Prelude to patriotic gore (to use Edmund Wilson's phrasing). Magisterial, tight read. Virtually any given paragraph can unpacked into volumes, really. AND IT'S NOT OVER.

702. The Coming Fury, by Bruce Catton (read 21 July 1962) Well, I planned to read all the volumes of the Centennial history of the Civil War, but this opening volume spent so much time on what I considered non-important trivia that I did not go on to the next volume ( )

This one is about the complex legal issues that led to the Civil War and to the most momentous decision in U. S. history: how should President Lincoln respond to the secessions and the seizures of federal property in the South? It raises many interesting questions, not the least of which is, did he make the right decision? Was the bloodbath worth it? If Lincoln had known the consequences, would he have made the same decision? If he had let the South go, would it have brought peace? How long would slavery have continued?

Was secession a Constitutional right, as the Confererates claimed? If not, why did Lincoln recognize West Virginia’s right to secede from Virginia? Was this a hypocritical double standard? Private property was protected by the Constitution; did that include private property in slaves? Lincoln thought it did. Was he justified in suspending habeas corpus in Maryland? What is a nation? Is it a compact among sovereign states? Or is it a sovereignty over constituent states? When federals violated the Fugitive Slave Law, did that constitute recognition that the South was an independent country?

It was a complicated war, by the legal standards of the time. This book is about more than battles and military strategy—the fighting does not even start until page 452 of my edition. ( )

I read this 1961 classic now (in 2011) on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The book covers about one year of activity: from the Democratic Party Convention of 1860 in Charleston through the First Bull Run campaign of July, 1861. An excellent writer, Catton lays out the political goings-on both North and South as if he had been a reporter alive on the scene at the time. The book has held up well even if it is 50 years old. The only time it seems somewhat dated is in a brief discussion he has about African-Americans where he describes them (in the fashion of a 1950s American white liberal) as gentle, peaceful, childlike folk who didn’t want to cause any trouble. Incidentally, to those who might think otherwise, the evidence in this book strongly supports the notion that the Civil War really WAS about slavery, or at least about the rights of slave-owners and the right to extend slavery into new territories and states. (Among other things, when South Carolina seceded from the Union it sent out a proclamation to its fellow “slave-holding states” inviting them to also leave the Union.) The book reminds one of how long the Fort Sumter Crisis gripped the nation (the stand-off went on for months) and the Fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, became that era’s version of a “media hero”, a celebrity whose name was honored in banquet toasts in the North and whose popularity the Lincoln Administration later deployed on recruitment drives to enlist volunteer troops. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a detailed account of the months leading up to the start of the war and the first 90 days or so of that war. ( )

The muse was whispering in his ear from first keystroke.
Mr. Catton captured and penned a great piece of history with this first volume of his American Civil War Trilogy. Intelligent without being eruditical, lengthy without being overwhelming, written with enough balance to avoid be hagiographical.
As you can tell, I enjoyed this book. It is a nice overall history of the people, places, and events that led up to the outbreak of war. Mr. Catton's writing is vivid enough to bring the reader to each location, intimate enough for the reader to get to know each of the major players he wrote about. Clear enough to see through the fog of war that can sometimes disrupt the best writers’ efforts to describe the skirmishes and battles.
He seems to focus most of the book in the east, but does not, by any stretch of the imagination, avoid the activity and importance of the western theater and its participants. That is really the only negative I have with the job Mr. Catton has done.
This is a title that I would highly recommend any student of the American Civil War read. It demonstrates why Mr. Catton deserved all of the credit he received. Inspiration was definitely visiting him while writing this volume and it shows. ( )