General David Petraeus quoting Ulysses S. Grant in the WaPo's On Leadership Video Series:
That's one of my favorite lines from the Civil War. It's vintage Grant, pure unperturbability in the face of chaos. Nor was it bravado: he turned his army right around the next morning and handed the rebels their ass, shoving them out of West Tennessee for the remainder of the war and establishing a safe base of operations against Vicksburg and the rest of the Western Theater. The last thing the Confederates were expecting to see on the morning of April 7, after knocking the Yankees around like tenpins the previous day, was to see those same Yankees pushing after them, full of fight. Not even Lee's masterful display at Chancellorsville the following year beats Shiloh for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
And that is a lesson about war that seems to need re-learning with every passing generation: it's not over until it's over. Afghanistan wasn't over in '03; Iraq wasn't over in '07. They're never over until one side stops fighting.
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