- Wadsworth Sr.: Life is hunger. Life is anger. Life is pain and dirt. Your grandfather knew life. He didn't recommend it. That's why we're rich.
- Stephen Crane: You're wounded, sir.
- Craig Wadsworth: A red badge of courage... it's not like your book, old man. I would have run if I could have.
- Stephen Crane: Why didn't you?
- Craig Wadsworth: Because they were watching, my fellows; they didn't run.
- Young Black Jack Pershing: [before the charge on San Juan Hill] Buffalo soldiers! This what they pay you thirteen dollars a month for!
- Henry Bardshar: A man's gotta do what he has to do, Sara.
- Sara Bardshar: Yeah, and a woman's got to do everything else.
- Wadsworth Sr.: To be wealthy, warm, and well-thought of... that's what a man really wants, if he's honest. And you have it.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: We've got the Yankees on the run!
- Lt. William Wheeler: Spaniards, sir; and they're falling back onto prepared positions.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Don't spoil it, son.
- Henry Bardshar: [Roosevelt has expressed concern over the upcoming attack] Don't worry, colonel; you're the closest thing most of these boys have to a father. We won't let you down.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: [after his shot was shot] I haven't had a horse shot out from under me in 30 years.
- [sigh]
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: It's still a Thrill.
- Woodbury Kane: [after shooting a Spaniard who tried to surrender] He who has no stomach for this fight, let him depart.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: This isn't a regulation war. That ain't how we do things here in the South.
- Secretary of State John Hay: General, you were one of the finest cavalry officers in the Confederacy.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: [shakes his head] Let me tell you something... Bedford Forrest had 32 horses shot out from under him, but he killed 33 Yankees.
- [chuckles]
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Forrest was better!
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: [after leaving an officer's conference] That General Shafter is way over his head... WAY over. And he's big as a house to boot!
- Lt. William Wheeler: I just hope you were polite in there, Daddy.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: What if I wasn't? What the hell are they gonna do to me?
- Lt. William Wheeler: I just meant that...
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Now, you listen to me, boy! I am a US Congressman, I am a volunteer, I am here on the personal request of the President of the United States... and I am a Reb!
- Lt. William Wheeler: I understand, Daddy...
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Now listen to me very closely... I have got these Yankees by the long johns!
- Col. Swayles: General Wheeler! I hope you won't mind this brief intrusion, but I'm Horatio Swayles. I was with the Union cavalry that opposed you in the fighting around Atlanta.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Nice to meet you. This is my son, William. You'll forgive me if I tell you that Atlanta isn't one of my fondest memories.
- Col. Swayles: Well, of course...
- [the Wheelers walk on]
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: [to William] I should have killed that son of a bitch long ago to keep him from breeding!
- Craig Wadsworth: [having tamed a horse Nash was unable to break] Spirited mount!
- Henry Nash: Well, I'll be damned... Where'd he learn to ride like that?
- Woodbury Kane: Craig Wadsworth is the finest polo player in the country. Do you play polo?
- Henry Nash: Oh, yeah, every day, right after my bubble bath!
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: [eating a stew] You stole this hog!
- [makes oinking noises, to the consternation of Wood and Roosevelt]
- Eli: We caught the gator and the snake.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Snake?
- Eli: Footless animal stew, sir.
- [chuckles]
- Gen. Shafter: Our transport ships haven't even got here yet! And now I hear supplies are still aboard trains? And our quartermaster tells me he has no idea WHICH trains! I've never seen anything like it. My God, I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime!
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: That's because nothing like this has ever happened in your lifetime.
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: [to McKinley] But don't worry too much about them people in the South. there's nothing they like better than a good fight.
- [laughs]
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Good day.
- [He starts to leave]
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Oh, we don't even celebrate the Fourth of July.
- [Guffaws]
- Gen. Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler: Maybe after this, we will.
- Woodbury Kane: It is the duty, the honor, of the patrician class to lead its countrymen by the sword.