My girl-child cemented her place in my personal pantheon with Bruce Catton's Civil War trilogy. I have read many books on the Civil War, too many biographies of Lincoln, bios of others, books on specific battles, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, regimental histories in trying to learn anything I could about my great-great grandfather, Sgt. Nathan Bracken. But only one comprehensive history of the war, James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. I don't remember what choices I had when I bought Battle Cry, it was certainly among the most recent general histories to come on the market and that appealed to me, but the one factor that I liked most was that it was a single-volume work--Did I really need to devote the time to a multi-volume history?--and yet, at 900 pages, was hardly a Cliff Notes version. I very much liked Battle Cry. But Catton, my God. He is a far better writer. The three volumes are a total of 1,400 pages, so more detail, obviously, but not mind-numbing minutiae. He did spend a few pages too many on Fort Sumter but other than that the first book, The Coming Fury, has moved right along, my interest has never flagge, in fact, to the contrary, Catton's detail colors the narrative. I have quoted from it previously, just in the last post actually, and here is another example of the writing. Lincoln's attitude was,
What had to be done would be done, and now and then some odd-looking instruments would be used.
(paragraph)
Among these was the eminent Massachusetts politician Benjamin F. Butler.
That's it. "Gross." I literally laughed out loud. Le mot juste.
