wanted to point out that “solitudinum” is variously translated as solitude, silence, desert, and desolation in different English versions of the quote.
Wow-wee, this is getting interesting. Colibri thank you for your speedy and well-researched reply.
Much as I like the Tacitus/Galgacus quote, I’m pretty certain that “make a silence…” is what I read, and that it dates from the Civil War period. (No doubt, though, the “silence” speaker derived his words from the Tacitus/Galgacus quote.)
So, does anyone know more about the source of the “silence” quote?
I checked Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations last night, and the only cite listed is that for Tacitus. It may well have been recycled during the Civil War, but I can’t find anything on the web either. The only Bruce Catton book I have is Mr. Lincoln’s Army, and there doesn’t seem to be anything there.
