Call number
973 CAT
Collection
Genres
Publication
Book-of-the-Month Club (1982), Edition: American Past Edition
Description
Recounts the most spectacular conflicts between Grant and Lee and details the end of hope for the Confederacy in the final year of the Civil War.
Subjects
User reviews
LibraryThing member watchman146
It is not often that histories can keep one up at night. This whole trilogy could be the best books I've ever read on the Civil War. If you read this series in corelation with Shelby Foote's trilogy, you've got the whole picture.
LibraryThing member waltzmn
If you're going to see things with just one eye, which eye would you choose?
Bruce Catton's writings were devoted almost entirely to the American Civil War, and -- because he was such an excellent writer -- he wrote many, many books on the conflict. Most are very good, and most are quite popular,
This book, and the series which contains it, isn't really a history of the war. It isn't even a history of the war on the Virginia front. It's a history of the Union's Army of the Potomac -- and of the peculiar circumstances which caused it to fight so well as a group of soldier and be so unsuccessful as an army. It is, in a way, not a history but a psychological study.
To manage that, Catton supplies many anecdotes, about raiders and freed slaves and slaves killed and minor men who succeeded or failed in unusual ways. As often as not, these stories are about things which really didn't affect the outcome of the war at all. What they supply is the feeling -- the frustrations of the men, the confusion of the officers, all the things that made the Army of the Potomac what it was. Sometimes, I find this a little too cutesy. But I am very much a just-the-facts type. And even I think it's a good book. If you like all those human interest touches, you're likely to regard this as a great book.
Bruce Catton's writings were devoted almost entirely to the American Civil War, and -- because he was such an excellent writer -- he wrote many, many books on the conflict. Most are very good, and most are quite popular,
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but to distinguish them, he had to write from different perspectives.This book, and the series which contains it, isn't really a history of the war. It isn't even a history of the war on the Virginia front. It's a history of the Union's Army of the Potomac -- and of the peculiar circumstances which caused it to fight so well as a group of soldier and be so unsuccessful as an army. It is, in a way, not a history but a psychological study.
To manage that, Catton supplies many anecdotes, about raiders and freed slaves and slaves killed and minor men who succeeded or failed in unusual ways. As often as not, these stories are about things which really didn't affect the outcome of the war at all. What they supply is the feeling -- the frustrations of the men, the confusion of the officers, all the things that made the Army of the Potomac what it was. Sometimes, I find this a little too cutesy. But I am very much a just-the-facts type. And even I think it's a good book. If you like all those human interest touches, you're likely to regard this as a great book.
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LibraryThing member bcrowl399
What a wonderful tome! Bruce Catton brings the civil war to life and death with his clear accounting of troop movements, strategies, missed opportunities, and person stories full of triumph and sometimes despair. But it's a story of the civil war and it wasn't pretty. I spent a good deal of time
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reading the bibliography as well as the story, because Mr. Catton's research is so thorough and clear. I plan to read the other two books in this series and I have no doubt they will be as eloquent as this portion. Show Less
LibraryThing member larryerick
This third volume in the Army of the Potomac trilogy is a marked change from the first volume. The supreme civil war buff that wrote, and very often entertained us, in the first volume, has transitioned in each following volume to become a most competent professional historian. While the genuinely
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fascinating anecdotes that highlighted the first volume have diminished, this final volume is constantly and consistently still very interesting, blending more smoothly the "stories" with the facts and analysis. Also, this final volume no longer gives the impression of blindly looking at the history from an unnecessarily one-sided perspective, a problem that occasionally marred the first two volumes. Perhaps the biggest highlight of many in this volume is the telling of General Philip Sheridan's actions during the Battle of Cedar Creek: extraordinarily stirring without embellishment. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
This book is highly readable, well researched and most informative. It is not a history of the war in general, but a history of the Army of the Potomac the Union's principal force inthe eastern Theatre. This third volume is a narrative of the army's last, and professional period, the one where
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Ulysses Grant and George Meade ran it. There is a bias in favour of the unon, but those who have been ensorceled by Shelby Foote's narrative, "The Civil War" should read this book and its two companions as a corrective. A balanced look at the conflict demands it. We move as does the army fom the wilderness all the way to the end. The triology is a considerable achievement. Show Less
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Nonfiction — 1954)
Pulitzer Prize (Winner — History — 1954)
Notable Books List (1953)
ISBN
0030556228 / 9780030556227