The Coming Fury

The Centennial History of the Civil War #1

by Bruce Catton

A thrilling, page-turning piece of writing that describes the forces conspiring to tear apart the United States--with the disintegrating political processes and rising tempers finally erupting at Bull Run. "...a major work by a major writer, a superb re-creation of the twelve crucial months that opened the Civil War."--The New York Times.

Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction, American Civil War, American History, Military History, War

566 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Bruce 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.

Reviews

[Jay Schutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have owned this book and the two volumes that follow for probably over 40 years. What took me so long is probably the fact that I always found many other Civil War books to read in their place. Lord knows there are enough of them.
The set of three was written to commemorate the centennial of the American Civil War in 1961 by the foremost historian of his time on the subject, Bruce Catton. Mr. Catton's first volume is an in-depth study of the catastrophic events of late 1859 to early 1861 that led up to the start of the Civil War. It gave a very insightful view of the situation over all areas of the country and I learned more from this book than I could from the multitude of other books that I have read on the subject.
If you want to know precisely what happened during those fateful years, this trilogy would be the best place to start, I'm sure. "Terrible Swift Sword" and "Never Call Retreat" complete the history.
Highly recommended. Now on to book two.

[Alan Tomkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first of three volumes in Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War, this book is a masterpiece of narrative history. Catton provides meticulous detail and perspective of the events leading up to the Civil War while keeping the reader riveted by the fascinating and exciting story unfolding with a force all its own. The causes of the Civil War are clearly elucidated and thoroughly explained. The South had been threatening secession for decades, effectively blackmailing the rest of the country with a conditional and grudging acceptance of Union only if they continually got their way. And what the South primarily demanded was expansion of slavery and new constitutional protections of slavery to protect the "peculiar institution" in perpetuity from any congressional interference or regulation. The notion that slavery was a secondary concern, and the myth of the Lost Cause, that the South seceded to protect "states' rights" and southern heritage is absolute bullshit. There are countless examples of Southern politicians in the years before the Civil War explicitly stating in speech after speech that the aim and God given right of the South was to maintain a society, culture, and economy based on white supremacy and enslavement of blacks. They were not shy about this and persistently shouted it from the rooftops. I am grateful that we have diligent historians like Bruce Catton who have documented this too often forgotten fact with citation after citation. Too many Americans are woefully ignorant of the hard facts of American history. In my opinion, Catton's Civil War histories should be required reading in our schools. And I might make the point that we all could benefit from revisiting this subject matter, and that far from being a chore, it is an engaging, fascinating, and edifying experience to do so by reading this amazing book. It opens with the political conventions of 1860 and ends with the Civil War's first major battle, First Bull Run, aka First Manassas. "The political hostilities of a generation were now face to face with weapons instead of words." First Bull Run did away with the romantic notion of war and woke both North and South up to the ugly reality that an unconceived hellish reality was settling over America for the long haul. I'm going to start the next volume in this trilogy straight away.

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had previously read and really enjoyed A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton, which addresses the end game of the American Civil War. So it was appropriate that I read another of Bruce Catton’s Civil War histories, The Coming Fury, about the beginning of hostilities. Maybe I read them in the wrong order? The Coming Fury was on my shelf and had been there a long time.

Catton begins the story with events leading up to Lincoln’s nomination for President. I think I am reasonably well informed on the Civil War, but this was both a great refresher and a means to deepen my understanding of the people, events and issues of the time. Catton’s style feels very factual but is also engaging; he tells a good story. As a historian, he focused his efforts entirely on the Civil War and certainly knew his subject. His books were one of the primary sources for Ken Burns’ The Civil War documentary.

One subject on which I learned a lot was the formation of the Confederate government: the series of events, the people involved and the structure the government took. The attitude of the inhabitants of the Southern states towards secession and the war was also eye-opening. My biggest takeaway though was a better understanding of what some individuals and groups could have done differently to change the course of events and potentially avert the war.

I think The Coming Fury would be time well spent for anyone that enjoys reading history and wants to learn more about the American Civil War.

[Irvin Rodhe · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books ever. I'm still humming the cadence of his prose as if were a favorite song. The author's reputation as the "poet of the Civil War" is not accidental. He writes like a seasoned raconteur, weaving facts, anecdotes, and vivid imagery together so seamlessly that I never felt like I was slogging through a textbook. The descriptions of quiet towns, the rustle of uniforms, and the uneasy anticipation hanging over every soldier's camp... Marvelous!
He doesn't just recount battles but paints a psychological landscape of a nation teetering on the brink. And the characters! You'll meet a farmer-turned-captain, a nurse who writes letters home, and an old farmer who refuses to pick up a rifle yet fears the war's aftermath. Real people with real feelings and emotions. Priceless.
Some of his descriptions are really stunning. I swear I could hear the creak of the wooden floorboards as Catton described a secret council of Union officers. The tension was so thick I almost felt the draft of a cold November night in my living room... and I live in South Africa.

The prose never feels pretentious. Heart-wrenching perfection. Five stars.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first entry in Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War, The Coming Fury documents the initial progress of the conflict from the secession crisis triggered by the 1860 election results to the conclusion of First Bull Run. Picking up as it does in 1860, the book lacks the depth of David Morris Potter's The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861 -- which traced the decades-long march to the war undertaken by a greatly divided country -- but is probably the better introduction to the U.S. Civil War itself, not least because of the engaging style that Catton brings to the field of popular history. Over sixty years after its publication, the book still holds up superbly, and retains a place on the list of essential Civil War reads.

[Josh Liller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book on recomendation from a Civil War group here on GoodReads, after asking for a book about the time immediately before the war.

This book covers 1860 and 1861, from the Democratic Party convention in Charleston that tries (and fails) to nominate a candidate for the presidency through Bull Run, the battle that solidified the idea that the war would be neither short nor easy.

This book was written in the 1960s; this is actually the first part of the Centenial history of the war and Catton one of the most famous Civil War authors. Catton has a very good writing style, although he sometimes created some brief confusion for me when he mentioned things suddenly out of sequence. In several instances, I thought I had somehow missed a event being covered only to realize the book had indeed not gotten to there just yet but Catton was jumping ahead and "spoiling" events from later in the current chapter at the beginning of said chapter. The book doesn't need much in the way of maps, but what maps it does provide are poorly placed. That said, he covers all the events rather well.

I was loosely familiar with the events covered in the book but the details were pretty interesting. Some fun facts: John Bell's Constitutional Union party (a neutral 4th party, after the Republicans & a split Democratic Party) was a very serious contender and he was actually nominated before either Democratic candidate, neither Stephen Douglas nor Abraham Lincoln were actually present at the convention at which they were nominated president, Jefferson Davis was very nearly the Confederacy's top general rather than its president, and the Civil War could have started at Fort Pickens or in Texas (with Robert E Lee on the Union side!) before Fort Sumter finally happened.

Most interesting of all though was how HUGE slavery was. This book makes no mistake about the cause of the Civil War: slavery, slavery, slavery. Enough of the South was so rabidly pro-slavery that Stephen Douglas essentially destroyed his chances at the presidency for daring to advocate Popular Sovereignty, wherein a territory might be able to chose not to allow slaves. To paraphrase George Wallace a century later, they were fanatically devoted to "slavery now, slavery everywhere, slavery forever". Southern leadership basically went into the Democratic convention of 1860 determined to get their way or else. And if they didn't get their way, they'd split and run their own guy. And if he didn't win, they'd throw a fit and just secede, dammit! The South behaved like a petulant child, demanding it be given everything it wanted - with no compromises acceptable - or it would just up and leave. And that's exactly what happened and exactly what the South did. The picture painted is deeply disturbing. Interestingly, when the Confederacy was actually formed it was the more moderate Southerns who got got most of the power and the radicals were pushed off out of the spotlight.

That said, slavery was the issue for the South and the issue they left. The North is portrayed as not taking secession as a serious threat, feeling the South had become the Boy Who Cried Wolf and would never actually secede. And when they did it touched off a great deal of anger in the North and the common people were very ready to fight to prevent the Union from being broken, which the South had likewise not anticipated.

[Sweetwilliam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book in Bruce Catton’s trilogy that he wrote for the centennial of the Civil War.

I tend to read books about individual battles or campaigns. This is different in that it is a comprehensive series on the war. The first book starts with the conventions of 1860 and ends with Bull Run. The shooting doesn’t really commence until the artillery duel at Fort Sumpter, about ~300 pages in.

This book provides a very detailed countdown to the shooting war. The causes of the War are complex. If there is any fault, the book looks no further back than 1860. No matter what your preconceived notion is you will probably find a kernel or two of truth in this book to support it. According to Catton, the major issue at the Democratic and Republican conventions was extending slavery into the Western Territories. This issue or maybe I should say these conventions, destroyed two candidates' chances to be President: The Democratic Senator Steven Douglas of Illinois and Republican New York Senator William Seward. Out of the fray of the Republican convention, elevated to the head of the ticket was Abraham Lincoln, because he was “the least prominent” and therefore, all the various factions could rally around him as a compromise candidate. Meanwhile, Douglas sealed his fate by warning the Southern Democrats that slavery must not extend into the territories and that “…I would hang every man higher than Hamen who would attempt to force to resist the execution of any provision of the Constitution which our fathers made and bequeathed to us….” The Democratic Party was split and guaranteed the election of Republican nominee, Abraham Lincoln.

Catton explains that the war was really unnecessary. Seward was trying to negotiate through justice John A Campbell, an Alabama-Georgian, to stop the war. On page 242, the Justice said it was silly to fight over slavery in the territories because it didn’t make sense. He pointed out that New Mexico, south of the Missouri Comprimise line, “had been open to slave immigration for a full decade and only 29 slaves had been carried there.” The two men agreed that Slavery was on the way out and only made sense in cotton States in the Mississippi delta region and they gave it 25-50 years anyway. After a series of compromises went awry (one by Campbell/Seward and another by Crittenden) the Confederates had their war which ironically sealed the fate of what Lincoln called “the peculiar institution.”

This book contains a blow-by-blow of the political maneuvers in the border states and the devastating loss of Virginia and creation of West Virginia. It is hard to imagine the war lasting more than a few months without Virginia in the Confederacy.

The author, Bruce Catton is a boyhood hero of mine. My interest in the war was forged during my first visit to Gettysburg as a boy and upon the subsequent reading of his trilogy of the Army of the Potomac that was recommended by the park ranger we met. Catton and I are from the same state, he was given an honorary doctorate from the University where I graduated by a board containing my history professor. A historical marker at the old veteran's home in Benzonia, Michigan commemorates Catton. As a boy he was mesmerized by the war stories of members of the Grand Army of the Republic. Bruce Catton and Edwin Bearss are probably the two most trusted resources on the Civil War. In your thirst for knowledge and truth, my advice is to start here.

On to book two: The Terrible Swift Sword.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years back I re-read Bruce Catton’s 1953 book Stillness at Appomattox. I had read it as a boy, but the new reading left me with sense that I was, given Catton’s masterly voice, something that had the force and power of an American Iliad. The battering battle between Lee and Grant was epic, grim, and timeless. Catton, always excellent with his battle prose, saw the curtain fall, and gave us, even though it’s prose, history, an enduring National war poetry of the darkest kind.

Interestingly, for whatever reasons, I never got around to reading The Coming Fury, Catton’s history of the year preceding the Civil War. It is a monumental book, that on book jacket surface, with its attention to day to day and week to week minutiae between North and South, seems to lack the compelling endgame of Appomattox. Wrong. If anything, the books belong together as tragic bookends for those years of crisis.

Catton starts things off with the 1860 Democratic presidential convention in Charleston, South Carolina. The convention was initially spiked by the states’ rights “Fire-Eaters” (whose rhetoric and over-the-cliff thinking bears an eerie resemblance to today’s Tea Partiers and Freedom Caucus). Led by Congressman William Yancey, of South Carolina, the fire-eaters were determined to deny the less-than-pure states’ righter, Stephen Douglas the nomination. There was no real way to stop Douglas, unless you fractured the party, which is what happened – and it happened by deliberate design. The day-to-day account is both riveting and sad. Delegate R.T. Merrick of Illinois, in a late speech, accurately sensing the damage about to be done, probably spoke for many when he said:

“I find sir, star after star madly shooting from the great Democratic galaxy. Why is it, and what is to come of it? Does it presage that, hereafter, that star after star will shoot from the galaxy of the Republic, and the American Union become a fragment, and a parcel of sectional republics?”

Merrick is not mentioned again, but his speech, his little moment in history, is a fine example of Catton’s discerning eye and his overall grasp of his topic. Such moments abound in The Coming Fury, as both sides begin their tragic gravitation toward conflict. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the inexorable momentum toward war that Barbara Tuchman captures in Guns of August . It’s as if, despite the desires of so many, History nevertheless moves to that dark place.

As I noted before, this book recounts the year that led to war. Catton does get down into the weeds, but it’s never boring. You find out why and how West Virginia became West Virginia (and how it pave the way for McClellan). You will see a fairly (if aged) General Scott trying to mobilize the slowly awakening North . And then there’s the complicated grasp for control in Missouri, and Lincoln’s political juggling act to keep the Border States in the Northern column. (He was generally successful, excepting the one state that guaranteed total war: Virginia.) The genuine anguish of many Confederate leaders (Lee, Davis, both Johnson generals, others) over the leaving of the Union, for what was essentially the upholding of an institution (slavery) that was already dying due to the Industrial Revolution. In the end they were lemmings, one and all.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book gives a detailed and interesting account of the road to war, I definitely felt like this was "homework" rather than self-motivated reading. It is clear that the war was going to be about whether slavery would continue in any form. The South wants it, the North says no. Detailed accounts of the Democrat and Republican political maneuvers and conventions leading to the 1860 election. Might only be interesting to an American reader. Things pick up once Ft Sumter comes into play. In fact, Catton posits that Major Anderson's move from Ft Moultrie to Ft Sumter precipitated the general move in the South from heated discussions to plans for kinetic actions. The First Battle of Bull Run is recounted in typical Catton drama and verve. Looking forward to the next book in the trilogy. 4 Stars for great research but this book won't get you fired up like other Catton accounts.

[P.J. Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is about the complex legal issues that led to the Civil War and to the most momentous decision in U. S. history: how should President Lincoln respond to the secessions and the seizures of federal property in the South? It raises many interesting questions, not the least of which is, did he make the right decision? Was the bloodbath worth it? If Lincoln had known the consequences, would he have made the same decision? If he had let the South go, would it have brought peace? How long would slavery have continued?

Was secession a Constitutional right, as the Confederates claimed? If not, why did Lincoln recognize West Virginia’s right to secede from Virginia? Was this a hypocritical double standard? Private property was protected by the Constitution; did that include private property in slaves? Lincoln thought it did. Was he justified in suspending habeas corpus in Maryland? What is a nation? Is it a compact among sovereign states? Or is it a sovereignty over constituent states? When federals violated the Fugitive Slave Law, did that constitute recognition that the South was an independent country?

It was a complicated war by the legal standards of the time. This book is about more than battles and military strategy—the fighting does not even start until page 452.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant!

I was in the first grade when this was published, and so naturally I missed it at the time. My attention was drawn to it as one of the few secondary sources to be referenced more than once in McPherson's historical writing. I tracked it down at my favorite used book store last summer and brought home the whole trilogy.

The first big, beefy hardcover book is almost entirely devoted to the events that led up to the American Civil War. Those of us living in the US are so accustomed to a 2-party system that it is hard to wrap one's head around the fact that there were multiple parties campaigning in various regions around the USA during this exceptional period, when the cotton aristocracy that had previously ruled the US without contest from anyone else ran smack up against the Industrial Revolution and the drums of history marching forward to a place it really didn't want to go.

One thing I had not realized before reading this work was that not only did the majority of Caucasian southerners not own slaves, but the majority of most states did not even favor continuing the plantation economy. Douglas campaigned for the presidency and was widely reviled among the cotton kings because he would not guarantee that slavery could continue in the territories even IF a vote were taken among its white property holders and the majority said no. Lincoln quietly worked on the sidelines telling politicians not to let themselves be trapped into calling for popular sovereignty, but in the end, it did not matter, because the ruling class of the cotton states would not bend even that far. (Interestingly, Lincoln became the Republican candidate because he had gone on record so little that it was believed he might bridge the gap between South and North; also, he was Kentucky-born. By the time the election took place, the country was so polarized that his name did not even appear on the ballot in the cotton states.)

Generally speaking, as a Marxist I don't take a lot of interest in bourgeois politics. These days, Candidate A and Candidate B are generally going to do the same things, or one is the 'good cop', and the other the bad. But this was an exceptional time period. In six months, the House of Representatives was unable to elect a Speaker. Congressmen became so agitated and inflamed that there were politicians punching each other in the face and brawling while they were supposed to be in session.

It became more clear to me, after reading this work, why Sherman was so determined that South Carolina would pay, and pay big, when he and his men marched northward through it after razing Atlanta. In the beginning, no state was talking about secession except South Carolina. South Carolina's legislature and governor urged other cotton states--and border states--repeatedly to convene their legislatures to consider secession. And in this unique time period, who was governor of a state took on a whole new urgency, as two governors of border states simply refused to convene the legislature, and thus kept their states within the Union. All the governors of Delaware and Maryland had to do was say no. If there had been the kind of push by their ruling classes that were present in the deep South, they might have had to do differently, but in this case, when the border states made such a huge difference, this choice was tremendously important.

If you doubt this, and Catton points to it, just get a map of the USA as divided by states and look at where Washington, DC is. Had Maryland gone over with Virginia, the Capitol would have been surrounded and Lincoln held hostage. As it was, locating the Confederate capitol as close by as they did was a gutsy move. I had never realized (also) that the Battle of Bull Run (first and second, also called Manassas) was a mere 30 miles from where Lincoln sat. This book was so well written and everything laid out so clearly that I wished I had read it sooner.

The choice to provision Fort Sumter was a huge ordeal. I felt sorry for Anderson, who lost his mind waiting for the Federal government to send him men, supplies, even orders. Ultimately, Lincoln chose to furnish basic provisions in order to show that every US fort was still a US fort, and nothing would be given away, but also with a cool eye cast to the world stage. Those who harrumphed down South, referring to him as an ape and decrying his lack of pomp and polish, did not understand that the American mentality was changing rapidly, that now brains would count for something, at least for awhile. Lincoln wanted Europe to see that this war began because of bread, and that is how the first blood was shed.

A fascinating read for those with serious interest in the American Civil War, readable but also very detailed. I wish I had read it sooner

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume details the build-up of tensions during 1860 and early 1861 that finally exploded into the Civil War in April. It also covers the early months of the war through the Battle of Bull Run in July of '61.

The opening scene tells the story of the contentious atmosphere of the Democratic National Convention in Charleston in April of 1860 that ended up without a nominee. Subsequently, the party split into separate factions, each holding a separate convention that nominated its own candidate. The one issue at the heart of all this tension was slavery. After Lincoln won the presidency in November, southern states began seceding from the Union. The story is very well presented and gives a thorough account of all of the political maneuverings and how the ultimate breakdown actually occurred. It also gives a thorough account of the early military engagements, beginning with Ft Sumter and ending with the Battle of Bull Run. If you are interested in learning about the lead-up to the Civil War, I would recommend this volume.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

If any book I've read truly deserves as 4.5 star rating, this is it. I decided to reread this after realizing it has been at least 40 years since I first read it, and I am so glad I did. The author does a remarkable job distilling the more pertinent details for all of the thing that happened leading up to the Civil War. It is an interesting and timely look at how a once united country of reasonable men and women can devolve to the point of attempting to dissolve the Union rather than negotiate and compromise. Seems appropriate in the most recent political environment. And of course, this stubbornness ultimately led to the bloodiest war in Americas history.

[Peter Schmeltzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great detail to the players and events that led to secession of the south.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

America blundered into the Civil War. This massive bloodshed that disrupted the country had its roots in the earliest compromises of the Republic (when the Constitution's writers allowed slavery to placate South Carolina and Georgia, to keep them in the new country), but at the same time, 1860 represented the most salient failure of American political institutions in our history. Politician after politician made the decision that principle was better than compromise, the extremists on both sides were empowered as political rhetoric dehumanized debate.

Bruce Catton's book illuminates the tumultuous campaign of 1860, the Southern Fire-Eaters who embraced the slave system against the new industrial economy, and the Northern politicians who failed to contingency plan for a South that intended to carry out its threats.

Catton describes in riveting detail the Charleston Convention that broke up the mighty Democratic Party rather than endorse the great statesman-compromiser Stephen Douglas. Catton narrates the improbable nomination of Lincoln by the Republicans and the fake news spread throughout the South about him. Catton follows the four campaigns that represented the factional crack-up of American politics. The Northern Democrats behind Stephen Douglas, the Southern Democrats behind Vice President John C. Breckenridge (who assumed an Electoral College deadlock would send the election to the House of Representatives and enable Douglas to win after all), Constitutional Union Party for John Bell with support from Texan Sam Houston, and Republican Abe Lincoln.

After Lincoln's improbable election precipitated by his early win of Pennsylvania in October, a constitutional crisis ensued. South Carolina impetuously seceded from the Union. The crisis grew out of hand--President-elect Lincoln refused to tie his hands by committing to any policy in advance--and President James Buchanan refused to take any action that would limit the future options of Lincoln, his successor. The November 1860 to March 1861 period ushered in more instability than America had ever seen before as a republican union--and both men are implicated in allowing it to happen. As Fire-Eaters in the Southern States took their states out of the Union, even moderate political leaders who had opposed secession their whole careers lacked the moral imagination to confront the fanatics and factional cabals in their states. Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens were avowed slaveholders, true--but each opposed their states' secession from the Union. However, when they're states chose to go out, they went with them for the sake of political careers and ended up as President and Vice President of the new Confederacy. Meanwhile, the immediate focus of conflict became whether Federal property in the seceding states passed to them or remained Federal. The U.S. Army's acting department head for Texas, Robert E. Lee, advocated for armed resistance by the U.S. Army against any seceding Texans who attempted to repo federal buildings and military supplies. Overruled by the Buchanan administration, Lee returned to Virginia and Sam Houston acquiesced to his impeachment for opposing Texas secession. With some resolve from the Buchanan administration, or some signal from President-Elect Lincoln on how he intended to handle Federal property--the course of the war would have drastically changed, been shorter, and resulted in another compromise that would advance the end of slavery. San Antonio would have been the first shots of the Civil War, not Fort Sumter, and with Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee still in the Union, the defeated narrative of the South would have been different as well. But without that quick executive backbone from a president the union careened toward disaster.

Three separate attempts to call an unprecedented Convention of States to enact wholesale constitutional change were stymied by parochial political interests who failed to identify the nation as on the brink of war. Southern Fire-Eaters could not admit any compromise that foretold the end of slavery, and Northern politicians failed to communicate to the Southerns their resolve to use military force to prevent them from seceding in order to perpetuate slavery. So the Civil War began.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent portrayal of the eve of the Civil War, with many rich details and insightful comments by the author. And very chilling, since we know what's coming.

A few passages that caught my attention:

Page 12: "...politics in America could no longer be wholly sane. ...the mounting threat ... made the debaters shout more loudly and appeal more directly to emotions that made reasonable debate impossible. Men put special meaning on words and phrases, so that what sounded good to one sounded evil to another ... and even the voices that called for moderation became immoderate. American politics in 1860 could do almost anything ... except sit down and take a reasoned and dispassionate view of their situation."

Page 203: A letter from a North Carolina mountaineer to the governor that expressed a non-slaveholder's point of view perfectly: "We have but little interest in the value of slaves. But there is one matter ... of which we have a deep interest. We are opposed to Negro equality. To prevent this, we are willing to spare the last man, ... to the point where women and children begin to suffer for food and clothing ... to suffer and die [;] rather than see them equalized with an inferior race we will die with them.

Page 224: "Just before Lincoln left Springfield, a citizen visited [a general] ... to ask whether precautions had been taken to make sure that Congress could formally count the electoral vote; it was being rumored that a mob would rise and prevent it, thus (presumably) making it impossible for Lincoln to take office."

Page 435: For the Confederacy: "These problems [of transportation, technology, etc.] ... were so grave and pointed so surely to final defeat that one is forced to wonder how the founding fathers of the Confederacy could possibly have overlooked them. ...these were Yankee problems, concerns of the broker, the money changer, the trader, the mechanic, the grasping men of business ... not matters that would command the attention of aristocrats who were familiar with valor, the classics, and heroic attitudes. Secession itself had involved a flight from reality rather than an approach to it.

No need to comment. The quotes tell it all.

[Kathy Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to the issues that led to secession in 1861. Bruce Catton starts with the Democratic Convention in 1860 in Charleston, SC and end the the First Battle of Bull Run. It is interesting to note that the division of the Democratic party occurred from the beginning of the campaign season. The Republicans had not convened and the Democrats were not able to come to a consensus about who their own presidential nominee would be. The Southerners held their own convention and nominated Breckinridge and the rest of the party met later in Baltimore and chose Stephen Douglas. As a result of this split Abraham Lincoln, the first republican president became the leader of a very divided country. South Carolina left the union first and then the rest of the cotton states followed. These states did leave the union over slavery. So anyone who tries to say that the Civil War was over States Rights is wrong. The States Rights issue comes in a few months later when the border states start choosing sides. It is interesting that the issue that the border states took up was the call to arms of troops. Drafting men into the army has been a controversial issue in American Politics for a very long time. The governors of the border states did not like being given a quota of men to turn over to the federal regulars. As so many army officers left the service to fight for rebellious states their was a need for fresh recruits.

Catton is very fair to Lincoln and Seward in this book. Lincoln had filled his cabinet with political rivals and many people did not understand why he did that. Maybe he recognized the needs of the United States during a time of great conflict and turmoil. I enjoyed this book.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dare one say that this treasured history of events leading to the Civil War now seems...well...dated? Catton taught most of us "of an age" about the great American catastrophe of the 19th Century and was a fine teacher, indeed. Still, compared with the work of Shelby Foote which has a more modern tone, Catton's work does seem a bit cliched and oddly worded. That tiny whine noted, Catton remains as superb a historian as he seemed so many decades ago. A fine piece of scholarship neatly presented.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Noah Goats · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable and informative read about the beginning of the Civil War. Catton doesn't start with a long discussion of the economic differences between North and South, looking back across previous decades to chew over the consequences of events that stalled the war or pushed it on. Not much is said about things like the Missouri Compromise or the Nullification Crisis, for example. Instead, he drops us into the Democratic Convention of 1860. This historic convention split the party and for Catton, this was the proximate cause for the split in the union. Because the Democrats ended up putting forward two candidates (one pro-slavery, the other rabidly pro-slavery) the Republicans were able to win with Abraham Lincoln, pushing the mob of hotheads in South Carolina to secede.

The book focuses mostly on politics, including the weak and ineffectual attempts to avoid the coming war, Lincoln's efforts to woo/cajole border states to remain in the union, and Lincoln's early use of aggressive executive power. But it also discusses the early skirmishes and military maneuverings that would give the conflict its shape, including a particularly good account of both the political and military actions that led to the opening shots at Fort Sumpter.

This book may be sixty years old or so, but it's still well worth reading.

BTW, I read this on Kindle with the audio companion and the reader was pretty solid.

[Nancy Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the all-time classics of Civil War history! Catton was a master of the language and wrote with an eloquence not often found in such texts. This is the first of his trilogy in the Centennial History, and I cannot remember how many times I've read it since it was published in 1961. Each time, however, it's fresh and like being introduced to the 1860s all over again. He begins with the campaign of 1860 and ends this first volume with the tragicomic debacle of First Manassas/Bull Run, bringing to life the people and the era.

[Ryan Ard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really did not know much of the lead up to the Civil War. I knew most of it had to do with the slavery issue but Catton does a good job explaining some of the other tensions and how and where things had begun to come to a head. I find it interesting that all three places I have lived (Pensacola, FL; Charleston, SC; and Mobile, AL) had either key forts or key locations to hold in the Civil War.

[John Landes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume 1 of the Civil War Trilogy by Catton. Incredible. I have had these books for years on the shelf. Frustrated at myself for just now getting into the series! Feels like I’m getting a Master’s degree in Civil War History.

[Tim Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was very interesting and very well written, classic Catton. It describes the lead-up to the Civil War from around 1859 to the First Battle of Bull Run in detail, while remaining entertaining and engaging. The part of the book dealing with the events of January-April 1860 and the lead up to Fort Sumter were particularly interesting to me.

[Cameron Rhoads · Rating 5 out of 5]

20.14 hours on Audible. Thoroughly enjoyed.

[Rindis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruce Catton's centennial history of the ACW makes certain to go into some background. The opening act is the Democratic National Convention in 1860. Place: Charleston, South Carolina. Favored Candidate: Stephen Douglas.

However, there's a wing of the party that is determined to throw the script. Among them, President Buchanan was determined the nomination should go elsewhere, and radicals like William Yancey saw a chance to force the South out of the country. In the end, the convention broke up after most of the southern delegates walked out rather than endorse a platform that did not take a very hard line on the extension of slavery. Months later, the Republican National Convention also goes off script, with a relative unknown being nominated in place of favorite Senator William Seward.

That's the first chapter. The final one starts with McClellan's campaign in (future West) Virginia, and then moves to the Southern armies in Virginia, and the two Union forces just north of the Potomac. Pressure is on McDowell to move south and prosecute the war, but the army isn't really ready, and after some hours of fighting, all cohesion is lost, and the army collapses, routing en mass back to Washington DC. The Rebel army isn't any better, and is too thoroughly disordered in victory to pursue.

In between, we have three hundred fifty pages of the drift to disunion and war. This includes the initial "feeling out" of states towards succession, followed later by the actual acts themselves. As this progresses, the various states demand various bits of federal property, located in those states, to be handed over. This mostly happens for various reasons (there just not being any federal troops to hold most of them, among others), but there are exceptions.

Fort Moultrie, guarding the Charleston harbor is nearly indefensible from land, but not entirely so, and Colonel Gardner started sweeping away built up sand and dirt from the outer walls. An attempt to recover arms from a nearby arsenal caused a furor that saw him replaced. Major Anderson was now in the same barely-tenable position. But, there was a better option; Fort Sumter, in a more central position of the harbor was just finishing construction. Anderson had been asking for instructions for some time, and eventually realized the orders he did have gave him the latitude to move out there under the circumstances.

While slow in coming, those orders came from an administration whose character was also changing. As the South left, so too did parts of Buchanan's cabinet, leading to a more pro-Northern group, and Lincoln's inaugural promise "to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts" really starts as the previous administration starts looking for ways to resist succession. The entire crisis over Sumter gets extensive coverage, along with related topics such as Fort Pickens in Florida.

It is worth noting that the first volume of Catton's trilogy looks at about a year, and still leaves the bulk of a four-year war to the next two volumes. For the overview it is, there's a lot of detail about the immediate lead up. Of course, you can always reach further back, and he studiously avoids going into anything earlier than early 1860. There is precious little about the Mexican-American War, nor the political crisis caused by the Wilmot Proviso and its defeat that put the current political players into their positions. And that's fine, there's more than enough here to go through as it is, and it is an exciting recounting of events gathering force until the first real clash of arms wrecks two armies, and very different conclusions about the course of the war are seen.

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Coming Fury is an excellent book detailing the tragic onset of the Civil War.

The book begins with the 186o Democratic convention in South Carolina, which eventually split off into a Southern and Northern Democratic camp and all but ensured Abraham Lincoln's election and the secession of the South. Lincoln's name did not even appear on the ballot in the Southern states, so much was the candidacy of this man loathed.

The Coming Fury, the first of Bruce Catton's famed Civil War trilogy, details the first months of a war that many patriotic Americans had hoped to see avoided, framing the onset of the Civil War as a time when extremists seized the day and forced an unbridgeable breakdown in diplomacy. The refusal of the South to recognize the ascendancy to power of a Republican party they viewed, despite the entreaties of Lincoln himself, as hostile to slave holding interests, led to a secession and bloody war which Catton chronicles in exceptional historical detail.

What may strike many readers early on is how publicly flippant Lincoln was toward the South's intentions in the time frame between his election and inauguration. Catton recounts his train trip from Illinois to Washington for his inauguration in early 1861, during which Lincoln gave numerous off-the-cuff speeches downplaying the potential for war and seeming to dismiss any notion that the secession of South Carolina and the tough talk from other Southern states about forming their own country was anything more than a bluff. Even his inaugural speech--given after several states had already seceded from the U.S.--extended a hand of friendship to the South, complete with a promise to leave slavery alone where it already existed (while preventing its extension into territories where it was unlikely to take root anyways).

The unwillingness to touch slavery as an issue during the initial part of the conflict constitutes much of the Civil War realpolitik that is often overlooked. At the time of his inauguration, Lincoln still held out hope that Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and other slave holding border states would remain in the Union; avoiding alienating them was crucial. Lincoln also recognized early on that many Northerners would rally to the cause of bringing the seceded states back into the Union (the act of secession rightly being viewed as treason) but would, aside from core abolitionists, not be willing to fight for the end of slavery. It would take time before the need for a more inspiring, overarching reason to fight was needed. Reading about the political gamesmanship involved on the slavery issue was not the only element of the delicate border state situations examined by Catton. The fact that the U.S. president nearly had the Maryland legislature arrested in 1861 (to prevent them from meeting and voting to secede, which would have left D.C. surrounded by hostile territory) and suspended habeus corpus there, having individuals arrested for anti-government speech, showed just how desperate of a situation the country found itself in. The work of Maryland's Governor Hicks in keeping his state in the Union perhaps staved off an early termination of the war at the hands of the Confederacy.

Governor Magoffin of Kentucky, a state of divided loyalties, demanded that neither Confederate or Union troops use his state as a staging ground for fighting--neutrality was the Bluegrass States's original stated policy. But perhaps outshining Kentucky or Maryland for border state madness was Missouri. The Coming Fury explains how this divided state, which had already seen violence in the 1850s during the rabid slavery vs. abolition debate, was basically the Wild West of the Civil War at the outset of fighting. The fighting between pro-Southern Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson and pro-Union military man Nathaniel Lyon in the state, violence which saw pro and anti-Confederate ragtag troops and militias doing battle, with Lyon seizing a massive cache of weapons in St. Louis and which ultimately saw the governor having to flee his own state's capital and set up a government-in-exile near the Arkansas border--showed how, even early on, the war's potential for turning neighbor against neighbor.

Robert Anderson's efforts to keep the situation at Fort Sumter from igniting an all-out war was given ample attention, playing out like an extended drama. With Beauregard and Confederates in a stand-off with one of the last spots of Federal property in South Carolina, each calculated move between Montgomery (then the Confederate capital), Washington, and Charleston was a risky situation where one wrong step could lead to a catastrophic pitfall. Catton fills readers in admirably on this tricky, Civil-War starting scenario. The surrender of the fort, often seen as a catalyst for the war's beginning, is not written off as the sole final straw in the rest of the South's secession. The author points out that Lincoln's immediate call for Federal troops in the aftermath of the Sumter disaster sent the final Confederate states over the secessionist edge. During my time as a college student, at both UTPB UT Permian Basin and UTA UT Arlington, there was an extensive focus on history and wars in our classes, but an in-depth study of this subject was something that we never quite were able to receive. Getting an education in this is a near-necessity for any voting American, whether college bound or not; of all American wars to learn about, the Civil War most certainly deserves a close-up, truthful examination.

There were numerous anecdotes in The Coming Fury that even many dedicated Civil War readers might not have been aware of. Soon after the secession of Texas, the book tells about the travails of Robert E. Lee, stationed near San Antonio and still serving under the U.S. flag at that point. As he headed toward the Gulf Coast to steam back to Washington (ultimately to resign his commission to avoid taking up arms against his native Virginia) Lee briefly expressed worry that he would face arrest from local Texas Confederates and be taken as a prisoner-of-war. This ultimately did not take place, but it underscored the level of uncertainty created by the announcement of a new, sovereign nation by eleven Southern states.

The book not only delves into Lincoln's frame of mind, but examines the conflicted mindset of Jefferson Davis as well. A U.S. veteran and former U.S. Secretary of War, Davis is painted as a leader hoping against his instincts that the Confederacy will merely be left alone after announcing their split, something Lincoln felt he was duty bound under the Constitution to push back against.

Volume One, appropriately enough, closes with the Union rout at Bull Run. Pierre Beauregard's outmaneuvering of Irvin McDowell's men, leading to a near-trampling of spectators near the battle site, ends hope the North had that the re-joining of their Confederate brothers into the Union would be an easy process. This is made all the more tragic by the reality of one of The Coming Fury's central themes: the pre-Sumter hope experienced by both North and South that the brewing crisis could be ended without bloodshed. The polish and flow the book is written with makes readers anxious to begin Volume Two; the cliffhanger manner in which The Coming Fury concludes is only the last of many well-executed and competent writing techniques utilized by the long since deceased Bruce Catton.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I read it, I am impressed how wonderfully the prose flows, how evocative the descriptions, and how sweeping the analysis.

Mostly these days, we want to talk about the Civil War as a moral conflict, or else jump right into the technicalities of armies and weapons. Catton instead frames the opening of the war as a failure in political crisis management. He isn’t blind to the moral aspect, but his frame of departure is that a bounded number of people, small enough to fit in a large room, made particular choices and we could have avoided the war if they had made other choices.

Catton can point to the people and to the rooms. He starts his narrative with the Democratic Party Convention of 1860: the Southern states walked out of the convention over slavery, splitting the party and -- implicitly -- committing themselves to walk out of the Union. They didn’t have to do that. If they had understood fully of the consequences, they perhaps would not have.

Opening Chapter 3, Catton describes how, in 1860, "every piece of the intricate machinery by which a democracy can make its solemn choice was available: party conventions, speeches and petitions and debates, a national election campaign, finally a vote on candidates and parties; yet by mid-November nothing had been settled. So then the focus narrowed to the White House and the national Capitol; what was said and done there might still determine whether the crisis could be solved or must be brought to the point of explosion."

Catton beautifully describes the process by which the power to start the war got steadily pushed down the chain of command over the months between the election and the Fort Sumter.

At the end of the chapter, describing Major Anderson's situation, he notes that "...the narrowing-down process had reached its limit at last. The power to make the decision which everyone else had evaded lay now in the hands of two obscure subordinates, a major of United States artillery and a captain of South Carolina infantry. Each man had been given discretionary orders. Between them, they could say whether there would be a war."

[Victor Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was exactly the book I was hoping it to be. For all the millions of pages of Civil War literature extant, there seems to be a shortage of well-known, scholarly writing about the events leading up to its outbreak. We are taught in school that "the South seceded" in December 1860, that Fort Sumter was fired upon the following April and that the first major battle happened in July. From a modern perspective, this seems ludicrous. Wars have been fought and finished in less time!

Bruce Catton expertly fills in the gaps. We learn of the politicking that led to Lincoln's upset nomination and the fracturing of the Democratic party. We learn of the rhetoric that culminated in secession after the election. I was captivated by the four month dance around Fort Sumter, an antebellum precurser to the Cuban Missile Crisis in which both sides are daring the other to strike first and so be the aggressor. Amazingly, it is lost on the lay public that Fort Sumter produced not a single casualty and was thus a political symbol rather than the true start of the war. The last amazing fact I learned from this book was about the formation of West Virginia and General McClellan's early successes in that campaign, before his caricatured ineptitude on the peninsula.

Having never read extensively about it, I consider myself representative of the public conception of what the Civil War was all about, and the basic sequence of events we're all taught in school. While I'm still no expert, I feel I know so much more about the subject now that I've read this book. I've always been more interested in what led up to the war, why it broke out when it did, and what life was like in various sections of the country at that time, than the battle schedule and cast of romantic hero characters. If you feel the same, this is a must read.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

The men who marched were full of state pride and they bragged about the fine deeds which this day would be done by Massachusetts or New York or Ohio. Like the Southern boys whom they were about to meet, their feelings of loyalty and patriotism were translated ultimately in the homely terms of what a man could see from his own attic window. In each soldier’s heart the nation was very small and intimate…big enough to be worth dying for, but familiar enough to be loved personally.
—Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury

The first volume of Bruce Catton’s U.S. Civil War centennial trilogy, covering the period from the Democratic National Convention in April 1860 to the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, is required reading for any student of history seeking a better understanding of the events that immediately preceded the outbreak of hostilities between the states. Catton’s writing is both lyrical and clear, and manages to condense a convoluted tangle of events down to a succinct narration. What Catton does better than perhaps any historian is to lay bare the fundamental absurdity of the war.

In 1860, the United States was an aspiring continental empire that was relatively isolated from the outside world. Its military apparatus—almost entirely focused on westward expansion and the Indian Wars—was meager and graying. Case in point: Winfield Scott, Commanding General of the United States Army, was a 74-year-old veteran of the War of 1812. Once civil strife erupted, the volunteer armies called up by both sides were green and untrained, and never was this more obvious than in the Union’s first chaotic advance into Virginia at Bull Run, which serves as the finale to this volume.

Both Unionists and Confederates alike lacked strategic and physical fitness, and there was little sense of sobriety in the face of the calamity toward which all parties were marching with wide-eyed, patriotic vigor. While both sides clamored for war, it was as if neither truly believed that once hostilities began, men of the other side would kill their countrymen (or at least men who until very recently had been their countrymen). The whole spectacle of the Confederates setting up their government with pomp and circumstance in Montgomery has the air of very puffed up men playing at a game. To “Gods and Generals” I would counter “Farce and Folly.”

While his analysis is generally disinterested, Catton does flirt with the Lost Cause-ism that was still very much in vogue at the time he was writing. That said, his romantic overtures to the valor and courage of the fallen South are tempered by his condemnation of the rampant xenophobia and white supremacism that fueled their cause. Catton writes that

...although [Negroes] were among the most peaceful, easygoing, and uncomplaining people the world has ever seen, their mere presence frightened native Americans almost beyond endurance ... The Negro had to remain what he was and as he was, his mere presence a mocking denial of the nation’s basic belief in freedom and the advancement of the human spirit.

Despite such enlightened commentary (especially by the standards of 1961), Catton shows hints of his generation’s sympathy to the South by suggesting that slavery was a “comparatively benign” institution by the mid-19th century. Still, he does not shy away from the central role that slavery played in the war, nor the almost apoplectic outrage inspired in whites on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line by the mere thought of racial equality.

What Catton also makes clear in this first volume is that the South had already lost the war from the outset. The Confederacy was founded upon the premise that few powers should be granted to central government, and Jefferson Davis hewed that line while Abraham Lincoln did not demure when it came to the assumption of near dictatorial authority (e.g., the suspension of habeas corpus, the effective annexation of Maryland into the Union, and the ouster of the popularly-elected government in Missouri). Moreover, the regional divisions of the country at that time were not simply ideological but economical. When the states divided, two nations of starkly different composition were formed: one outmoded and agrarian, the other relentlessly industrial.

Inflation in the South began before the first battle of the war was fought, and while the Rebels were hopeful that King Cotton would grant them the leverage necessary to extort alliances with Britain and France, the principals of the Confederacy never seem to have considered the impracticality of their position: export of cotton had been almost entirely dependent upon vessels built in the North. Moreover, cotton stores were in such surplus across the Atlantic that textile mills in the North were able to import cotton from Europe in the early days of the war.

To compound matters, there was no easy flow of freight traffic within the South. The railways were mostly composed of feeder lines meant to convey cotton between short distances, and no interchange of cars was possible. This made the transport of military supplies and artillery slow and inefficient. The North faced similar problems but recognized and addressed these pitfalls early on, aided to that end by the fact that almost all of the ironworks were in the North. Catton opines that the leaders of the South were not so much unseeing of these problems as they were uncomprehending—that is, American manufacturing forces were so entirely concentrated in the North that perils which could be easily spotted by industrialists and bankers did not even enter into the Southern mind.

Catton quotes the historian Francis Parkman Jr., who surveyed the war two years after its outset and declared that the struggle between Confederacy and Union was a battle of “strong head and weak body against strong body and weak head.” Catton—again, hints of the Lost Cause—concurs, and waxes poetic upon the intellectual and spiritual heft of men like Robert E. Lee, the Johnstons (Albert Sidney and Joseph Eggleston), and Matthew Fontaine Maury. But, in the end, Catton hones in on the fatal flaw of the South: the naive assumption that “courage and dedication, because they burned so brightly, would make up for all the other deficiencies.”

Thus, the South of 1861 was beset by the same crippling weaknesses of 2017—primary among them, a way of viewing the world that is at once anachronistic and absurdly hostile to the uncompromising encroachment of modernity. As Catton rightly sums up the matter: “The head so full of fire could make an inadequate body surpass its limitations only for a time.” The succession of the Southern states was the ultimate flight from reality, and even after a catastrophic defeat, Confederate descendants down to the present day would prefer false narratives, putrid nostalgia, and a Jim Crow "Redemption" over anything resembling the real world.