The Terrible Swift Sword by Bruce Catton
At the start of this period there was little action as each side reviewed its position and counted its heads and guns. The North had positive advantages (but not one in General McClellan who is impaled forever in this book by extracts from his arrogant letters). The South recognised that it would have to strike hard to win, but it had terrible handicaps (including flintlock rifles which would not fire in the rain). Gradually the action emerged and with it the stature of Lee, Grant, Jefferson Davis and Sherman. And gradually too the civil war changed its nature from an uninspiring police action to a series of bloody clashes in the cause of ending human slavery.
Bruce Catton was born in 1899. As a child living in a small town in Michigan, Catton was stimulated by the reminiscences of the Civil War that he heard from local veterans. His education at Oberlin College, Ohio, was interrupted by two years of naval service in World War I and was subsequently abandoned for a career in journalism. While he was employed as a reporter for the Boston American, the Cleveland News, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (1920-26), Catton continued his lifelong study of the Civil War period. He subsequently worked for the Newspaper Enterprise Service (1926-41) and for the U.S. War Production Board. In 1954 he became a member of the staff of American Heritage magazine, and from 1959 he served as its senior editor. A commission to write a Centennial History of the Civil War evolved into Catton's celebrated trilogy on the Army of the Potomac. Catton's brilliance as a historian lay in his ability to bring to historical narrative the immediacy of reportage. He died in 1978.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781842122938 |
| ISBN 10 | 1842122932 |
| Title | The Terrible Swift Sword |
| Author | Bruce Catton |
| Series | American Civil War Trilogy |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Orion Publishing Co |
| Year published | 2001-03-15 |
| Number of pages | 558 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |