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Reviewed under the rubric of "The Centennial History of the Civil War" of which this is volume two of three.
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The Centennial History of the Civil War #2
Terrible Swift Sword
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The second episode in this award-winning trilogy impressively shows how the Union and Confederacy, slowly and inexorably, reconciled themselves to an all-out war—an epic struggle for freedom.
In Terrible Swift Sword, Bruce Catton tells the story of the Civil War as never before—of two turning points which changed the scope and meaning of the war. First, he describes how the war slowly but steadily got out of control. This would not be the neat, short, “limited” war both sides had envisioned. And then the author reveals how the sweeping force of all-out conflict changed the war’s purpose, in turning it into a war for human freedom.
It was not initially a war against slavery. Instead, this was, Mr. Lincoln kept insisting, a fight to reunite the United States. At first, it was not even much of a fight. Cautious generals; inexperienced, incompetent, or jealous administrators; shortages of good people and supplies; excess of both gloom and optimism, kept each side from swinging into decisive action. As the buildup began, there were maddening delays. The earliest engagements were halting and inconclusive. After these first tests at arms, reputations began to crumble. Buell, Halleck, Beauregard Albert Sidney Johnston. Failed to drive ahead—for reasons good and bad. General McClellan (impaled in these pages on the arrogant words of his letters) captured more imaginations than enemies, and continued to accept serious over estimates of Confederate strength while becoming more and more fatally estranged from his own government.
In Terrible Swift Sword, Bruce Catton tells the story of the Civil War as never before—of two turning points which changed the scope and meaning of the war. First, he describes how the war slowly but steadily got out of control. This would not be the neat, short, “limited” war both sides had envisioned. And then the author reveals how the sweeping force of all-out conflict changed the war’s purpose, in turning it into a war for human freedom.
It was not initially a war against slavery. Instead, this was, Mr. Lincoln kept insisting, a fight to reunite the United States. At first, it was not even much of a fight. Cautious generals; inexperienced, incompetent, or jealous administrators; shortages of good people and supplies; excess of both gloom and optimism, kept each side from swinging into decisive action. As the buildup began, there were maddening delays. The earliest engagements were halting and inconclusive. After these first tests at arms, reputations began to crumble. Buell, Halleck, Beauregard Albert Sidney Johnston. Failed to drive ahead—for reasons good and bad. General McClellan (impaled in these pages on the arrogant words of his letters) captured more imaginations than enemies, and continued to accept serious over estimates of Confederate strength while becoming more and more fatally estranged from his own government.
558 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1962
This edition
- Format
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558 pages, Paperback
- Published
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December 31, 2001 by Phoenix
- ISBN
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9781842122938
- ASIN
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1842122932
- Language
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English
About the author
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Catton was known as a narrative historian who specialized in popular histories that emphasized the colorful characters and vignettes of history, in addition to the simple dates, facts, and analysis. His works, although well-researched, were generally not presented in a rigorous academic style, supported by footnotes. In the long line of Civil War historians, Catton is arguably the most prolific and popular of all, with Shelby Foote his only conceivable rival. Oliver Jensen, who succeeded him as editor of American Heritage magazine, wrote: "There is a near-magic power of imagination in Catton's work that seemed to project him physically into the battlefields, along the dusty roads and to the campfires of another age."
Bruce Catton was born in Petoskey, Michigan, but spent most of his boyhood in Benzonia. He was the son of a Congregationalist minister, who accepted a teaching position in Benzonia Academy and later became the academy's headmaster. As a boy, Bruce first heard the reminiscences of the aged veterans who had fought in the Civil War. Their stories made a lasting impression upon him, giving "a color and a tone," Catton wrote in his memoir, Waiting for the Morning Train (1972), "not merely to our village life, but to the concept of life with which we grew up ... I think I was always subconsciously driven by an attempt to restate that faith and to show where it was properly grounded, how it grew out of what a great many young men on both sides felt and believed and were brave enough to do."
Catton attended Oberlin College, starting in 1916, but he left without completing a degree due to the outbreak of World War I. After serving briefly in the U.S. Navy during the war, Catton became a reporter and wrote for various newspapers: the Cleveland News (as a freelance reporter), the Boston American (1920–24), and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (1925). From then until 1941, he worked for the Newspaper Enterprise Association (a Scripps-Howard syndicate), for which he wrote editorials, book reviews, and served as a correspondent from Washington, D.C.
At the start of World War II, Catton was too old for military service and, starting in 1941, he served as Director of Information for the War Production Board and later held similar posts in the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior. This experience as a federal employee prepared him to write his first book, War Lords of Washington, in 1948. Although the book was not a commercial success, it inspired Catton to leave the federal government in 1952 to become a full-time author.
In 1954 Catton was one of four founders of American Heritage magazine, and served initially as a writer, reviewer, and editor. In the first issue, he wrote:
We intend to deal with that great, unfinished and illogically inspiring story of the American people doing, being and becoming. Our American heritage is greater than any one of us. It can express itself in very homely truths; in the end it can lift up our eyes beyond the glow in the sunset skies.
In 1959 Catton was named senior editor of American Heritage, a post he held for the rest of his life.
Bruce Catton died in his summer home at Frankfort, Michigan.
Bruce Catton was born in Petoskey, Michigan, but spent most of his boyhood in Benzonia. He was the son of a Congregationalist minister, who accepted a teaching position in Benzonia Academy and later became the academy's headmaster. As a boy, Bruce first heard the reminiscences of the aged veterans who had fought in the Civil War. Their stories made a lasting impression upon him, giving "a color and a tone," Catton wrote in his memoir, Waiting for the Morning Train (1972), "not merely to our village life, but to the concept of life with which we grew up ... I think I was always subconsciously driven by an attempt to restate that faith and to show where it was properly grounded, how it grew out of what a great many young men on both sides felt and believed and were brave enough to do."
Catton attended Oberlin College, starting in 1916, but he left without completing a degree due to the outbreak of World War I. After serving briefly in the U.S. Navy during the war, Catton became a reporter and wrote for various newspapers: the Cleveland News (as a freelance reporter), the Boston American (1920–24), and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (1925). From then until 1941, he worked for the Newspaper Enterprise Association (a Scripps-Howard syndicate), for which he wrote editorials, book reviews, and served as a correspondent from Washington, D.C.
At the start of World War II, Catton was too old for military service and, starting in 1941, he served as Director of Information for the War Production Board and later held similar posts in the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior. This experience as a federal employee prepared him to write his first book, War Lords of Washington, in 1948. Although the book was not a commercial success, it inspired Catton to leave the federal government in 1952 to become a full-time author.
In 1954 Catton was one of four founders of American Heritage magazine, and served initially as a writer, reviewer, and editor. In the first issue, he wrote:
We intend to deal with that great, unfinished and illogically inspiring story of the American people doing, being and becoming. Our American heritage is greater than any one of us. It can express itself in very homely truths; in the end it can lift up our eyes beyond the glow in the sunset skies.
In 1959 Catton was named senior editor of American Heritage, a post he held for the rest of his life.
Bruce Catton died in his summer home at Frankfort, Michigan.
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I think this is one of the best Bruce Catton books dealing with the Civil War. Compare this to the Bhagavad Gita and the question of why we fight our brothers??
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Fulsome and fair.
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I once read a comment that "God writes a very poor second act." That's not quite true of this second book in Bruce Catton's monumental Centennial History of the Civil War trilogy, but Terrible Swift Sword doesn't carry the "umph" of either the first or third volumes. However, Catton is a wonderful storyteller who writes of the most terrible time in United States history in a way that is clear and engaging.
It is a bridge, carrying the story of the Civil War from its genesis to its conclusion. More than anything, it is a book that sets the stage for the final 2 years. But without this book, a reader would not understand so much about how the early hopes of a quick war on both sides vanished into the realization that it would be a bloody conflict beyond all imagining.
The most fascinating part of this book is not so much the north-south fighting as the in-fighting within the Union between General George McClellan and his Army of the Potomac and Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet. As to McClellan, it is not clear whether history has a more inept military figure with a larger ego. Catton's narrative draws out, bit by bit, the incredible arrogance of the man while at the same time, his perpetual inaction that drove Lincoln to the point of asking that if McClellan wasn't going to use the Army, if he would mind if Lincoln "borrowed it for a while."
The book sheds light on points where both sides fumbled away actions that possibly could have ended the war much sooner, although he makes the point that those options were full of risks.
There is a riveting account of the world's first battle between iron class that effectively ended in a draw.
Finally, there is the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, the bloodiest single day in American history which drove back Lee's first attempt to move north.
For anyone interested in Civil War history, which should be everyone, this is a MUST READ trilogy.
It is a bridge, carrying the story of the Civil War from its genesis to its conclusion. More than anything, it is a book that sets the stage for the final 2 years. But without this book, a reader would not understand so much about how the early hopes of a quick war on both sides vanished into the realization that it would be a bloody conflict beyond all imagining.
The most fascinating part of this book is not so much the north-south fighting as the in-fighting within the Union between General George McClellan and his Army of the Potomac and Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet. As to McClellan, it is not clear whether history has a more inept military figure with a larger ego. Catton's narrative draws out, bit by bit, the incredible arrogance of the man while at the same time, his perpetual inaction that drove Lincoln to the point of asking that if McClellan wasn't going to use the Army, if he would mind if Lincoln "borrowed it for a while."
The book sheds light on points where both sides fumbled away actions that possibly could have ended the war much sooner, although he makes the point that those options were full of risks.
There is a riveting account of the world's first battle between iron class that effectively ended in a draw.
Finally, there is the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, the bloodiest single day in American history which drove back Lee's first attempt to move north.
For anyone interested in Civil War history, which should be everyone, this is a MUST READ trilogy.
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Catton's work is a gripping account of the Civil War transforming itself from the cause of preserving the Union to one of redefining what that Union stood for. Lincoln subtly navigates the ship of state, an unwieldy ship if there ever was one, through the rocky shoals of civil war. Radical Republicans and abolitionists, the border state slave owners and moderate Democrats effectively controlling the premier army of the North, the active foil of the Confederacy with Britain always playing an uncertain role off in the distance...and of course chance ever determining the course of nations all weigh on the President as he both tries to win the war and define why that war must be fought and won in the first place.
It doesn't surprise me that a generation of Civil War buffs were raised after the likes of Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton started writing expansive and engaging accounts of the conflict. This is history as it is supposed to be. Highly recommended!
It doesn't surprise me that a generation of Civil War buffs were raised after the likes of Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton started writing expansive and engaging accounts of the conflict. This is history as it is supposed to be. Highly recommended!
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Bruce Catton's second installment of The Centennial History of the Civil War trilogy covers the middle portion of the war beginning with the aftermath of First Manassas to the Battle of Antietam and the Emancipation proclamation in September 1863. It is a decent overview of this time-frame told chronologically, focusing on both the military and political aspects of the conflict. Catton does not get mired in details of the various battles, but instead, stays at a higher level view, explaining the big picture of each engagement.
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This was a fantastic look at the Civil War, from just after the First Battle of Bull Run to the Battle of Antietam. Catton is such an engaging writer, and his prose kept me engaged and interested. I'm getting to the point where broad histories of the Civil War are beginning to get repetitive, however Catton's works continue to impress and entertain me. He was truly the master at Civil War history and this Centennial History of the Civil War has been a great example of that so far.
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Powerful
Always a well researched and intriguing writer, Mr Catton puts you into the Civil War and its web of personalities and battles with a feeling of reality that few can accomplish. He is the master of his craft.
Always a well researched and intriguing writer, Mr Catton puts you into the Civil War and its web of personalities and battles with a feeling of reality that few can accomplish. He is the master of his craft.
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