That had a significant impact on the outcome of the battle and I can't recall another author pointing it out.Ĭatton's excellence extends to his writing style. Catton points out that when Longstreet fought at Chickamauga ten of his infantry brigades and all of his artillery had not arrived before the battle ended. Lee wrote to Davis said that all he could hope for was to save Richmond. Grant kept fighting and eventually Lee lost the initiative in the struggle between the two armies. When discussing the Battle of the Wilderness Catton states that Grant got beat nearly as bad as Hooker at Chancellorsville, but Grant was not Hooker. It is a grisly fact but a significant detail that adds to my knowledge of that event. I don't remember reading that fact in any other book in my short time reading about the Civil War. In the morning when the fog lifted there were hundreds of Union dead in front of the sunken road who were naked. In his discussion of the Battle of Fredricksburg Catton writes that the night after the battle the Confederate soldiers crept out and pulled the clothes off of many of the Union dead.

I have read about this incident in other books but I never read the significance of it explained that way. The President had a general-in-chief he could talk to.' 'This remark would have puzzled Meade, it probably would not have been said to Hooker, and it would have made McClellan wince as the son of a tanner, Grant understood it. If a man can't skin he must hold a leg while somebody else does.' Grant told Lincoln that all of the Union armies should advance at once in order to keep all of the Confederate armies occupied and unable to assist each other, using those famous interior lines. Here is a good example of how Catton was able to show the meaning present in the facts of his story.There was a conversation between Lincoln and Grant that appears in Grant's Memoirs and is quoted often by other authors. In my opinion he is an excellent author with a treasure trove of knowledge about the Civil War. I have read some opinions that Bruce Catton is dated and reflects an outmoded viewpoint on the Civil War.

That book is the first volume in this series and starts with the 1860 Democratic Party convention and goes through the First Battle of Bull Run. He won the Pulitzer for history in 1954 for A Stillness at Appomattox. At the time this series was published Catton was the editor of the 'American Heritage' and had already published a number of books on the Civil War. This is the third and final volume in the Centennial History of The Civil War by Bruce Catton.

Never call retreat bruce catton