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The Centennial History of the Civil War #3
Never Call Retreat
The final volume of Bruce Catton's monumental Centennial History of the Civil War traces the war from Fredericksburg through the succeeding grim and relentless campaigns to the Courthouse at Appomattox and the death of Lincoln.
This is an eloquent study of the bitterest years of the war when death slashed the country with a brutality unparalleled in the history of the United States. Through the kaleidoscope tone and temper of the struggle, two men, different in stature, but similar in dedication to their awesome tasks, grappled with the burden of being leaders both in politics and war. In the north Lincoln remained resolute in the belief that a house divided against itself could not stand. His determination and uncanny vision of the destiny of the country and its people far transcended the plaguing tensions, fears, and frustrations of his cabinet and Congress. Mr. Lincoln’s use of vast resources is brilliantly contrasted to Davis’s valiant struggle for political and economic stability in a hopelessly fragmented and underdeveloped south. Though Davis never lacked for spirit and dedication, his handicaps were severe. This was not a war to be won by static ideals and romanticism. As Mr. Lincoln managed to expand and intensify the ideals that sustained the Northern war effort, Mr. Davis was never able to enlarge the South’s. This was a war to be won by flexibility in though, strength in supplies, and battles. And so they were fought––Fredericksburg, The Wilderness, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg.
This is an eloquent study of the bitterest years of the war when death slashed the country with a brutality unparalleled in the history of the United States. Through the kaleidoscope tone and temper of the struggle, two men, different in stature, but similar in dedication to their awesome tasks, grappled with the burden of being leaders both in politics and war. In the north Lincoln remained resolute in the belief that a house divided against itself could not stand. His determination and uncanny vision of the destiny of the country and its people far transcended the plaguing tensions, fears, and frustrations of his cabinet and Congress. Mr. Lincoln’s use of vast resources is brilliantly contrasted to Davis’s valiant struggle for political and economic stability in a hopelessly fragmented and underdeveloped south. Though Davis never lacked for spirit and dedication, his handicaps were severe. This was not a war to be won by static ideals and romanticism. As Mr. Lincoln managed to expand and intensify the ideals that sustained the Northern war effort, Mr. Davis was never able to enlarge the South’s. This was a war to be won by flexibility in though, strength in supplies, and battles. And so they were fought––Fredericksburg, The Wilderness, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Gettysburg.
558 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
About the author
Bruce Catton
383 books327 followersBruce Catton was a distinguished American historian and journalist, best known for his influential writings on the American Civil War. Renowned for his narrative style, Catton brought history to life through richly drawn characters, vivid battlefield descriptions, and a deep understanding of the political and emotional forces that shaped the era. His accessible yet meticulously researched books made him one of the most popular historians of the twentieth century.
Born in Petoskey, Michigan, and raised in the small town of Benzonia, Catton grew up surrounded by Civil War veterans whose personal stories sparked a lifelong fascination with the conflict. Though he briefly attended Oberlin College, Catton left during World War I and served in the U.S. Navy. He later began a career in journalism, working as a reporter, editor, and Washington correspondent. His experience in government service during World War II inspired his first book, The War Lords of Washington (1948).
Catton achieved national acclaim with his Army of the Potomac trilogy—Mr. Lincoln’s Army (1951), Glory Road (1952), and A Stillness at Appomattox (1953)—the last of which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award. He went on to publish a second trilogy, The Centennial History of the Civil War, and contributed two volumes to a biography of Ulysses S. Grant, begun by Lloyd Lewis. His other notable works include This Hallowed Ground, The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, and Waiting for the Morning Train, a memoir of his Michigan boyhood.
In 1954, Catton became the founding editor of American Heritage magazine, further shaping the public’s understanding of U.S. history. In 1977, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Catton’s legacy endures through his vivid portrayals of America’s most defining conflict and his enduring influence on historical writing.
Born in Petoskey, Michigan, and raised in the small town of Benzonia, Catton grew up surrounded by Civil War veterans whose personal stories sparked a lifelong fascination with the conflict. Though he briefly attended Oberlin College, Catton left during World War I and served in the U.S. Navy. He later began a career in journalism, working as a reporter, editor, and Washington correspondent. His experience in government service during World War II inspired his first book, The War Lords of Washington (1948).
Catton achieved national acclaim with his Army of the Potomac trilogy—Mr. Lincoln’s Army (1951), Glory Road (1952), and A Stillness at Appomattox (1953)—the last of which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award. He went on to publish a second trilogy, The Centennial History of the Civil War, and contributed two volumes to a biography of Ulysses S. Grant, begun by Lloyd Lewis. His other notable works include This Hallowed Ground, The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, and Waiting for the Morning Train, a memoir of his Michigan boyhood.
In 1954, Catton became the founding editor of American Heritage magazine, further shaping the public’s understanding of U.S. history. In 1977, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Catton’s legacy endures through his vivid portrayals of America’s most defining conflict and his enduring influence on historical writing.
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January 15, 2020
This book is the final installment of Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War trilogy. It covered the period from late 1862 to the surrender of Lee's army and Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 to the end of the Confederacy in May 1865 with the surrender of the last rebel army.
Ten years of research and writing went into this project and the end result is evident. This book and the trilogy as a whole give a comprehensive account of all aspects of the Civil War down to minute details such as the use of trip wires during combat which I found quite interesting.
This was a very readable and educational experience for me. Highly recommended to new and experienced Civil War buffs alike.
Ten years of research and writing went into this project and the end result is evident. This book and the trilogy as a whole give a comprehensive account of all aspects of the Civil War down to minute details such as the use of trip wires during combat which I found quite interesting.
This was a very readable and educational experience for me. Highly recommended to new and experienced Civil War buffs alike.
February 8, 2022
No one will ever know what Abraham Lincoln would have ever done...because it was at this delicate moment...that Booth came on stage with his derringer. Booth pulled the trigger and the mind that held somewhere in cloudy solution the elements that might some day have crystallized into an answer for the nation's most profound riddle disintegrated under the impact of one ounce pellet of lead: the heaviest bullet, all things considered, ever fired in America. Thinking to destroy a tyrant, Booth managed to destroy a man who was trying to create a broader freedom for all men; with him, he destroyed also the chance for a transcendent peace made without malice and with charity for all. Over the years, many people paid a high price for this violence.
Lincoln evolves as the ultimate hero in this series of books by Bruce Catton, the greatest American Civil War author in our nation's history. This was the third installment of Catton's brilliant history of the Civil War written for our nation's Centennial of that event. This book begins with Fredericksburg and ends with the surrender of Lee and Johnson and the capture of Jefferson Davis (a man who Lincoln would have rather let escape, never to be heard from again in exile).
The series begins roughly in 1860, covering the conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties. Lincoln is introduced as a compromise candidate at the Republican convention. He is nominated because of his obscurity and, as his campaign manager says, "the least prominent" of all candidates. He takes office, starting with a whistle stop tour where he makes a series of awkward speeches and is referred to as the "original gorilla" by members of his cabinet and by his most important General officer. However, we begin to see the growth of the man, with his brilliant Emancipation Proclamation etc. and as he begins to grasp all things political and military. When Lee commences to invade the Union a second time, to initiate the Gettysburg Campaign, Catton describes the ultimate showdown:
Although Lee did not know it and could not have been expected to know it, his real opponent now was Abraham Lincoln, a man not trained for command, but none the less, commanding. No one on either side saw Lee's advance into Pennsylvania quite as Mr. Lincoln did. He recognized it, of course, as a dire threat, but he also saw it as a limitless opportunity for the Union cause. He had grasped a strategic point of importance: When a Confederate Army left its own territory and went north it exposed itself to outright destruction. It could be cut off, forced to fight its way out of a trap, and in the end removed from the board; by the mere act of invasion it risked its very existence, and the chief responsibility of the Federal commander was to ensure that what was risked was lost.
Catton goes on to explain that Lincoln couldn't get Generals to see it this way. He couldn't get McClellan in Maryland or Buell in Kentucky to recognize this, and two Confederate armies had escaped. As a civilian and not a trained military man, Lincoln couldn't be sure he was right, and the military men were wrong, but the thought grew on him. Upon the conclusion at Gettysburg, The President was frustrated by another Union General. This time it was George Gordon Meade:
The Presidents feeling of frustration began when he read a congratulatory order Meade issued after Gettysburg, inviting the army to keep up the good work and to "drive the invader from our soil." To Secretary John Hay Mr. Lincoln exploded angrily: "Will our generals never get that idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil." (The Union was endangered, not because Lee's army was in Pennsylvania, but because Lee's army existed at all.)
Finally, Lincoln appoints Grant to Lieutenant General. Grant employs a strategy of a coordinated total war that Lincoln has been pushing for since shortly after First Bull Run. As Lincoln would say to Grant just prior to Appomattox, "Let the thing be pressed." Lincoln evolves before the readers eyes from country bumpkin to master Statesmen, grand-strategist, and visionary for a modern Union.
The war finally ends. The author points out that that many Civil Wars have ended far worse. There was no guillotine for the defeated. It is a tribute to both Lee and Johnson that they forbid their men from fighting a guerilla campaign that would have prolonged the suffering. It is too bad that Lincoln was killed in his hour of triumph, because I think that reconstruction could have been implemented more effectively.
I've went on way to long, but I'd like to say in closing that this series of books was an excellent account of our nation's Civil War. In it, you can understand how war aims and goals evolved. You can see how emancipation evolved as an idea to something that could be implemented and became the ultimate goal (along with reunification) and requirement of the successful conclusion of the war. This book organizes all the military campaigns, politics, and supporting events, in chronological order, in a readable, quotable, and very entertaining, three volume set. It is a great book for students of military history, that need a broader understanding of the years 1860-1865. I find myself reading too many books about a certain campaign or even one day of a certain battle (my next book on the docket is "Picket's Charge" by Tucker for example). You need to read a comprehensive book or series of books like this series in order to tie all events together. It is also a great read for students of the history of Civil Rights and would be a very good selection for Black History Month.
Lincoln evolves as the ultimate hero in this series of books by Bruce Catton, the greatest American Civil War author in our nation's history. This was the third installment of Catton's brilliant history of the Civil War written for our nation's Centennial of that event. This book begins with Fredericksburg and ends with the surrender of Lee and Johnson and the capture of Jefferson Davis (a man who Lincoln would have rather let escape, never to be heard from again in exile).
The series begins roughly in 1860, covering the conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties. Lincoln is introduced as a compromise candidate at the Republican convention. He is nominated because of his obscurity and, as his campaign manager says, "the least prominent" of all candidates. He takes office, starting with a whistle stop tour where he makes a series of awkward speeches and is referred to as the "original gorilla" by members of his cabinet and by his most important General officer. However, we begin to see the growth of the man, with his brilliant Emancipation Proclamation etc. and as he begins to grasp all things political and military. When Lee commences to invade the Union a second time, to initiate the Gettysburg Campaign, Catton describes the ultimate showdown:
Although Lee did not know it and could not have been expected to know it, his real opponent now was Abraham Lincoln, a man not trained for command, but none the less, commanding. No one on either side saw Lee's advance into Pennsylvania quite as Mr. Lincoln did. He recognized it, of course, as a dire threat, but he also saw it as a limitless opportunity for the Union cause. He had grasped a strategic point of importance: When a Confederate Army left its own territory and went north it exposed itself to outright destruction. It could be cut off, forced to fight its way out of a trap, and in the end removed from the board; by the mere act of invasion it risked its very existence, and the chief responsibility of the Federal commander was to ensure that what was risked was lost.
Catton goes on to explain that Lincoln couldn't get Generals to see it this way. He couldn't get McClellan in Maryland or Buell in Kentucky to recognize this, and two Confederate armies had escaped. As a civilian and not a trained military man, Lincoln couldn't be sure he was right, and the military men were wrong, but the thought grew on him. Upon the conclusion at Gettysburg, The President was frustrated by another Union General. This time it was George Gordon Meade:
The Presidents feeling of frustration began when he read a congratulatory order Meade issued after Gettysburg, inviting the army to keep up the good work and to "drive the invader from our soil." To Secretary John Hay Mr. Lincoln exploded angrily: "Will our generals never get that idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil." (The Union was endangered, not because Lee's army was in Pennsylvania, but because Lee's army existed at all.)
Finally, Lincoln appoints Grant to Lieutenant General. Grant employs a strategy of a coordinated total war that Lincoln has been pushing for since shortly after First Bull Run. As Lincoln would say to Grant just prior to Appomattox, "Let the thing be pressed." Lincoln evolves before the readers eyes from country bumpkin to master Statesmen, grand-strategist, and visionary for a modern Union.
The war finally ends. The author points out that that many Civil Wars have ended far worse. There was no guillotine for the defeated. It is a tribute to both Lee and Johnson that they forbid their men from fighting a guerilla campaign that would have prolonged the suffering. It is too bad that Lincoln was killed in his hour of triumph, because I think that reconstruction could have been implemented more effectively.
I've went on way to long, but I'd like to say in closing that this series of books was an excellent account of our nation's Civil War. In it, you can understand how war aims and goals evolved. You can see how emancipation evolved as an idea to something that could be implemented and became the ultimate goal (along with reunification) and requirement of the successful conclusion of the war. This book organizes all the military campaigns, politics, and supporting events, in chronological order, in a readable, quotable, and very entertaining, three volume set. It is a great book for students of military history, that need a broader understanding of the years 1860-1865. I find myself reading too many books about a certain campaign or even one day of a certain battle (my next book on the docket is "Picket's Charge" by Tucker for example). You need to read a comprehensive book or series of books like this series in order to tie all events together. It is also a great read for students of the history of Civil Rights and would be a very good selection for Black History Month.
May 11, 2013
Now that I'm at the end of the trilogy (this one covers post-Antietam to Appomattox), I continue to be in awe of Bruce Catton and I think I've figured out why.
1) He excels at putting you in the time and place. He allows the events to unfold and provides a great deal of background into how seemingly disparate actions tie together.
2) He deals with the various twists and turns without resorting to overly-dramatic story-telling. So many authors jump from drama to drama; Mr. Catton tells the story in between those dramatic high points so that the reader is given an opportunity to see the causes and the motivations and the reservations and the fears that led to the next dramatic high point. Some readers may object that he doesn't get too much into the details of the dramatic high point itself, but I think that Mr. Catton respected his readers enough to assume that they are already aware of the basic outline of the story and the details of such battles as Gettysburg or the Wilderness.
3) His characters are not men of marble, but men of clay. Lincoln is not perpetually wise; he sometimes stumbles towards his final solutions to problems. Grant does not come east with a ready-made plan to end the war; he has to try various tactics before he figures out how to beat Lee. Lee is not always the brilliant strategist and tactician; he is as reliant on information (and on the incompetence of his opposition) as anyone would have to be in order to be successful in his position.
All-in-all, this is a thoroughly wonderful read and I will one more time assert that anyone who has not read Mr. Catton's work does not have a very deep understanding of the American Civil War.
1) He excels at putting you in the time and place. He allows the events to unfold and provides a great deal of background into how seemingly disparate actions tie together.
2) He deals with the various twists and turns without resorting to overly-dramatic story-telling. So many authors jump from drama to drama; Mr. Catton tells the story in between those dramatic high points so that the reader is given an opportunity to see the causes and the motivations and the reservations and the fears that led to the next dramatic high point. Some readers may object that he doesn't get too much into the details of the dramatic high point itself, but I think that Mr. Catton respected his readers enough to assume that they are already aware of the basic outline of the story and the details of such battles as Gettysburg or the Wilderness.
3) His characters are not men of marble, but men of clay. Lincoln is not perpetually wise; he sometimes stumbles towards his final solutions to problems. Grant does not come east with a ready-made plan to end the war; he has to try various tactics before he figures out how to beat Lee. Lee is not always the brilliant strategist and tactician; he is as reliant on information (and on the incompetence of his opposition) as anyone would have to be in order to be successful in his position.
All-in-all, this is a thoroughly wonderful read and I will one more time assert that anyone who has not read Mr. Catton's work does not have a very deep understanding of the American Civil War.
September 20, 2021
This is the third book in Bruce Catton's trilogy "The Centennial History of the Civil War," after (1) "The Coming Fury," and (2) "Terrible Swift Sword." Like the others, it is well-written and full of rich details. And not just facts, but the author's commentary with interesting insights.
The surrender at Appomattox is a super-famous historical event that is covered in many other books. But I never understood the immediate lead-up to that event till now. Catton covers how Lee's dwindling army was trapped near the Appomattox River by Sheridan, whose troops arrived in the nick of time and blocked Lee's only hope -- the supply train coming from Lynchburg--as his army was starving and deserting. This scene produced a whole range of emotions -- elation at the Union victory, yet also a sense of pain, tragedy, suffering.
This is history at its best. You can't find fiction any better.
I'd intended to start Catton's other trilogy, "Army of the Potomac," and got sidetracked. Now I will start that trilogy. If there's any repetition between the two, that's fine, as my bad memory needs repetition!
This trilogy is highly recommended, if you want to delve deep into the Civil War!
The surrender at Appomattox is a super-famous historical event that is covered in many other books. But I never understood the immediate lead-up to that event till now. Catton covers how Lee's dwindling army was trapped near the Appomattox River by Sheridan, whose troops arrived in the nick of time and blocked Lee's only hope -- the supply train coming from Lynchburg--as his army was starving and deserting. This scene produced a whole range of emotions -- elation at the Union victory, yet also a sense of pain, tragedy, suffering.
This is history at its best. You can't find fiction any better.
I'd intended to start Catton's other trilogy, "Army of the Potomac," and got sidetracked. Now I will start that trilogy. If there's any repetition between the two, that's fine, as my bad memory needs repetition!
This trilogy is highly recommended, if you want to delve deep into the Civil War!
January 27, 2019
The third volume in Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War may be the best of the three. Although there is plenty of action and the major battles are properly recounted, Catton does not engage in in-depth military analysis and detailed examination of battle plans and tactics. This is not his primary focus. More than any other historian I've read, Catton covers exhaustively the social and political happenings throughout all of America, North and South, throughout the different phases of the Civil War. It is this aspect which makes this master work so meaningful and insightful to read. This volume begins with the Emancipation Proclamation and takes us through the end of the War. Many unsettled questions remain at the close, with the country at large feeling carried along by events and not quite understanding what is to come next. I am inspired to study Reconstruction, because the ending of this book makes clear that the entire nation, not just the South, will undergo a vast social and political reconstruction over the years to follow. Lincoln, during his Gettysburg address, had spoken of a new birth of freedom for all, for generations to come. He was taken from us before he could finish developing, articulating, and applying this grand notion...and a lot of pain followed for a lot of people for a lot of years. I highly recommend this three volume history of the Civil War. Although all three volumes together total somewhere around 1,500 pages, it doesn't seem long at all.
July 8, 2026
I read this book shortly after purchasing it at a local bookstore in 1984. It marked my introduction to Civil War history beyond what little I had learned about it in high school.
Bruce Catton provides a brilliant exposition of the war itself (with photos and maps), on its various fronts, from late 1862 to President Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 shortly after Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox, which ended the war.
Bruce Catton provides a brilliant exposition of the war itself (with photos and maps), on its various fronts, from late 1862 to President Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 shortly after Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox, which ended the war.
November 5, 2009
Anyone who has been reading Civil War history for years becomes disillusioned and dismayed, like the combatants themselves, charging when fresh but plodding when weary, yet somehow always renewed for the next battle just over the hill: further explanation. No book, no set of books, no lifetime of books will ever serve to encompass the Civil War. There is no way to contain the understanding and let it be. Bruce Catton's trilogy reads like the mighty campaign it must have been at the time--launched in 1955, in the shadow of Brown vs. Board of Education, and consummated in 1965, the year after the Civil Rights Act--and if none of it goes to waste, all of it is still not enough.
Catton is of the highly readable strain. He also is a writer of battles, generals and strategies, with some wonderful insights about history as well as some silences that, to a 21st-century reader, seem odd. He is Southern-flavored, not grossly but consistently, and the reader will hear stirring music when Catton writes about Lee, Forrest, Stuart and the rest of the gray knights (Union generals, even Grant, are only grudgingly praised, and their achievements are usually attributed to luck where the Confederates are cited for skill). There are magnolias and a coda to the Lost Cause. Sherman is brutal and sinister, but the brutality of the slave system is never raised.
Catton is good at many of the ironies; Robert E. Lee kept the Confederacy alive and fighting much longer than otherwise; is he honorable for his fatal fidelity? Would the South have kept its slaves and its defiance indefinitely if it had quit sooner, on better terms, without Lee's leadership? Was Lee's generalship, which led to hundreds of thousands more lost lives on both sides, a sacrifice that helped pay for the slaves' freedom?
He is not good at some other ironies. He mentions several times the multimillion-dollar schemes to repay the South for its lost slaves, never once raising the idea that the slaves themselves might have been due something for their stolen lives.
A book like "Battle Cry of Freedom" will give you more of the sinews of wartime, and less of the romance. "Lincoln at Gettysburg" is a much better explanation of the ideology and political transformation, and the power of Lincoln's words and ideas. Catton's trilogy, by contrast, gives pride of place to the fighting, and the back-and-fro surges of both sides' military fortunes.
It might be unfair to point out, given the universe of books purely about Lincoln, that Lincoln is barely visible in Catton's history. But honestly, at times he seems like a bit player. When he does appear, he seems venal, semi-competent, driven by events. (And yes, Lincoln did confess that he was driven by events more than he drove them, but he doesn't deserve to be as peripheral and unsubtle as he appears here.) Yes, Jefferson Davis also comes off poorly, but still it's true that the Confederates with their unrebutted claims to being the true guardians of constitutional liberty seem to get the best soundtrack from Catton.
Lee's surrender ... Catton does it extraordinarily well. Even if Lee were to be bumped off his pedestal, as Catton does not, this is a powerful, eerie moment. The gray soldiers marching out of camp, vanishing like ghosts into an undreamed-of country. The author's point that if Lee had not delivered an almost godlike capitulation the nation could have dissolved into decades of freelance butchery and division ... The breach closed, in the end, bloodlessly ... except that the 21st-century reader thinks of something, and someone, else.
The blacks. They are most absent from Catton's story. They never speak (one or two "Glory!"s when Lincoln visits fallen Richmond). They never act, except to drift and wait. They are "the Negro," enlisted in the Federal forces, dragooned in the end into the Confederate ... and left sitting, passively, by the wayside, as the book concludes. No violence visits them, no lynchings await, no poll taxes, in Catton's telling; all is blank. There is no Underground Railroad, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Juneteenth, or Harriet Tubman. Surely Catton would have made this right had he written a decade or two later.
And now on to the Reconstruction ...
Catton is of the highly readable strain. He also is a writer of battles, generals and strategies, with some wonderful insights about history as well as some silences that, to a 21st-century reader, seem odd. He is Southern-flavored, not grossly but consistently, and the reader will hear stirring music when Catton writes about Lee, Forrest, Stuart and the rest of the gray knights (Union generals, even Grant, are only grudgingly praised, and their achievements are usually attributed to luck where the Confederates are cited for skill). There are magnolias and a coda to the Lost Cause. Sherman is brutal and sinister, but the brutality of the slave system is never raised.
Catton is good at many of the ironies; Robert E. Lee kept the Confederacy alive and fighting much longer than otherwise; is he honorable for his fatal fidelity? Would the South have kept its slaves and its defiance indefinitely if it had quit sooner, on better terms, without Lee's leadership? Was Lee's generalship, which led to hundreds of thousands more lost lives on both sides, a sacrifice that helped pay for the slaves' freedom?
He is not good at some other ironies. He mentions several times the multimillion-dollar schemes to repay the South for its lost slaves, never once raising the idea that the slaves themselves might have been due something for their stolen lives.
A book like "Battle Cry of Freedom" will give you more of the sinews of wartime, and less of the romance. "Lincoln at Gettysburg" is a much better explanation of the ideology and political transformation, and the power of Lincoln's words and ideas. Catton's trilogy, by contrast, gives pride of place to the fighting, and the back-and-fro surges of both sides' military fortunes.
It might be unfair to point out, given the universe of books purely about Lincoln, that Lincoln is barely visible in Catton's history. But honestly, at times he seems like a bit player. When he does appear, he seems venal, semi-competent, driven by events. (And yes, Lincoln did confess that he was driven by events more than he drove them, but he doesn't deserve to be as peripheral and unsubtle as he appears here.) Yes, Jefferson Davis also comes off poorly, but still it's true that the Confederates with their unrebutted claims to being the true guardians of constitutional liberty seem to get the best soundtrack from Catton.
Lee's surrender ... Catton does it extraordinarily well. Even if Lee were to be bumped off his pedestal, as Catton does not, this is a powerful, eerie moment. The gray soldiers marching out of camp, vanishing like ghosts into an undreamed-of country. The author's point that if Lee had not delivered an almost godlike capitulation the nation could have dissolved into decades of freelance butchery and division ... The breach closed, in the end, bloodlessly ... except that the 21st-century reader thinks of something, and someone, else.
The blacks. They are most absent from Catton's story. They never speak (one or two "Glory!"s when Lincoln visits fallen Richmond). They never act, except to drift and wait. They are "the Negro," enlisted in the Federal forces, dragooned in the end into the Confederate ... and left sitting, passively, by the wayside, as the book concludes. No violence visits them, no lynchings await, no poll taxes, in Catton's telling; all is blank. There is no Underground Railroad, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Juneteenth, or Harriet Tubman. Surely Catton would have made this right had he written a decade or two later.
And now on to the Reconstruction ...
October 7, 2023
Volume 1: The Coming Fury
Volume 2: Terrible Swift Sword
Volume 3: Never Call Retreat
This is a comprehensive overview of the American Civil War, written by a man with a gorgeous prose style who did his research. I don't agree with him everywhere---he's far more enamored of Robert E. Lee than I am, and he hasn't entirely let go of the idea that the American Civil War had a shred of romance in it, although for the most part he is very good on the terrible cost of the war on both sides---but I love his writing and I love the control he has over his material: he goes back and forth from theater to theater, and from North to South, and I don't think I was ever confused. He does a great job with Mr. Lincoln's progress from "I will never interfere with slavery in states where it is already established" through the Emancipation Proclamation to "no, really, all men are created equal, how about that Thirteenth Amendment?" tracing the change step by step. This is a military and political history written in the 60s, so it's almost all about the viewpoints of white men (he quotes Mary Boykin Chesnut a couple of times, Frederick Douglass I think once), but you know how the train is going to roll when you buy your ticket.
Given that it's sixty years old and concomitantly dated, I do think this is a good place to start if you want to know more about the American Civil War.
Volume 2: Terrible Swift Sword
Volume 3: Never Call Retreat
This is a comprehensive overview of the American Civil War, written by a man with a gorgeous prose style who did his research. I don't agree with him everywhere---he's far more enamored of Robert E. Lee than I am, and he hasn't entirely let go of the idea that the American Civil War had a shred of romance in it, although for the most part he is very good on the terrible cost of the war on both sides---but I love his writing and I love the control he has over his material: he goes back and forth from theater to theater, and from North to South, and I don't think I was ever confused. He does a great job with Mr. Lincoln's progress from "I will never interfere with slavery in states where it is already established" through the Emancipation Proclamation to "no, really, all men are created equal, how about that Thirteenth Amendment?" tracing the change step by step. This is a military and political history written in the 60s, so it's almost all about the viewpoints of white men (he quotes Mary Boykin Chesnut a couple of times, Frederick Douglass I think once), but you know how the train is going to roll when you buy your ticket.
Given that it's sixty years old and concomitantly dated, I do think this is a good place to start if you want to know more about the American Civil War.
November 17, 2022
Excellent read - as always the narrative is most interesting when involving Grant or Sherman.
I felt this ending to the Centennial Trilogy was just a notch below any of the volumes in the Army of Potomac trilogy.
4 to 4.5 stars
I felt this ending to the Centennial Trilogy was just a notch below any of the volumes in the Army of Potomac trilogy.
4 to 4.5 stars
July 10, 2026
Never Call Retreat (1965) is Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bruce Catton’s third installment in his three-volume Centennial History of the Civil War, covering the campaigns of the war’s final years that turned the tide decisively in favor of the Union through Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in 1865. (See my review of the first two installments here and here.) Displaying his characteristic lyrical narrative style—with florid prose, driving rhythm, and the emotional resonance of a great novel—Catton once again delivers a poetic ballad of the denouement of the nation’s defining conflict. Where The Coming Fury chronicles the failure of compromise and the descent into war, and Terrible Swift Sword depicts the conflict’s escalation into a revolutionary struggle, Never Call Retreat captures its inevitable conclusion, as the Union’s overwhelming resources, the relentless pressure of its generalship, and Lincoln’s steady political leadership unceasingly compelled Confederate surrender.
Compared with the two preceding volumes, Never Call Retreat places greater emphasis on battlefield maneuver and grand strategy while retaining Catton’s unsparing judgments of the strengths and shortcomings of the commanders who shaped the conflict. By late 1862, despite periodic battlefield triumphs, the Confederacy was displaying ominous signs of impending defeat, which Catton attributes largely to a fractured high command and a collection of mutually incompatible generals. Victories at Fredericksburg and Murfreesboro were, in his view, "top-heavy" and costly: the Confederates failed to destroy the Federal armies while exhausting the offensive momentum that had sustained their early successes. At the same time, the tightening Federal blockade, a rapidly depreciating currency, mounting inflation, and the collapse of hopes for European recognition steadily eroded the Confederacy's ability to sustain the war.
The Confederacy's single enduring advantage, and the beneficiary of Catton's highest praise once again, was Robert E. Lee's tactical brilliance, audacity, and instinct for seizing the initiative even when the odds appeared insurmountable. Lee’s willingness to take "preposterous chances" at Chancellorsville, despite being outnumbered nearly two to one, produced what Catton regarded as his finest battlefield performance. Splitting his army and relentlessly pressing Hooker, Lee became, in Catton’s memorable formulation, the center of gravity of the campaign: "Wherever Lee was, the center of the stage was there and not elsewhere." Chancellorsville, he continues, was “Lee’s battle, all the way.”
On the Union side, recruitment and conscription continued apace, but the Army of the Potomac remained hobbled by indecisive leadership. Ambrose Burnside proved incapable of commanding the army because, in Catton’s blunt assessment, he "lacked competence," and morale deteriorated rapidly following the disaster at Fredericksburg. His successor, Joseph Hooker, brought "driving energy" and "insatiable ambition," yet lacked the battlefield poise that distinguished truly great commanders, remaining what Catton called merely a "hard-boiled soldier." Despite enjoying substantial numerical superiority, Hooker squandered his advantages and suffered a preventable defeat at Chancellorsville, ending a tenure that lasted only four months. In the western theater, Catton likewise criticizes William Rosecrans for a McClellanesque reluctance to act, arguing that his hesitation in pursuing Bragg’s army "helped the Confederacy much more than it helped the Union."
The emotional and narrative climax of Never Call Retreat is Gettysburg, where Catton brings his lyrical gifts fully to bear in capturing the great, accidental collision of two armies locked in a struggle of unprecedented destruction. The battle was "improvised, unpremeditated as a chain of lightning, searing and scarring both armies." It stood as a testament to "what men can nerve themselves to attempt and what they can compel themselves to endure." Catton’s prose at the height of the fighting is among the most memorable in Civil War literature:
Gettysburg marked the Confederacy’s high-water mark, after which defeat became a matter of time rather than possibility. While Lee retreated across the Potomac with an army permanently stripped of its offensive capacity, Grant was driving relentlessly down the Mississippi, exploiting every opportunity presented to him. After capturing Vicksburg on Independence Day 1863, he turned east to help drive Confederate forces from Tennessee before assuming command of the campaign against Richmond. Capitalizing on what Catton describes as the Union’s "almost unlimited funds" of military power, Grant steadily ground the Confederacy into exhaustion. Catton captures Grant’s strategic philosophy with characteristic brevity: "When Grant showed up things began to happen." He also emphasizes the remarkable partnership between Grant and Lincoln, portraying Grant as the first commanding general in whom Lincoln could place complete confidence.
The closing chapters recount events that have since become woven into the fabric of American history: Sherman’s ferocious March to the Sea, which Catton memorably describes as "a wild Halloween brawl" that tore at the Confederacy’s roots; Sheridan’s devastation of the Shenandoah Valley; and Grant’s brutal siege of Petersburg and Richmond, which consumed more than 75,000 casualties before Lee finally evacuated the Confederate capital and surrendered at Appomattox. Even as the armies fought their final battles, Lincoln was already looking beyond victory, pressing forward with plans to restore the seceded states and secure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. With the nation poised uncertainly between triumph and reconciliation, Catton brings his magnificent trilogy to its close. From political dissolution to revolutionary war, from battlefield victory to the first tentative steps toward reunion, few historians have captured the tragedy of the Civil War with the literary grace and historical perception than Catton’s Centennial History of the Civil War.
Compared with the two preceding volumes, Never Call Retreat places greater emphasis on battlefield maneuver and grand strategy while retaining Catton’s unsparing judgments of the strengths and shortcomings of the commanders who shaped the conflict. By late 1862, despite periodic battlefield triumphs, the Confederacy was displaying ominous signs of impending defeat, which Catton attributes largely to a fractured high command and a collection of mutually incompatible generals. Victories at Fredericksburg and Murfreesboro were, in his view, "top-heavy" and costly: the Confederates failed to destroy the Federal armies while exhausting the offensive momentum that had sustained their early successes. At the same time, the tightening Federal blockade, a rapidly depreciating currency, mounting inflation, and the collapse of hopes for European recognition steadily eroded the Confederacy's ability to sustain the war.
The Confederacy's single enduring advantage, and the beneficiary of Catton's highest praise once again, was Robert E. Lee's tactical brilliance, audacity, and instinct for seizing the initiative even when the odds appeared insurmountable. Lee’s willingness to take "preposterous chances" at Chancellorsville, despite being outnumbered nearly two to one, produced what Catton regarded as his finest battlefield performance. Splitting his army and relentlessly pressing Hooker, Lee became, in Catton’s memorable formulation, the center of gravity of the campaign: "Wherever Lee was, the center of the stage was there and not elsewhere." Chancellorsville, he continues, was “Lee’s battle, all the way.”
On the Union side, recruitment and conscription continued apace, but the Army of the Potomac remained hobbled by indecisive leadership. Ambrose Burnside proved incapable of commanding the army because, in Catton’s blunt assessment, he "lacked competence," and morale deteriorated rapidly following the disaster at Fredericksburg. His successor, Joseph Hooker, brought "driving energy" and "insatiable ambition," yet lacked the battlefield poise that distinguished truly great commanders, remaining what Catton called merely a "hard-boiled soldier." Despite enjoying substantial numerical superiority, Hooker squandered his advantages and suffered a preventable defeat at Chancellorsville, ending a tenure that lasted only four months. In the western theater, Catton likewise criticizes William Rosecrans for a McClellanesque reluctance to act, arguing that his hesitation in pursuing Bragg’s army "helped the Confederacy much more than it helped the Union."
The emotional and narrative climax of Never Call Retreat is Gettysburg, where Catton brings his lyrical gifts fully to bear in capturing the great, accidental collision of two armies locked in a struggle of unprecedented destruction. The battle was "improvised, unpremeditated as a chain of lightning, searing and scarring both armies." It stood as a testament to "what men can nerve themselves to attempt and what they can compel themselves to endure." Catton’s prose at the height of the fighting is among the most memorable in Civil War literature:
“What came out of this on July 2 was a tremendous battle that settled nothing, except for the thousands on both sides who were shot, and possibly for their next of kin. Lee’s army, the incomparable instrument for finding and exploiting weak spots, struck on this day against strong points and wore itself out. It pounded the Federal left, head-on and heads-down, in a peach orchard and a wheat field and in the craggy ravines of a tumbled rock pile known as Devil’s Den, and a Confederate who watched from the steeple of the Lutheran Seminary could see little but a dense fog bank of shifting gunsmoke that hid fields and woods and fighting men; a fog bank that was forever sparkling and pulsing with the sharp red flames from the muzzles of invisible cannon, whose gunners found that this fight was even worse than Antietam itself, the battle they always remembered as Artillery Hell.”
Gettysburg marked the Confederacy’s high-water mark, after which defeat became a matter of time rather than possibility. While Lee retreated across the Potomac with an army permanently stripped of its offensive capacity, Grant was driving relentlessly down the Mississippi, exploiting every opportunity presented to him. After capturing Vicksburg on Independence Day 1863, he turned east to help drive Confederate forces from Tennessee before assuming command of the campaign against Richmond. Capitalizing on what Catton describes as the Union’s "almost unlimited funds" of military power, Grant steadily ground the Confederacy into exhaustion. Catton captures Grant’s strategic philosophy with characteristic brevity: "When Grant showed up things began to happen." He also emphasizes the remarkable partnership between Grant and Lincoln, portraying Grant as the first commanding general in whom Lincoln could place complete confidence.
The closing chapters recount events that have since become woven into the fabric of American history: Sherman’s ferocious March to the Sea, which Catton memorably describes as "a wild Halloween brawl" that tore at the Confederacy’s roots; Sheridan’s devastation of the Shenandoah Valley; and Grant’s brutal siege of Petersburg and Richmond, which consumed more than 75,000 casualties before Lee finally evacuated the Confederate capital and surrendered at Appomattox. Even as the armies fought their final battles, Lincoln was already looking beyond victory, pressing forward with plans to restore the seceded states and secure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. With the nation poised uncertainly between triumph and reconciliation, Catton brings his magnificent trilogy to its close. From political dissolution to revolutionary war, from battlefield victory to the first tentative steps toward reunion, few historians have captured the tragedy of the Civil War with the literary grace and historical perception than Catton’s Centennial History of the Civil War.
June 15, 2018
It would have been difficult for Bruce Catton to top the first two books of his Civil War trilogy, but he manages to put out yet another piece of high quality writing. Never Call Retreat, the concluding chapter of this nuanced look at a war which ran up a butcher's bill north of 600,000 Americans, is nothing short of outstanding.
Never Call Retreat starts out telling the story of the Army of the Potomac's defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Any loss for the North was bad for morale, but this defeat was particularly gut wrenching when Fredericksurg's proximity to Washington is taken into account. Desperate for good news from the battle front, President Lincoln once again was given the opposite of positivity.
Following on the heels of this was yet another Virginian debacle for the Union, this time delivered at the Battle of Chancellorsville. This Confederate victory, however, was quite costly for their own side's morale: Stonewall Jackson would be unintentionally shot and killed by one of his own men during the fury of battle. These wins were among the top moments for Robert E. Lee as head of the Confederate army; Southern military dominance would not long endure.
The bumbling nature of the Army of the Potomac prior to the arrival of Ulysses S. Grant was underscored throughout numerous defeats/failures to follow up on victories; General Joseph Hooker's at times dysfunctional relationship with General Henry Halleck only compounded the frustrations that began with George McClellan's failure to win a swift victory at the war's outset.
Once again, Catton does not overlook the importance of western operations to the Civil War's ultimate outcome. Based in the Tennessee theater, General William Rosecrans's troops were in a critical position to hold off the South's efforts, led in that arena by General Braxton Bragg, to gain a lasting foothold.
Interestingly, one of the generals underneath Bragg was John C. Breckinridge, the former U.S. vice-president-turned-rebel-turncoat. New Year's Day 1863 in the Western theater began with the back and forth between these men's Southern and Federal troops during the Battle of Stone's River, a conflict which turned from a surefire Confederate victory into what was considered to ultimately be a technical loss. Despite the stealth attacks of Confederate cavalry leader Joe Wheeler, Rosecrans stared defeat in the face and, according to Lincoln, gave the Federals a "hard-earned victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over."
This western theater "W" was followed up by possibly the biggest one of all: Grant's siege and taking over of the Southern fort at Vicksburg. The trouble he went through to force General Pemberton to surrender it was monstrous; utilizing William Sherman's troops, the Union forces slowly worked their way west through Mississippi, facing tough fighting against the rebel army as they made progress toward Vicksburg. Despite setbacks, the effort to take over the fort on the Mississippi River was ultimately a success. It represented the only portion of the Mississippi River still controlled by the Confederacy; once this fell to Grant in July 1863, the South was cut in half.
Vicksburg was joined on nearly the same day that July by the Union's victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, a bloody clash in southern Pennsylvania which served as the costliest battle (in terms of casualties) of the war.
Always willing to roll the dice and wanting to follow up on victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Robert E. Lee felt that a rebel presence in an undeniably Union state would cause a fearful Northern public to beg for terms of surrender. The battle-culminating in George Pickett's suicidal charge on a position staked out by Union troops-was part of a one-two gut punch (alongside Pemberton's surrender of Vicksburg) that turned the tide of the war.
True to form in the eastern theater, the Union Army (this time under George Meade) failed to follow up on Gettysburg by trapping Lee's army on its way out of Pennsylvania and back through Maryland, leaving a knockout follow-up to the big win sitting on the table. Despite this, the remainder of the war would steadily turn in the North's direction. Boasting superior numbers, a better industrial base, and finally some momentum, the South would slowly be ground down by the better-positioned federals. Despite scoring a victories Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, and some lesser battles, the war after mid-1863 would turn in the North's direction.
Wanting to ensure that his Emancipation Proclamation, issued as a war measure and made public after the Battle of Antietam, was set in stone, Lincoln pushed for a constitutional amendment banning slavery as the war wound down. This would go on to become the thirteenth amendment.
He also tried an experiment, unpopular with the Radical Republicans, at reconstructing the Southern states in a not-excessively-vengeful manner. Federally occupied portions of Louisiana would be a guinea pig for Lincoln's ten percent plan, whereby a state could rejoin the Union if they outlawed the practice of slavery and ten percent of their electorate pledged support for the Union. Looking toward the rebuilding of the south after the war and the remade country that would inevitably come out of the ashes of it, Lincoln wanted to reconcile with the South instead of brutally punishing it for secession. It was too bad no one told John Wilkes Boothe this, as his killing of Lincoln actually moved the balance of power away from Lincoln's more moderate postwar approach and into the hands of the Radicals.
Little anecdotes here and there keep the narrative moving, and the story of Clement Vallandigham makes for a fascinating tale. Vallandingham was an Ohio lawmaker furious with what he perceived to be the stomping on the Constitution engaged in by Lincoln and the Republicans; a war they claimed was being waged to save the Constitution was, through habeus corpus suspension and suppression of free speech, ruining it according to the judgment of Vallandigham and the Copperheads he represented. The authorities did little to erase his fears; General Ambrose Burnside, commander in the theater that encompassed Vallandigham's state of Ohio, jailed Congressman Vallandingham for "discouraging the war effort." Lincoln would eventually intervene to ensure he was not imprisoned as a martyr, but he spoke for a portion of the Northern electorate unhappy with a war they felt was being waged by inappropriate means.
Copperheads like Vallandigham would ultimately nominate George McClellan as their candidate in the 1864 presidential election. Running as a War Democrat willing to compromise with the South, the demoted Army of the Potomac commander (and fierce Lincoln critical all the while) was unenthusiastic about freedom for African-Americans, while at the same time unwilling to see secession used as a tool to settle disagreements. He would be willing to reach a deal to prevent the former while punishing the latter.
McClellan would be crushed by Lincoln at the ballot box, delivering a verdict in the negative on their anxiousness to settle with the Confederacy. This defeat, however, was probably not the low moment for their movement; furious over how the draft was set up, a number of New Yorkers would riot during the summer of 1863, targeting African-Americans (people they partly blamed for the draft's necessity following Lincoln's announcement of emancipation as a primary war aim) and those they associated with aiding the Northern war effort. The rioters would even burn down a black orphanage in their fury; the violence would be quelled by Union Army members on their way back from the Gettysburg battlefield.
In addition to those of the North, Southern leaders are given ample coverage by Catton as well. Confederate vice-president Alexander Stephens is painted as a unique man, constantly digressing from Jefferson Davis's decisions and rarely holding back when it came to voicing his strong opinions. Davis himself comes across as too inflexible to be a successful wartime leader, demonstrating flashes of leadership but in the end unable to do the near impossible of rallying the South to victory. At the conclusion, the willingness of men like Robert E. Lee to surrender and not allow the war to continue as sporadic guerrilla warfare after Appomattox preserves some semblance of statesmanship on the part of men engaged in treason against their country's government.
Grant's willingness to not be petty at Appomattox, allowing Lee to surrender with some form of dignity, mirrored the treatment of Joe Johnston's men after his surrender to William Sherman in North Carolina a little later in April 1865. Sherman would actually be criticized in the northern press for being too lenient on Johnston's men, an interesting side note considering few Georgians would have considered him too kindly toward the South after his March to the Sea.
The final quarter of the book details the Confederacy's downward trajectory. With Ulysses S. Grant brought east to oversee the Army of the Potomac's operations, the North finally has an aggressive leader in place who will do what it takes to gain an all-out victory (the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant did not exist out of whole cloth). The horrible fighting at the Battle of the Wilderness, part of Grant's campaign toward Richmond, was written about in captivating detail by Catton; fighting in the densely forested portion of Virginia gave the Confederates an advantage, as it would any military fighting essentially a defensive war on their own ground. Despite this, Grant's men are able to overcome setbacks on their way to a bruising victory over the Army of Northern Virginia.
The strong leadership Grant gave the Army of the Potomac was juxtaposed against the reaction some had when they first saw him; expecting a brawny, brash general, many were surprised when they first met Grant to see him as an unassuming, no-airs man. Ultimately he would lead the capture of Petersburg, then Richmond, causing the Confederacy to see the writing on the wall. Phil Sheridan's cavalry raids into the Shenandoah Valley had left the South's valuable supply lines in shambles, and William Sherman's sacking of Georgia demoralized the South even more. Secretive peace talks between Lincoln and agents from the South reach full force as Grant moved in on the Confederate capital, and things would be all but official when Lee and Grant came face-to-face at Appomattox.
Catton wrote this trilogy to enlighten his readers on the horrors of the Civil War, and he maintained a larger view of the conflict aside from just battle movements and casualty totals. The larger meaning of the war-a remaking of the country and a change in the war Americans viewed the meaning of freedom-was never lost sight of. This trilogy earned its place in the upper echelon of Civil War historical narratives.
Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
Never Call Retreat starts out telling the story of the Army of the Potomac's defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Any loss for the North was bad for morale, but this defeat was particularly gut wrenching when Fredericksurg's proximity to Washington is taken into account. Desperate for good news from the battle front, President Lincoln once again was given the opposite of positivity.
Following on the heels of this was yet another Virginian debacle for the Union, this time delivered at the Battle of Chancellorsville. This Confederate victory, however, was quite costly for their own side's morale: Stonewall Jackson would be unintentionally shot and killed by one of his own men during the fury of battle. These wins were among the top moments for Robert E. Lee as head of the Confederate army; Southern military dominance would not long endure.
The bumbling nature of the Army of the Potomac prior to the arrival of Ulysses S. Grant was underscored throughout numerous defeats/failures to follow up on victories; General Joseph Hooker's at times dysfunctional relationship with General Henry Halleck only compounded the frustrations that began with George McClellan's failure to win a swift victory at the war's outset.
Once again, Catton does not overlook the importance of western operations to the Civil War's ultimate outcome. Based in the Tennessee theater, General William Rosecrans's troops were in a critical position to hold off the South's efforts, led in that arena by General Braxton Bragg, to gain a lasting foothold.
Interestingly, one of the generals underneath Bragg was John C. Breckinridge, the former U.S. vice-president-turned-rebel-turncoat. New Year's Day 1863 in the Western theater began with the back and forth between these men's Southern and Federal troops during the Battle of Stone's River, a conflict which turned from a surefire Confederate victory into what was considered to ultimately be a technical loss. Despite the stealth attacks of Confederate cavalry leader Joe Wheeler, Rosecrans stared defeat in the face and, according to Lincoln, gave the Federals a "hard-earned victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over."
This western theater "W" was followed up by possibly the biggest one of all: Grant's siege and taking over of the Southern fort at Vicksburg. The trouble he went through to force General Pemberton to surrender it was monstrous; utilizing William Sherman's troops, the Union forces slowly worked their way west through Mississippi, facing tough fighting against the rebel army as they made progress toward Vicksburg. Despite setbacks, the effort to take over the fort on the Mississippi River was ultimately a success. It represented the only portion of the Mississippi River still controlled by the Confederacy; once this fell to Grant in July 1863, the South was cut in half.
Vicksburg was joined on nearly the same day that July by the Union's victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, a bloody clash in southern Pennsylvania which served as the costliest battle (in terms of casualties) of the war.
Always willing to roll the dice and wanting to follow up on victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Robert E. Lee felt that a rebel presence in an undeniably Union state would cause a fearful Northern public to beg for terms of surrender. The battle-culminating in George Pickett's suicidal charge on a position staked out by Union troops-was part of a one-two gut punch (alongside Pemberton's surrender of Vicksburg) that turned the tide of the war.
True to form in the eastern theater, the Union Army (this time under George Meade) failed to follow up on Gettysburg by trapping Lee's army on its way out of Pennsylvania and back through Maryland, leaving a knockout follow-up to the big win sitting on the table. Despite this, the remainder of the war would steadily turn in the North's direction. Boasting superior numbers, a better industrial base, and finally some momentum, the South would slowly be ground down by the better-positioned federals. Despite scoring a victories Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, and some lesser battles, the war after mid-1863 would turn in the North's direction.
Wanting to ensure that his Emancipation Proclamation, issued as a war measure and made public after the Battle of Antietam, was set in stone, Lincoln pushed for a constitutional amendment banning slavery as the war wound down. This would go on to become the thirteenth amendment.
He also tried an experiment, unpopular with the Radical Republicans, at reconstructing the Southern states in a not-excessively-vengeful manner. Federally occupied portions of Louisiana would be a guinea pig for Lincoln's ten percent plan, whereby a state could rejoin the Union if they outlawed the practice of slavery and ten percent of their electorate pledged support for the Union. Looking toward the rebuilding of the south after the war and the remade country that would inevitably come out of the ashes of it, Lincoln wanted to reconcile with the South instead of brutally punishing it for secession. It was too bad no one told John Wilkes Boothe this, as his killing of Lincoln actually moved the balance of power away from Lincoln's more moderate postwar approach and into the hands of the Radicals.
Little anecdotes here and there keep the narrative moving, and the story of Clement Vallandigham makes for a fascinating tale. Vallandingham was an Ohio lawmaker furious with what he perceived to be the stomping on the Constitution engaged in by Lincoln and the Republicans; a war they claimed was being waged to save the Constitution was, through habeus corpus suspension and suppression of free speech, ruining it according to the judgment of Vallandigham and the Copperheads he represented. The authorities did little to erase his fears; General Ambrose Burnside, commander in the theater that encompassed Vallandigham's state of Ohio, jailed Congressman Vallandingham for "discouraging the war effort." Lincoln would eventually intervene to ensure he was not imprisoned as a martyr, but he spoke for a portion of the Northern electorate unhappy with a war they felt was being waged by inappropriate means.
Copperheads like Vallandigham would ultimately nominate George McClellan as their candidate in the 1864 presidential election. Running as a War Democrat willing to compromise with the South, the demoted Army of the Potomac commander (and fierce Lincoln critical all the while) was unenthusiastic about freedom for African-Americans, while at the same time unwilling to see secession used as a tool to settle disagreements. He would be willing to reach a deal to prevent the former while punishing the latter.
McClellan would be crushed by Lincoln at the ballot box, delivering a verdict in the negative on their anxiousness to settle with the Confederacy. This defeat, however, was probably not the low moment for their movement; furious over how the draft was set up, a number of New Yorkers would riot during the summer of 1863, targeting African-Americans (people they partly blamed for the draft's necessity following Lincoln's announcement of emancipation as a primary war aim) and those they associated with aiding the Northern war effort. The rioters would even burn down a black orphanage in their fury; the violence would be quelled by Union Army members on their way back from the Gettysburg battlefield.
In addition to those of the North, Southern leaders are given ample coverage by Catton as well. Confederate vice-president Alexander Stephens is painted as a unique man, constantly digressing from Jefferson Davis's decisions and rarely holding back when it came to voicing his strong opinions. Davis himself comes across as too inflexible to be a successful wartime leader, demonstrating flashes of leadership but in the end unable to do the near impossible of rallying the South to victory. At the conclusion, the willingness of men like Robert E. Lee to surrender and not allow the war to continue as sporadic guerrilla warfare after Appomattox preserves some semblance of statesmanship on the part of men engaged in treason against their country's government.
Grant's willingness to not be petty at Appomattox, allowing Lee to surrender with some form of dignity, mirrored the treatment of Joe Johnston's men after his surrender to William Sherman in North Carolina a little later in April 1865. Sherman would actually be criticized in the northern press for being too lenient on Johnston's men, an interesting side note considering few Georgians would have considered him too kindly toward the South after his March to the Sea.
The final quarter of the book details the Confederacy's downward trajectory. With Ulysses S. Grant brought east to oversee the Army of the Potomac's operations, the North finally has an aggressive leader in place who will do what it takes to gain an all-out victory (the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant did not exist out of whole cloth). The horrible fighting at the Battle of the Wilderness, part of Grant's campaign toward Richmond, was written about in captivating detail by Catton; fighting in the densely forested portion of Virginia gave the Confederates an advantage, as it would any military fighting essentially a defensive war on their own ground. Despite this, Grant's men are able to overcome setbacks on their way to a bruising victory over the Army of Northern Virginia.
The strong leadership Grant gave the Army of the Potomac was juxtaposed against the reaction some had when they first saw him; expecting a brawny, brash general, many were surprised when they first met Grant to see him as an unassuming, no-airs man. Ultimately he would lead the capture of Petersburg, then Richmond, causing the Confederacy to see the writing on the wall. Phil Sheridan's cavalry raids into the Shenandoah Valley had left the South's valuable supply lines in shambles, and William Sherman's sacking of Georgia demoralized the South even more. Secretive peace talks between Lincoln and agents from the South reach full force as Grant moved in on the Confederate capital, and things would be all but official when Lee and Grant came face-to-face at Appomattox.
Catton wrote this trilogy to enlighten his readers on the horrors of the Civil War, and he maintained a larger view of the conflict aside from just battle movements and casualty totals. The larger meaning of the war-a remaking of the country and a change in the war Americans viewed the meaning of freedom-was never lost sight of. This trilogy earned its place in the upper echelon of Civil War historical narratives.
Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
Want to Read
October 4, 2021Triumphant finale of Catton’s Civil War centennial trilogy, condensing the huge mass of history that happened between Fredericksburg and Appomattox into one manageable volume.
As with the earlier parts, the author manages to weave together complex political arguments, vivid action scenes, acute personal insights and a few of his own reflections about a war still much misunderstood to this day. It is great editing as much as great writing, but the elegant, rhythmic prose does carry us along most effortlessly.
It was most instructive to learn that Sherman’s March to the Sea had originally been proposed by George Thomas, adding yet more lustre to the record of that modest and under-rated general. Also that the disastrous Red River campaign had been urged by Banks, as he denied furiously afterwards. (I had always assumed it was Halleck’s fault, knowing how smoothly he always managed to deflect blame, but now we find that Banks was a master of the same dubious military art).
It is well-known that Sherman was incommunicado for six weeks in Georgia because the telegraph wires had been cut, but we aren’t told whether they’d been cut by the enemy to isolate him, or by Sherman as part of his scorched-earth policy. Also the question of why McClernand’s private army on the Mississippi had to be kept secret from Grant, in whose area it was operating. It seemed to be something to do with personal politics between Grant, Lincoln and Halleck, also touched with the traditional mistrust between New Englanders and the Northwestern ascendancy (Ohio and Indiana), but it managed to miss me anyway.
Inevitably these later campaigns portray the slow, inexorable tilt against the Confederates, increasingly barefoot and starving (as southerners still like to boast defiantly), but also deserting en masse (as they don’t).
Like many other histories from sixty years ago, there is a tendency to talk hopefully to the effect that ‘mankind is learning its lesson’, which would earn a hollow laugh today. But otherwise this major history is up there alongside Shelby Foote’s brilliant 3-volume effort - touching the roof of the mind, yet accessible to all.
As with the earlier parts, the author manages to weave together complex political arguments, vivid action scenes, acute personal insights and a few of his own reflections about a war still much misunderstood to this day. It is great editing as much as great writing, but the elegant, rhythmic prose does carry us along most effortlessly.
It was most instructive to learn that Sherman’s March to the Sea had originally been proposed by George Thomas, adding yet more lustre to the record of that modest and under-rated general. Also that the disastrous Red River campaign had been urged by Banks, as he denied furiously afterwards. (I had always assumed it was Halleck’s fault, knowing how smoothly he always managed to deflect blame, but now we find that Banks was a master of the same dubious military art).
It is well-known that Sherman was incommunicado for six weeks in Georgia because the telegraph wires had been cut, but we aren’t told whether they’d been cut by the enemy to isolate him, or by Sherman as part of his scorched-earth policy. Also the question of why McClernand’s private army on the Mississippi had to be kept secret from Grant, in whose area it was operating. It seemed to be something to do with personal politics between Grant, Lincoln and Halleck, also touched with the traditional mistrust between New Englanders and the Northwestern ascendancy (Ohio and Indiana), but it managed to miss me anyway.
Inevitably these later campaigns portray the slow, inexorable tilt against the Confederates, increasingly barefoot and starving (as southerners still like to boast defiantly), but also deserting en masse (as they don’t).
Like many other histories from sixty years ago, there is a tendency to talk hopefully to the effect that ‘mankind is learning its lesson’, which would earn a hollow laugh today. But otherwise this major history is up there alongside Shelby Foote’s brilliant 3-volume effort - touching the roof of the mind, yet accessible to all.
December 30, 2024
The stellar conclusion to the excellent Centennial History of the Civil War. This was the best of the three volumes, in terms of scope, detail, and other choices the author had to make. It continues the improved production of the second volume in terms of the maps which a a requisite for a series like this. Of course, I still wished there were more maps as the publisher never seems to include enough.
While reading this volume I often found myself wishing that more detail had been included about some battles and campaigns, and again realized the types of choices an author of this series must make. As we know, there are separate volumes written by subsequent historians about individual battles, and including more details would only increase the length of the volume, and the author would have include more details in previous volumes so the entire series would be worse.
Anyway, anyone wanting to read one author's take on the U. S. Civil War I highly recommend Bruce Catton. (In fact, I plan to read his great series on the Army of the Potomac again sometime this coming year.
While reading this volume I often found myself wishing that more detail had been included about some battles and campaigns, and again realized the types of choices an author of this series must make. As we know, there are separate volumes written by subsequent historians about individual battles, and including more details would only increase the length of the volume, and the author would have include more details in previous volumes so the entire series would be worse.
Anyway, anyone wanting to read one author's take on the U. S. Civil War I highly recommend Bruce Catton. (In fact, I plan to read his great series on the Army of the Potomac again sometime this coming year.
January 16, 2024
Another magnificent volume on the Civil War and a fitting end to a fantastic trilogy. As I've said with other Catton works, his prose is so engaging. He makes the information easily digestible and endlessly entertaining. This volume finishes his 'Centennial History of the Civil War" and covers the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam all the way to the end of the war. He covers all aspects and areas of the war, and it's amazing to me that this book isn't double the length with the sheer amount of information presented. Overall a fascinating and fantastic Civil War book.
May 24, 2012
This is the final volume in Catton's Civil War history trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed its detailed description of the battles, as well as the in-depth explanation of the events away from the front. I would have liked to have it cover the actual aftermath of the war, Reconstruction, and so forth, but that wasn't the area the author was aiming to explore, so I can't really fault him for not writing a fourth volume dedicated to that.
Overall, it's an excellent trilogy and I recommend it highly. This is definitely a series of books I will return to for a second (and eventually third, and fourth) listen, I think. Now I just need to find a comparable book covering the pre and post-war periods.
Overall, it's an excellent trilogy and I recommend it highly. This is definitely a series of books I will return to for a second (and eventually third, and fourth) listen, I think. Now I just need to find a comparable book covering the pre and post-war periods.
June 23, 2012
Found his entire series on the ivil War captivating, extremely readable
August 2, 2012
I was lucky enough to have had several excellent professors who taught Civil War history. I only with Bruce Catton had been one of them.
May 1, 2019
Even though in general I consider the end of the Civil War to be a best case scenario (which the author agrees with), there is a sense of melancholy about the end of this particular book. A large part of that melancholy comes from the framing of this particular book, as the author examines what could have been, one gets the feeling that melancholy is probably the best response one can have to so shattering a struggle, especially because the author brings up the problem of racism and points out that just as the freedom of the black from slavery became inevitable that a great many politicians were already seeking to defend racial privilege and build political coalitions that would later be responsible for the long endurance of Jim Crow laws and separate and equal. I suppose it is the recognition that just as the Civil War was winding down a different kind of fight was beginning that made me feel melancholy at least, as it demonstrated Catton's essential humanity and respect for the dignity of others and the tragic strain that runs through American history regarding the difficulty people have in squaring their own longings for freedom with respect for the freedom of others, something that still troubles us.
This book of nearly 500 pages is divided into seven chapters that cover the Civil War between Fredericksburg and its close. We begin with a look at the politics of war and the slaughter that took place in Virginia and Tennessee during the end of 1862, when shattering fights ended in stalemate. After that the author explores the period in early 1863 where the practical effects of Emancipation began to be an issue and where Grant's efforts at bypassing the strategic problem of Vicksburg led Pemberton to make errors that Grant would exploit soon. The third chapter then looks at the remorseless revolutionary struggle that was being waged in the Civil War, and the battles at Charleston, Chancellorsville, the Vicksburg campaign, and Gettysburg. After that the author discusses the struggle with racial equality and the battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga. The fifth chapter looks at questions of impossibilities, and examines Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the budding partnership between Grant and Lincoln that would be decisive in leading to Union victory, even as the politicians struggled over amnesty and citizenship for blacks. After that the author spends a chapter discussing the campaigns of 1864, including the various sideshows and the attacks towards Atlanta and Richmond, including Butler's failed efforts on the Penninsula and the Democratic platform of 1864. The last chapter looks at the final months of war and the ultimate Union victory and the weariness that resulted from it, as well as the longing to put the pieces back together again and reunite.
Although writing about the Civil War is certainly familiar ground for the author, who was among the most prolific narrative historians of his time, this book does distinguish itself from other volumes by spending a great deal of attention on the political and social aspects of the Civil War. Far from focusing only on great men and battles, Catton's interest in the Civil War in the first place sprang from his friendship with elderly Union veterans when he was growing up as a boy in Michigan, and this book demonstrates his interest in the influence between war and society in a way that was ahead of his time. In this volume, and over and over again, the author shows himself deeply sensitive to the question of what would be done to further the interests of justice both to ordinary citizens as well as freed black slaves who faced a great deal of discrimination and racism in both north and south. And even as the Civil War ended and soldiers went home to try to pick up the pieces of their lives, the author leaves the reader with the awareness that justice was still a long way off and that the shattering and revolutionary realities of the war would linger on for a very long time, to the present-day even.
This book of nearly 500 pages is divided into seven chapters that cover the Civil War between Fredericksburg and its close. We begin with a look at the politics of war and the slaughter that took place in Virginia and Tennessee during the end of 1862, when shattering fights ended in stalemate. After that the author explores the period in early 1863 where the practical effects of Emancipation began to be an issue and where Grant's efforts at bypassing the strategic problem of Vicksburg led Pemberton to make errors that Grant would exploit soon. The third chapter then looks at the remorseless revolutionary struggle that was being waged in the Civil War, and the battles at Charleston, Chancellorsville, the Vicksburg campaign, and Gettysburg. After that the author discusses the struggle with racial equality and the battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga. The fifth chapter looks at questions of impossibilities, and examines Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the budding partnership between Grant and Lincoln that would be decisive in leading to Union victory, even as the politicians struggled over amnesty and citizenship for blacks. After that the author spends a chapter discussing the campaigns of 1864, including the various sideshows and the attacks towards Atlanta and Richmond, including Butler's failed efforts on the Penninsula and the Democratic platform of 1864. The last chapter looks at the final months of war and the ultimate Union victory and the weariness that resulted from it, as well as the longing to put the pieces back together again and reunite.
Although writing about the Civil War is certainly familiar ground for the author, who was among the most prolific narrative historians of his time, this book does distinguish itself from other volumes by spending a great deal of attention on the political and social aspects of the Civil War. Far from focusing only on great men and battles, Catton's interest in the Civil War in the first place sprang from his friendship with elderly Union veterans when he was growing up as a boy in Michigan, and this book demonstrates his interest in the influence between war and society in a way that was ahead of his time. In this volume, and over and over again, the author shows himself deeply sensitive to the question of what would be done to further the interests of justice both to ordinary citizens as well as freed black slaves who faced a great deal of discrimination and racism in both north and south. And even as the Civil War ended and soldiers went home to try to pick up the pieces of their lives, the author leaves the reader with the awareness that justice was still a long way off and that the shattering and revolutionary realities of the war would linger on for a very long time, to the present-day even.
March 6, 2021
This took me much longer to finish than I anticipated, but was absolutely worth it. Catton provides a lot of information that I did not know previously, and some really trenchant insight into the problems facing reconstruction after the war. These challenges, in my mind, account for many of the issues that we still have today in regards to equality for everyone.
Part of the reason it took me so long to read was because I had the mass market edition. I found it at a Goodwill bookstore, and I'm glad to give them my money, but I would not recommend reading this version. The print is very small, it is printed inconsistently (sometimes the words were so far into the binding that they were tough to read), and the battle maps are pretty much unreadable. If you can find another edition, I recommend it.
Early on, Catton points out how the South was doomed from the start. He says, "The Confederacy could have an adequate army, or it could supply the army adequately; it could not conceivably do both because it did not have the resources to do both." I found this a new thought to what I have read previously. Basically, the South had to recruit so many men to be soldiers, that there were not enough left to farm the land for food to feed the soldiers (and not enough men to work in foundries to make weapons, ammunition, etc.). Knowing this, it makes it more frustrating that the war lasted as long as it did.
Catton points this out too. He says that about 2/3 of the way through the war, before Grant took over the Army of the Potomac, the war could have been ended because, for the reasons above, the South could not fight on multiple fronts. If only the North knew they should press the advantage. Jefferson Davis, Lee, and Joe Johnston, were furiously moving troops back and forth among multiple fronts (Longstreet is the hero here for the Confederates). With Hooker's troops in VA, Grant's in MS, and troops in North Carolina/GA, The North had an advantage they could not exploit, mostly because of lack of efficient means of communication. If those forces had all attacked somewhat simultaneously, the south would not have the resources to defend all three at once.
Catton spends only a few paragraphs on Lincoln's assassination, but I sense that he credits that event for why Reconstruction did not progress more than it did. Lincoln wanted nothing short than full equality for everyone. After his death, everyone was free to interpret emancipation in their own way. Some felt that slaves should be educated but not given the right to vote. Others felt that the newly free should be given assistance, others thought that freedom was more than enough for them and that those families should have to scratch out a living however they could. Reading Catton's words, and between the lines, it seems that had Lincoln lived, Reconstruction might have been fairer to the freed slaves. If it had, one wonders the impact that would have today.
Part of the reason it took me so long to read was because I had the mass market edition. I found it at a Goodwill bookstore, and I'm glad to give them my money, but I would not recommend reading this version. The print is very small, it is printed inconsistently (sometimes the words were so far into the binding that they were tough to read), and the battle maps are pretty much unreadable. If you can find another edition, I recommend it.
Early on, Catton points out how the South was doomed from the start. He says, "The Confederacy could have an adequate army, or it could supply the army adequately; it could not conceivably do both because it did not have the resources to do both." I found this a new thought to what I have read previously. Basically, the South had to recruit so many men to be soldiers, that there were not enough left to farm the land for food to feed the soldiers (and not enough men to work in foundries to make weapons, ammunition, etc.). Knowing this, it makes it more frustrating that the war lasted as long as it did.
Catton points this out too. He says that about 2/3 of the way through the war, before Grant took over the Army of the Potomac, the war could have been ended because, for the reasons above, the South could not fight on multiple fronts. If only the North knew they should press the advantage. Jefferson Davis, Lee, and Joe Johnston, were furiously moving troops back and forth among multiple fronts (Longstreet is the hero here for the Confederates). With Hooker's troops in VA, Grant's in MS, and troops in North Carolina/GA, The North had an advantage they could not exploit, mostly because of lack of efficient means of communication. If those forces had all attacked somewhat simultaneously, the south would not have the resources to defend all three at once.
Catton spends only a few paragraphs on Lincoln's assassination, but I sense that he credits that event for why Reconstruction did not progress more than it did. Lincoln wanted nothing short than full equality for everyone. After his death, everyone was free to interpret emancipation in their own way. Some felt that slaves should be educated but not given the right to vote. Others felt that the newly free should be given assistance, others thought that freedom was more than enough for them and that those families should have to scratch out a living however they could. Reading Catton's words, and between the lines, it seems that had Lincoln lived, Reconstruction might have been fairer to the freed slaves. If it had, one wonders the impact that would have today.
January 19, 2024
Any recommendations about good books about the U.S. Civil War? I just finished reading Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War, a popular history of the war and its impact on the nation and the world. Catton shows how the North and the South diverged due to economic, social, and political changes, and how slavery triggered the war after Lincoln's election. He argues that the Union won mainly because of its superior resources and manpower, and the skill and courage of its soldiers. He uses the letters, diaries, memoirs, and reports of the soldiers and their commanders to give a personal and human perspective on the war. He also reminds us of the horrors and costs of the war, which killed more than 600,000 Americans, preserving the American Experiment.
I disagree with Catton's portrayal of Lincoln's generals as more concerned with rank and reputation than with winning the war. Catton paints Lincoln as a frustrated and helpless leader who had to deal with incompetent and insubordinate commanders. However, Lincoln was a shrewd and decisive leader who exercised his authority and shaped the strategy and direction of the war. His generals were a diverse and talented group of men who faced enormous challenges and difficulties in the war, such as logistics, terrain, weather, intelligence, politics, and morale.
Furthermore, they fought against a determined and skilled enemy who had the home advantage. They also coped with the pressure and scrutiny of the public, the press, and the government. Moreover, they faced Southern armies led by Robert E. Lee, a brilliant soldier and strategist. After four years of fighting, U.S. Grant’s relentless and coordinated attacks on multiple fronts, with an effective naval blockade, destroyed Lee’s army and ended the war.
The Centennial Trilogy was first published during the centenary, 1961-65: "The Coming Fury" covers from April 1860 through July 1861. "Terrible Swift Sword" covers August 1861 through September 1862. "Never Call Retreat" covers October 1862 through April 1865.
For my next read…Kathryn gave me “Captured Freedom” by Steve Procko, a true story of nine Union officers who escaped from a Confederate prison and their journey to the Union lines. The book reveals the hardships, dangers, and heroism of the escapees, and the kindness and courage of the enslaved people and Southern sympathizers who helped them. Kathryn’s Uncle Lee recommended “Gettysburg: The Last Invasion” by Allen C. Guelzo. I’m open to suggestions. Thanks!
I disagree with Catton's portrayal of Lincoln's generals as more concerned with rank and reputation than with winning the war. Catton paints Lincoln as a frustrated and helpless leader who had to deal with incompetent and insubordinate commanders. However, Lincoln was a shrewd and decisive leader who exercised his authority and shaped the strategy and direction of the war. His generals were a diverse and talented group of men who faced enormous challenges and difficulties in the war, such as logistics, terrain, weather, intelligence, politics, and morale.
Furthermore, they fought against a determined and skilled enemy who had the home advantage. They also coped with the pressure and scrutiny of the public, the press, and the government. Moreover, they faced Southern armies led by Robert E. Lee, a brilliant soldier and strategist. After four years of fighting, U.S. Grant’s relentless and coordinated attacks on multiple fronts, with an effective naval blockade, destroyed Lee’s army and ended the war.
The Centennial Trilogy was first published during the centenary, 1961-65: "The Coming Fury" covers from April 1860 through July 1861. "Terrible Swift Sword" covers August 1861 through September 1862. "Never Call Retreat" covers October 1862 through April 1865.
For my next read…Kathryn gave me “Captured Freedom” by Steve Procko, a true story of nine Union officers who escaped from a Confederate prison and their journey to the Union lines. The book reveals the hardships, dangers, and heroism of the escapees, and the kindness and courage of the enslaved people and Southern sympathizers who helped them. Kathryn’s Uncle Lee recommended “Gettysburg: The Last Invasion” by Allen C. Guelzo. I’m open to suggestions. Thanks!
December 30, 2025
The Civil War in the United States is a subject that I am not ignorant about, but also felt I was sadly lacking in detail. I decided that I would read a history book on the subject. The trouble with reading just one History book is that you only get one perspective. Thus, reading multiple books on the same subject is a wise thing to do. I chose three series to read in parallel.
The Centennial History of the Civil War Series 1961-1963 60 hours
The Coming Fury Terrible Swift Sword
1988 40 hours
Battle Cry of Freedom: Volume 1 Battle Cry of Freedom: Volume 2
1958-1974 154 hours
The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. 1 The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. 2 The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. 3
Total time: 253 hours
It was a semi-monumental task that I began in March of 2018 and Finished in April of 2019. There were other books I read from time to time to break up the intensity of the whole process. I do wish that I had written a review at the end of each book or at each point that I took a break. Some of the synchronization points: The Attack on Fort Sumter, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg and the Siege of Vicksburg, the Siege of Chattanooga, the Fall of Atlanta, and the Fall of Richmond.
My impressions on these three books.
Catton The essential details. After reading his series you will know what happened in balanced proportions. Important things are given more time, less significant events less content. He does give personal stories, but only as drivers for what is currently in focus.
McPherson The larger scope. After reading his series you will know why this happened. He goes more into the political goings on at home and abroad. He spends significant amounts of time laying the ground work for what is taking place. More time is spent off the battlefield, on the home front politics and public opinion.
Foote The romantic human story. After reading his series, you will know about the people involved. He often chooses tragic and heroic figures who will capture your imagination but at the same time often carries you away on unnecessary storylines. You lose some perspective for what’s really going on and the bodies on the battlefield of his book are less vivid in the light of these heroes.
I walked away with a much better perspective for this great turning point in the history of my country.
The Centennial History of the Civil War Series 1961-1963 60 hours
The Coming Fury Terrible Swift Sword
1988 40 hours
Battle Cry of Freedom: Volume 1 Battle Cry of Freedom: Volume 2
1958-1974 154 hours
The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. 1 The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. 2 The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. 3
Total time: 253 hours
It was a semi-monumental task that I began in March of 2018 and Finished in April of 2019. There were other books I read from time to time to break up the intensity of the whole process. I do wish that I had written a review at the end of each book or at each point that I took a break. Some of the synchronization points: The Attack on Fort Sumter, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg and the Siege of Vicksburg, the Siege of Chattanooga, the Fall of Atlanta, and the Fall of Richmond.
My impressions on these three books.
Catton The essential details. After reading his series you will know what happened in balanced proportions. Important things are given more time, less significant events less content. He does give personal stories, but only as drivers for what is currently in focus.
McPherson The larger scope. After reading his series you will know why this happened. He goes more into the political goings on at home and abroad. He spends significant amounts of time laying the ground work for what is taking place. More time is spent off the battlefield, on the home front politics and public opinion.
Foote The romantic human story. After reading his series, you will know about the people involved. He often chooses tragic and heroic figures who will capture your imagination but at the same time often carries you away on unnecessary storylines. You lose some perspective for what’s really going on and the bodies on the battlefield of his book are less vivid in the light of these heroes.
I walked away with a much better perspective for this great turning point in the history of my country.
March 30, 2020
This third and final book in Bruce Catton's groundbreaking "Centennial History of the Civil War" provides a compelling, clear, and accurate narrative just like the first two books in this set. Unfortunately, compared to the previous two books it feels a bit incomplete, almost like a dog hitting the end of its leash. I don't know if Mr. Catton's publisher limited this works' length or not (although I suspect it since all three volumes are very close in size), but whatever the reason one can feel Mr. Catton trying very hard to include mere highlights from the middle to late war while there is so much more he seems to want to say. Likewise, Catton makes some fascinating points at the end of this book and the series which, had he lived longer, I think would have yielded book-length treatments. Specifically, he posits the American Civil War's post-war Lost Cause mythology helped make national reconstruction a success which he correctly identifies is not common after civil wars. While I think this can be substantiated for the White Southerners immediately after the war, I wonder if this mythology actually did more long term harm by leaving racial inequality out of the public consciousness only to explode roughly a century later? Although a Southerner by birth and rearing, Bruce Catton clearly saw the Confederacy's rebellion for what it was - an armed bid to maintain slavery - and anyone who has read his works can clearly see he does not buy in to the mythology himself. I am not well versed enough in Civil Rights history to know if someone else has tackled this tricky question, e.g. did some of the factors that gave America a relatively quick and bloodless post-civil war peace go on to cause other societal issues and more bloodshed as the decades passed. Clearly for all of the many, many failures both formal and informal American post-civil war reconstruction possessed, America's reconstruction process was still idyllic compared to the "troubles" in Northern Ireland, ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, the post-U.S. invasion civil war in Iraq, or the on-going struggles for control of Afghanistan. Despite the aforementioned weaknesses, I still highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the American Civil War, civil wars in general, 19th Century warfare, American military history, or American history.
January 6, 2023
This third volume of "The Centennial History of the Civil War" trilogy was published in 1965. Catton was the leading Civil War historian of the post-WW2 era, and this trilogy was the capstone of his career. He was a brilliant narrative historian.
This volume starts in early 1863. The emancipation proclamation was issued on January 1. It ended any illusion or dream that the war could be ended without ending slavery. Grant began his slog down the Mississippi towards Vicksburg and the Army of the Potomac got ready to again try to pin down and destroy Lee's army. Catton takes the story through the surrender at Appomattox and stops just after Lincoln's assassination.
These are wildly dramatic times and Catton captures them well. He is a master at the quick character sketch.
"Even in a crowd, Grant seemed always alone",
"Of military capacity, to be sure, General Benjamin Butler possessed not a trace, but he was a lifelong Democrat who had whole heartily defected to the radicals, so in an election year he had to be used; and it was sheer bad luck that he held a spot that was pivotal to Grant's whole Virginia campaign."
"Grant always thought in terms of opposing armies, and Sherman thought geographically."
This series is not simply a military history. Catton wrestles with the political and social forces driving the war. Slavery is in the middle of everything. The North wrestles with whether this is a war for slavery or Union. The South knows that this is a war to maintain a slave society.
Towards the end of the war, when the Confederacy is running out of soldiers, certain confederate leaders talk about arming slaves to fight for the South. Confederate General Howell Cobb put his finger on the contradiction in the middle of the Southern Cause, "If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong."
Some of the battle sequences seem perfunctory, which is surprising because his Grant books and his "Army of the Potomac" trilogy are classics of battle descriptions. It almost seems that at this point in his career he wanted to do more than recreate battle stories.
This is still the best narrative history of the Civil War.
This volume starts in early 1863. The emancipation proclamation was issued on January 1. It ended any illusion or dream that the war could be ended without ending slavery. Grant began his slog down the Mississippi towards Vicksburg and the Army of the Potomac got ready to again try to pin down and destroy Lee's army. Catton takes the story through the surrender at Appomattox and stops just after Lincoln's assassination.
These are wildly dramatic times and Catton captures them well. He is a master at the quick character sketch.
"Even in a crowd, Grant seemed always alone",
"Of military capacity, to be sure, General Benjamin Butler possessed not a trace, but he was a lifelong Democrat who had whole heartily defected to the radicals, so in an election year he had to be used; and it was sheer bad luck that he held a spot that was pivotal to Grant's whole Virginia campaign."
"Grant always thought in terms of opposing armies, and Sherman thought geographically."
This series is not simply a military history. Catton wrestles with the political and social forces driving the war. Slavery is in the middle of everything. The North wrestles with whether this is a war for slavery or Union. The South knows that this is a war to maintain a slave society.
Towards the end of the war, when the Confederacy is running out of soldiers, certain confederate leaders talk about arming slaves to fight for the South. Confederate General Howell Cobb put his finger on the contradiction in the middle of the Southern Cause, "If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong."
Some of the battle sequences seem perfunctory, which is surprising because his Grant books and his "Army of the Potomac" trilogy are classics of battle descriptions. It almost seems that at this point in his career he wanted to do more than recreate battle stories.
This is still the best narrative history of the Civil War.
September 12, 2023
This third volume of Catton’s Civil War centennial trilogy covers the last two and a half years of the war: from the Battle of Fredericksburg to the surrender of the Southern armies. Like the two previous books in this series, it’s first-rate historical narrative with appropriate coverage of the political situation North and South. (Shelby Foote’s fine military history of the war covers the same period with five times as many words but with less political commentary.)
Catton’s theme is how Northern war aims were altered by the war itself, noting for instance, that Lincoln, who pressed congressional passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, had just four years before accepted a proposed amendment that would have forbidden any constitutional interference with slavery. Important as well is Catton’s emphasis on Northern racism with its full-bore antagonism to black civil and social equality. Finally, Catton rightly praises the moderation of the military commanders who brought the war to an end with as little bitterness as possible. The author even praises the creation of The Lost Cause myth as “a saving grace.” Civil wars, writes Catton, “have had worse endings than this.” (454)
Catton’s theme is how Northern war aims were altered by the war itself, noting for instance, that Lincoln, who pressed congressional passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, had just four years before accepted a proposed amendment that would have forbidden any constitutional interference with slavery. Important as well is Catton’s emphasis on Northern racism with its full-bore antagonism to black civil and social equality. Finally, Catton rightly praises the moderation of the military commanders who brought the war to an end with as little bitterness as possible. The author even praises the creation of The Lost Cause myth as “a saving grace.” Civil wars, writes Catton, “have had worse endings than this.” (454)
July 18, 2021
Read all 3 books in this trilogy over the last 6 months and just wondering how long is long enough before I read them again.
Mr Catton has facts at his disposal that many other Civil War authors have had before and since, and yet.. the turn of phrase, the beauty of the language... exquisite.
Given the size of the trilogy it may not appeal to those who aren't really enthralled with this epoch in American History, but given the echoes from 160 years ago in our current world, it is still worth your time. We have come so far and yet, not nearly far enough, and I remain dumbfounded how people think we can hide how this country was built on the backs of enslaved people and set up countless generations of continuing repression, inequality and systemic racism.
Mr Catton has facts at his disposal that many other Civil War authors have had before and since, and yet.. the turn of phrase, the beauty of the language... exquisite.
Given the size of the trilogy it may not appeal to those who aren't really enthralled with this epoch in American History, but given the echoes from 160 years ago in our current world, it is still worth your time. We have come so far and yet, not nearly far enough, and I remain dumbfounded how people think we can hide how this country was built on the backs of enslaved people and set up countless generations of continuing repression, inequality and systemic racism.
March 14, 2022
Bruce Catton’s volume 3 centennial Civil War history book “Never Call Retreat” was published by Doubleday & Company in 1965. The book covers the Civil War battles of Murfreesboro, Stone’s River Tennessee; Vicksburg Mississippi , to the ironclads battles at Charleston,and the stunning battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Catton’s book ends with the battles that led to the fall of Richmond, Lee’s legendary retreat, and his surrender to Grant at Appomattox. Catton’s discussion of the Confederate Commission March 1865 meeting with President Lincoln; Lee’s refusal to extend the war using bushwhacking strategies, and the final reconciliations between Northern and Southern combatants are very insightful. (P)
November 21, 2020
I am in awe after reading this series of books. Bruce Catton tells the civil war story better than anyone else. I read 4 or 5 civil war related books a year and Mr Catton fills in many of the missing blanks. His keen insight and educated observation sets this series of books apart. Yes, he tells you about the battles and main characters, but it is his discussion on the politics that set this series of books apart from any other. He teaches you that the past is not so simple. From Fort Sumter to Emancipation, the debates never easy. If you are a seasoned civil war reader. Read this series of books.
February 18, 2026
Catton as an author came highly recommended to me by a good friend, and this series stuck out to me among purchases from a large local library sale. I have always been a student of military history, but primarily have focused on the World Wars and the Cold War. The third volume of this series covers a relatively long period of history, from 1863 to the final collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, including such milestones as Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, the March to the Sea and the final actions leading to Appomattox, and was a fairly fast paced narrative of the conflict. Less dry than the second volume, and tying together an excellent primer on the chronological history of the war as a whole.
April 6, 2026
I have been reading this series with my 7-year-old child, one chapter per night.
It works astonishingly well and both of us enjoyed it. The prose is excellent and I needed to do only a very small amount of narrative editing to avoid dated language that I don't wish my child to repeat.
Catton gets through the final 2.5 years of the war, Fredericksburg to Durham Station, in one volume. He skips past some of the battle and military detail and instead spends his pages talking about the collapse of the southern state, and the political tussles in the north about reconstruction. This seems like the right emphasis, if the goal is to understand American history broadly.
It works astonishingly well and both of us enjoyed it. The prose is excellent and I needed to do only a very small amount of narrative editing to avoid dated language that I don't wish my child to repeat.
Catton gets through the final 2.5 years of the war, Fredericksburg to Durham Station, in one volume. He skips past some of the battle and military detail and instead spends his pages talking about the collapse of the southern state, and the political tussles in the north about reconstruction. This seems like the right emphasis, if the goal is to understand American history broadly.
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July 28, 2022Never Call Retreat is the third volume of The Centennial History of the Civil War and covers the period from 1862 through the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Using deep research Catton details the battles of the Civil War and with wry humor expounds upon the leaders and their strategies as they wage their campaigns. He examines both governments and the political climate facing both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davies. Catton's prose is wonderful as he describes the various settings of the book. Highly recommended.
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