The first books I ever read about the Civil War were by Bruce Catton, starting with his novel BANNERS AT SHENANDOAH and continuing with his two overall histories and ending with his U.S. Grant trilogy. There is something effortless about the way Catton integrates his sources and spins his tale.

If one may say he is not really a scholar, he is at least a brilliant popularizer and integrater. REFLECTIONS is like the capstone of his career. Now that I've read scores of books on the subject, Catton somehow manages to revivify the entire period.

By far my favorite chapter is the story of an Army Engineer who also created a sketchbook of his battle experiences. Catton follows him thoughout the war and even after, until his later years are spent in pain from an injury received in battle decades before. Also brilliant is is short summary of the war from the point of view of opportunities lost. (It appears that the commanding generals of the Army of the Potomac have a lot to answer for.)

If you want a single book to give you a good feeling of what the Civil War was like without dragging you company by company through all the gory details, this is the book for you.

There are many great writers about the Civil War, but I definitely feel that, now that Catton has gone, the vital spark is no longer there.

Catton provides the reader with an easy to understand synopsis of the grand currents at work during the Civil War. Masterfully done, Catton obviously composed his ideas from a vast warehouse of Civil War knowledge. Not concerned with detailing the minutia of events, he is able deliver a feeling for what was going on during those great and terrible days. Although the Foreword and Introduction seem a bit fawning at times, the editor and E. B. Long are able to clue the reader in on what to expect and what to look for.

This book was compiled from audio tapes Catton made before his death,,, his "reflections" on the Civil War. In it Catton brings the lessons of his life long study of the war into very human focus. It is the best book I know of for anyone who is seeking their first Civil war book because it tells the stories of the war in such human terms. It is the best book I know of for the Civil war "expert" for the very same reason. One cannot lose focus on the essential human war exoperiences once this book is read. It is an outstanding achievement. There is fact here to be sure but Catton always provided mofre than fact. He provided understanding. And in "Reflection On The Civil War" he provides passion and compassion, intrigue and dareing, and deep respect for the simple common people of the 1860's Here, he speaks of their wisdom, their dedication and their courage. One of the most masterful pieces of writing I have evefr read comes late in the book when he trace two trajectories. The first

I never met Bruce Catton, but I corresponded briefly with him in the mid-1970's. The same qualities that marked him as a correspondent--courtesy, graciousness, and gentle humor--illuminate this lovely memoir of a great historian.

Catton grew up in Benzonia, Michigan, "a city upon a hill," as he correctly notes, very close to Lake Michigan, where the old certitudes held seemingly invincible sway over virtually every aspect of one's daily life. Catton's father was the superintendent of Benzonia Academy, whose main building is now Benzonia's library.

The memoir, which recalls the years between the author's birth and his graduation from high school, is a series of reflections on what it was like to be a boy just as Michigan's logging era was drawing to a close, when sleepy Benzonia, along with the rest of the nation, was about to drift into the maw of the violent twentieth century. Catton writes of boyhood ambitions and boyish pranks, of the rich history that made Michigan's Lower Peninsula what it was, and especially of the Civil War veterans whose stories would later prompt Catton to devote years of his life to recording the history of that great conflict in rich anecdotal detail.

Though unabashedly nostalgic, "Waiting for the Morning Train" is neither saccharine nor bitter. Catton was far too experienced a writer and historian to let his emotions get the better of him. This is, nonetheless, a rich and moving memoir of a time which, though it may seem virtually within reach, we will never see again.

I recommend this book highly as a gift for yourself and, perhaps, for that reflective friend who can appreciate personal history told with universal appeal. Bruce Catton was, quite simply, one of the greatest writers and historians this country has produced, and in many ways this deceptively modest little volume represents the zenith of his literary achievement.

My interest in Waiting for the Morning Train lay not so much with Bruce Catton's being a giant of Civil War literature, but rather with his subject: Benzonia, Michigan, the place at which my family has taken vacation for decades (and where several family members now permanently reside). I could see the waters of Crystal Lake, the snow-covered hills of Beulah and Benzonia, and the lush birch, maple and pine forests of Northern Michigan as Catton knew them in his youth. Readers of Waiting for the Morning train will not only catch a glimpse of the spark that ignited Catton's pasion for the Civil War, but more importantly the story of a land that, if one tries hard enough, one will still find. Catton's boyhood stomping grounds come alive with tales of logging, weary travel by train and the fits of small towns being brought into a more modern era. The subtitle is An American Boyhood, and in Catton's childhood memoirs the reader will not only witness Catton's growth to manhood, but also the nation's emergence from adolecence to adulthood.

Bruce Catton, winner of the Pulitzer, National Book Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom writes a little know memoir of his childhood of listening to the Civil War veterans tell tales of their Battery from Michigan that fought in the most famous battles in the War Between the States. How he was able to develop an almost transendent ability the listen and record in the far reaches of his sub conciousness the words and deeds that were told to him is remarkable. He would use the stories when he finally decided to put them down in his famous books that he didn't start until he was nearly at the age of fifty. But the book is also a statement on how the world has become a bunch of "Babbits" who put the motorcar above everything else. The metaphor he uses is the Mackinaw Bridge which was built in the late 50s to connect the Upper Penninsula to the lower so people would not have to wait in line for the ferry. Kafka said, "Because of impatience we were tossed out of Eden and because of impatience we can never return." Ironically Mackinac Island allows no cars and gets half a million plus tourists in the summer, where Maui has the finest weather in the world but no public transportation because people can't deal with the inconvience. Catton was very presient on this. The world finds itself in a place where we can't roll back to a slower time and now people want to drive tanks in the form of off road Vans. This book is also very readable and fun and in the intro his brother calls it his best book.

Nearly 40 years after it was first published, Catton's "Terrible Swift Sword", the second book of his Civil War Centennial history, remains fresh. As he would do in all three volumes, Catton deftly weaves together the military, political, and social aspects of the war in a fashion that is not only readable, but positively lyrical in his use of language. He is, IMHO, at his poetic best in descibing the seismic shift in war aims, from a conflict to restore the union to one waged for human freedom.

Ably assisted by the research of E.B. Long, Catton makes good use of a wide range of sources in covering the period of the war from First Bull Run to just before the tragedy at Fredericksburg. While he doesn't break any new ground (that wasn't his intent), he provides the reader with a sweeping narrative of this critical period in our most traumatic conflict. Catton's trilogy is one of the best places to start if one is seeking an introduction to the Civil War. Buy it.

"The Terrible Swift Sword" continues Bruce Catton's journey through the Civil in this, the middle book in his trilogy. Covering the period from the summer of 1861 through the fall of 1862, Catton leads the reader through the military, political and social aspects of the war.

Here we meet Charles Francis Adams, American Ambassador in London as he maneuvers to maintain British neutrality while British cloth industry manufacturers and laborers scream for Southern cotton.

The story of the Eastern front in this book is essentially the story of the McClellan era. The close relationship between McClellan and the Army of the Potomac was a unique and mutual exchange of devotion and affection.

In the Western theatre, the reader studies the battles of Shiloh and others which led to the gradual deterioration of the Confederate position in the Western states.

One enticing feature about Catton's books is his talent for weaving the political aspects of the war into the story. In this book we see the gradual shift of Union War aims from that of preservation of the Union to preservation with Emancipation.

The investigation of McClellan's role is fascinating. I always knew that McClellan was the Democratic nominee for President in 1864. Catton relates how McClellan was a conservative Democrat even before the war. Catton portrays McClellan as leader of the opposition to the administration with the army of the Potomac as his instrument of power. The relationship between the Army and its general forced decisions regarding McClellan's tenure to be made against the back drop of the possibility that McClellan could lead his Army on Washington in an effort to seize control of the government during the prevailing unrest. Ultimately, the decline of the Conservative Democrats, whose goal was the preservation of both the Union and slavery, and the rise of the Pro-Emancipation forces combined to drive McClellan from command and made his removal possible.

This portrayal of McClellan as a leader of the opposition makes Lincoln's toleration of him contrast with President Polk's active efforts to prevent Whig generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, from capturing Mexican War glory which could lead to political success. The later role of Gen. MacArthur as a defacto opposition leader during the Korean war also comes to mind (see my Amazon review of "American Caesar").

"The Terrible Swift Sword" continues the evolution of the war from a limited conflict in which the hope of reconciliation still burned, to an unavoidable, all consuming, fight to the death. The cause which brought about this change was the shift of war aims from mere preservation of the Union, which had a chance of success, to the aim of Emancipation. As the South could not accept Emancipation, the North became unable to accept anything less. This book is a worthy successor to "The Coming Fury" (see my Amazon review). I cannot wait to get into the final volume "Never Call Retreat".

The title: That's the only way I can put it.

Not a novice to the Civil War, I picked this up simply because of who wrote it. Twenty years after his death, Mr. Catton is continually reasserting himself as THE author to read on the Civil War.

This book contains general overtures, as written for lectures delivered at Wesleyan University in 1958, that he'd presented when he was alive. Like the title implies, passages are simply....beautifully written.

The author takes you through a variety of topics, again generally: politics, the citizen solder, Lincoln, the terrible price of victory.... The layout of the literature is in lecture format, but does absolutely nothing to take away from what you're reading about.

Spend the few dollars, and put this into your collection. It belongs on everybody's Civil War shelf. To take a line from page 68:

We are a people to whom the past is forever speaking.

This book is truly a must for anyone who wants a Civil War library. No other Civil War book has a richer breadth of imagery than this tome. This should be your second book after Battle Cry of Freedom, and your next should be Shelby Foote's trilogy. After that, pick books on narrower topics of interest to you.

There is only one reason for not making this your first book. As its title implies, it focuses on the pictures of the Civil War, and as such it has little room for more than an overview of the events in the words accompanying the pictures. However, there truly is only one failing of this book, and that is that it is out of print as I write this; a fault that will probably be remedied soon.

"Mr. Lincoln's Army" is the first volume in Bruce Catton's celebrated trilogy chronicling the history of the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, one of the most exciting war narratives in literature. Catton had grown up in Michigan around men who had served in that Army and these books were his attempt "to find out about the things which the veterans never discussed." Catton relies on a host of source material to weave his tales, from autobiographies of Generals McClellan and Howard, to the correspondence of Generals Sedgwick and Meade, to dozens of soldiers' reminiscences and regimental histories, to military histories relating to specific battles, campaign, military tactics and weapons. As you read these books you are always feel that you are dealing with living literature rather than dead history. This is because Catton privileges "The Diary of an Enlisted Man" by Lawrence Van Alstyne and the history of "The 27th Indiana Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion" more than he does "McClellan's Own Story."

"Mr. Lincoln's Army" covers the Army of the Potomac from its creation to the Battle of Antietam. Despite the title the central figure in the book is General George B. McClellan, the war's most paradoxical figure who gave this Army the training it needed to become a first rate military unit and who then refused to use the great army he had created. There are 6 sections to the book: (1) "Picture-Book War" actually covers the events in 1862 that led to McClellan being placed back in charge of the Army of the Potomac, setting up a rather ironic perspective for what happens both before and after that decision; (2) "The Young General" provides the background on McClellan and details his formation of the Army; (3) "The Era of Suspicion" covers the ill-fated Peninsula Campaign; (4) "An Army on the March" centers on the Second Battle of Manassas/Bull Run when the Army was under John Pope; (5) "Opportunity Knocks Three Times" begins with the great intelligence coup of the Civil War, the discovery of Lee's Special Order No. 191 and establishes how the upcoming battle was handed to McClellan on a silver plate; (6) "Never Call Retreat" tells the story of how McClellan snatched defeat--or at least a bloody tie--from the jaws of victory.

Bruce Catton's books on the Civil War are eminently readable, and with his History of the Army of the Potomac he finds his perfect level, writing about the men who were the common soldiers as much if not more than he does about the generals and politicians. You certainly get the feeling his heart was in these volumes more than it was in his larger histories of the Civil War. For those who are well versed in the grand details of the war, these books provide a more intimate perspective on those great battles.

"Glory Road," the second volume in Bruce Catton's celebrated history of the Army of the Potomac, covers the critical months between the autumn of 1862 following the Battle of Antietam and the Confederacy's high water mark at the Battle of Gettysburg the following summer. In between the story of the army is marked by the bloody massacre at Fredericksburg, the aimless marching up and down the banks of the Rappahannock in the mud, and the catastrophic confusion of Chancellorsville before heading north to meet Lee's invasion in the hills of southern Pennsylvania. During this period the Army is commanded in turn by three generals--Burnside, Hooker and Meade--but Catton's exciting war narrative is more about the enlisted men, the volunteers and bounty men, who had to fight these engagements.

Catton's source material for this 1952 book is drawn primarily from dozens of Regimental Histories (the Third Indiana Calvary, the 118th Pennsylvania Volunteers, the 8th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, etc.) as well as Soldiers' Reminiscences to go along with autobiographies, biographical studies, memoirs, and military histories. The result is an attention to the human details. Within these pages you meet: the New York businessman who as a soldier wrote the mournful bugle call "Taps"; Clement Vallandigham, the Copperhead candidate for Ohio governor; Annie Etheridge. the army laundress who brought hot coffee and hardtack to the men on the front lines; John C. Robinson, who had the well deserved reputation as the hairiest officer in the entire army; Private Patrick Maloney, who captured a Confederate general with his bare hands.

"Glory Road" is divided into six sections: (1) "Deep River" tells the story of the insane advance up Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg; (2) "All Played Out" covers the dark days following that disaster at the Army's bitter mud marches and winter encampment; (3) "Revival" depicts the new hope that fueled the army when Hooker was appointed; (4) "On the Other Side of the River" relates Lee's strategic masterpiece at Chancellorsville; (5) "Lincoln Comin' Wid His Chariot" sets the stage, politically as well as militarily for the final turning point of the war; and (6) "End and Beginning" details not only the three days of battle at Gettysburg, but offers an absolutely lyrical conclusion to the book as the President attends the dedication ceremony for the national cemetery and begins to speak from two little sheets of paper in his hand. It is perhaps Catton's finest section, with an understated elegance that makes it clear that as a writer Catton owes as much to Homer as he does Herodotus. This is history that aspires to, and achieves the level of, literature. Catton might have received the Pulitzer Prize for the final volume in his history of the Army of the Potomac, but "Glory Road" is the high water mark of the trilogy.

For someone looking for a more emotional view of the Civil War, with more 'people and feelings' than true history, then this is a very nice read. It is the fictionalised account of the Geyers and the Hales, cousins - one family of the South, the other from the North, that find themselves divided and fighting each other during the War Between the States in the US. The Geyers were farmers, of the land, though were not slave owners, and the story focuses around their eldest son, John, an artist who went into the war as an artist correspondent, torn by his love for both families and seeing both sides of the argument. He hates the institution of Slavery, a hatred amplified by the hanging of his black friend, a freed man for hiding fugitive slaves. The Hales were city-folk. Not only were they divided on their views, but by their styles of life. You see all the various scenes of how families were divided, how the glory of war could turn sour for the many boys simply looking for adventure.

There was a real John Geyser, and he did draw a lot of pictures as his time as a soldier. But he was not a war correspondent, and not that professional of an artists. Still is immature drawing carry a power to convey the horrors of war.

So take the 'history' with a grain of salt and enjoy the 'emotions' of the great conflict that ripped families and friends apart.

This book was basis and 'publicity' version for the CBS television mini-series The Blue and the the Gray, an epic staring the great Stacey Keech and Gregory Peck as Lincoln. This book and the mini series had Bruce Catton as consultant. I also highly recommend this mini-series as giving a human side to the conflict.

Even though history is all around us, it often seems to get bogged down in a lot of facts and figures at the expense of the people involved. That never happened with Bruce Catton and that's the reason that twenty-five years after his death his writings are still The books on the American Civil War.

REFLECTIONS ON THE CIVIL WAR was edited together from a series of audio tapes Catton made on the subject. The book is Catton's last major work. It summarizes the war in a very thorough, yet humane way. In fact, it maybe the most human of all of Catton's books. Looking at the war from the perspective of both the common soldier and the average citizen, REFLECTIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR encompasses all the major events of the war and many minor ones. The book never seems preachy and though it quickly flows from one subject to the next, the storytelling never seems jumpy. In fact, Catton's brilliant technique breathes life into the history of the American Civil War; whether it's a major battle such as Bull Run or Gettysburg or a famous figure; such as Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, or President Lincoln; or maybe just the weapons used in battle.

This is a great book for any Civil War fan, whether a novice or expert. Everyone is sure to learn something.

Bruce Catton received the Pulitzer Prize for this final volume in his celebrated three-part History of the Army of the Potomac. Catton's greatness was that he combined historical accuracy with poetic insight, writing from the perspective of the citizen-soldiers who fought the Civil War and whom he had come to know and respect growing up in Michigan. In other words, he was able to write a history book with the same sort of literary style you would expect to find in a novel. "A Stillness at Appomattox" covers the last cruel year of the war, when the Army of the Potomac had become an engine of war under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant. Although on paper the Army still belonged to George Gordon Meade, it was Grant who was the head of all the Union forces and who ran his command in the field. In this final volume Catton traces the Army's inevitable progress towards its grim victory, through the battles of the Wilderness, the Bloody Angle, Cold Harbor, the Crater, and on through the last months of the war to the moment at the MacLean house when the nation was made whole again.

Like its predecessors, "A Stillness at Appomattox" is divided into six sections: (1) "Glory Is Out of Date" follows Grant as he arrives from the West to check out the Army that needs to whip Bobbie Lee; (2) "Roads Leading South" relates the horrors of the Battle of the Wilderness and the new mood as the Army relentless pushes South towards Richmond; (3) "One More River to Cross" covers the bloody mess of the final assault on Cold Harbor; (4) "White Iron on the Anvil" details the final hemming in of the Army of Northern Virginia into a defensive position around Richmond, including the Battle of the Crater: (5) "Away, You Rolling River" deals with both the Siege of Richmond and Sheridan's efforts in the Shenandoah Valley; and (6) "Endless Road Ahead" finally brings us to the Fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender to Grant. Catton's History of the Army of the Potomac was unique because it insisted on telling the story of the Civil War from the perspective of the fighting soldiers, creating for an entire Union army what regimental historians and the memoirs of individual soldiers had done on smaller levels. His success is due to his ability to create a spellbinding narrative that is more reminiscent of literature than what we would expect to find in a history book.