Famous last words

Funny story (more correctly, a cautionary one) from the Civil War (aka War of Northern Aggression -- altho since it began with the Confederacy firing on Fort Sumter, shouldn't it more properly be called "The War of Southern Aggression?")
Whichever -- the point is that arrogant bravado is never the exclusive property of one faction or another.

Consider Union General John Sedgwick at the Battle of the Spotsylvania Courthouse, May 9, 1864.

Sedgwick was directing artillery placements.

1864 -- the Union Army was convinced the war was pretty much all over.

Confederate sharpshooters were firing random shots from about 1,000 yards away and his staff and artillerymen were ducking for cover.

Sedgwick strode around in the open and said:

"What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

He repeated it a second time:

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."

And foreshadowing punchline timing of bad TV sitcoms by a century, he fell dead, killed instantly as a bullet hit him just below his left eye.