- Wishbone: Calves have got no cash value. Nothing but bother. All their Mas always bawling after 'em and riling up the herd. Either shoot 'em of beef them up for grub.
- Jesse Childress: Not old Buttermilk. Now look, Wishbone, you gonna take good care of little Buttermilk. You gotta keep her warm and safe and outta sight. Now you go ahead and rustle up some milk so she don't start missing her Mammy. Now you hear me. Go on.
- Wishbone: Overgrown lummix.
- Gil Favor: Cattle drive's mostly hard work, doin' without, bein' alone. It's warming yourself in a rainstorm with no fuel but buffalo chips, speadin' your duds on an anthill to get rid of the vermin. It's bein' and doin' things you don't rightly ask of two-legged humans, unless they're cowboys. Add discipline and loyalty to the list, all for thirty dollars a month. It's a big strain on a man. You have to expect something to give along the way, and bust wide open. I'm in a position to know. Gil Favor, trail boss.
- Rowdy Yates: I'll give you something to do, keep you busy all night. That's picking your teeth out of the back of your throat.
- Pete Nolan: Ah, you're pitiful, Boston. See, by the time that river goes down these cattle'll be so bone dry, they'll be rushing to get to that water. We won't have to push them so hard to get across.
- Narcie: If I know him and I should. He's up there polishing his medals. Or just looking back at the time when he was really something.
- Zachariah: [singing] Oo-oh Death is the man taking names, taking names. Oh, Death is the man taking names, taking names. Well, he took my master's name and has left my heart in pain. Yes, Death is the man taking names.
- Warren Millett: The Millett place is on the other side of town. You can't miss it. It looms up on the prairie like a mirage. But it's very real. A fading symbol of gracious life now vanished from the earth.
- Narcie: Why, Gil Favor has got more manhood in one little finger than your whole family line from John Smith and Pocahontas.
- Warren Millett: Stop it!
- Narcie: Just look at yourself, an overdressed windbag.
- Warren Millett: Your Lord and Master here knows I'm recruiting men of stout hearts to re-establish the Confederacy and a way of life that's dear to every Southener worthy of the name.
- Gil Favor: These men are trying to forget the war. You're wasting your breath.
- Jesse Childress: Go on talking, Miss Narcie, and promising things. You know, Miss Narcie, I could listen to you forever.
- Mayor Haslip: I've seen this town all through the war. I helped keep it alive. What we want is peace and a chance to build it up. You won't let us.
- Warren Millett: Would you dismiss this man, Captain Childers?
- Mayor Haslip: I'll kill anybody that tries to stop me from saying my piece. You, you keep telling us about living high on the hog somewhere in the jungle, a place no one ever heard of. You got all those people stirred up drilling and marching when they ought be working. And now you're bringing in these cowboys. What you got stewing around in that crazy mind of yours? STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!
- [as Narcie is striking him with a whip]
- Gil Favor: Don't even know his real name. Just Boston. Why didn't the fool kid say he couldn't swim?
- Pete Nolan: Do you remember Fredericksburg? Remember how those Yanks keep trying to come over that stone wall at Marye Heights? We felt ashamed at shootin' 'em down. But they kept coming. Well, reckon Northeners got their pride too.
- Warren Millett: Go on, drink up. To the power and the glory. A good drink dries up all the foolish, dull, and cruddy vapours environing the brain. It illumines the face and impels the heart to deeds of courage.
- Jesse Childress: Oh, Colonel, you said that real pretty.
- Warren Millett: So did someone else before me.