His last words were:

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—.”

General John Sedgwick was a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. At the battle of the Wilderness, while inspecting his troops, he approached a parapet and peered out over the surrounding countryside. His officers and men urged him to take cover from small arms fire, but Sedgwick scoffed at their concerns, “What! What men! This will never do, dodging from single bullets!” As the general spoke his last words, he was shot in the head by a Confederate sharpshooter.