Bruce Catton - Writing Career

Writing Career

At the start of World War II, Catton was too old for military service. In 1941, he took a position as Director of Information for the War Production Board, and later he held similar posts in the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior. His experiences 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 to become a full-time author.

In 1954, Catton accepted the position as founding editor of the new American Heritage magazine. Catton 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.

Army of the Potomac trilogy

In the early 1950s, Catton published three books known as the Army of the Potomac trilogy. In Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951), the first volume of his history of the Army of the Potomac, Catton covered the army's formation, the command of George B. McClellan, the Peninsula Campaign, the Northern Virginia Campaign, and the Battle of Antietam. In the second volume, Glory Road (1952), Catton covered the army's history under new commanding generals, from the Battle of Fredericksburg to the Battle of Gettysburg. In his final volume of the trilogy, A Stillness at Appomattox (1953), Catton covered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia during 1864 to the end of the war in 1865. It was his first commercially successful work and it won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and a National Book Award for Nonfiction. The three volumes were reissued as a single volume reprint titled, Bruce Catton's Civil War (1988).

Centennial History of the Civil War

From 1961 to 1965, the Centennial of the Civil War was commemorated, and the publication of Bruce Catton's Centennial History of the Civil War trilogy highlighted this era. Unlike his previous trilogy, these books focused not only on military topics, but on social, economic, and political topics as well. In the first volume, The Coming Fury (1961), Catton explored the causes and events leading to the start of the war, culminating in its first major combat, the First Battle of Bull Run. In the second volume, Terrible Swift Sword (1963), he followed both sides as they mobilize for a massive war effort. The story continued through 1862, ending with the Battle of Fredericksburg. In the third volume, Never Call Retreat (1965), the war continued through Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and the bloody struggles of 1864 and 1865 before the final surrender.

Ulysses S. Grant trilogy

Following the publication of Captain Sam Grant (1950) by historian and biographer Lloyd Lewis, Catton wrote the second and third volumes of this trilogy, making extensive use of Lewis's historical research, provided by his widow, Kathryn Lewis, who personally selected Catton to continue her husband's work. In Grant Moves South (1960), Catton showed the growth of Grant as a military commander, from victories at the Battle of Fort Henry and the Battle of Fort Donelson, to the Battle of Shiloh and the Vicksburg Campaign. In Grant Takes Command (1969), Catton followed Grant from the Battle of Chattanooga in 1863 through the 1864 Virginia campaigns against Robert E. Lee and the end of the war.

Other Civil War books

In addition to these three important trilogies, Catton wrote extensively about the Civil War throughout his writing career. In U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954), Catton writes what many consider one of the best short biographies of the general. In Banners at Shenandoah: A Story of Sheridan's Fighting Cavalry (1955), Catton wrote for young people about Union cavalry commander Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. This Hallowed Ground (1956) was an account of the war from the Union perspective. Upon its publication, it was widely considered the best single volume history of the Civil War, receiving a Fletcher Pratt Award from the Civil War Round Table of New York in 1957.

In America Goes to War (1958), Catton made the case that the American Civil War was one of the first total wars. In The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (1960), Catton wrote the accompanying narrative to a book that included over 800 paintings and period photographs. It received a special Pulitzer Prize citation in 1961. In The American Heritage Short History of the Civil War (1960), Catton offers a fast-moving narrative that covered both the military and political aspects of the war. In Two Roads to Sumter (1963), written with his son William, Catton recounted the 15 years leading up to the war, seen from the vantage points of the two leading politicians involved in the conflict: Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. And in Gettysburg: The Final Fury (1974), Catton offered a slim volume on the Battle of Gettysburg, dominated by photographs and illustrations.

Other books

In addition to writing Civil War histories, Catton wrote other books, including The War Lords of Washington (1948), an account of Washington, D.C., during World War II, based on his experiences in the federal government, Four Days: The Historical Record Of The Death Of President Kennedy (1964), a 144-page collaboration of the American Heritage magazine and United Press International on the John F. Kennedy assassination, and Waiting for the Morning Train (1972), about the author's Michigan boyhood. Toward the end of his life, Catton published Michigan: A Bicentennial History (1976) and The Bold & Magnificent Dream: America's Founding Years, 1492–1815 (1978).