U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. x, 201, [3] pages. A Note on Sources. Index. DJ has some wear and soiling and is in a plastic sleeve. Signed by Catton on the fep. Some minor page discoloration. This is the first book to be published in The Library of American Biography series edited by Oscar Handlin. Charles Bruce Catton (October 9, 1899 - August 28, 1978) was an American historian and journalist, known best for his books concerning the American Civil War. Known as a narrative historian, Catton featured interesting characters and historical vignettes, in addition to the basic facts, dates, and analyses. His books were researched well and included footnotes. He won a Pulitzer Prize during 1954 for A Stillness at Appomattox, his study of the final campaign of the war in Virginia. After serving briefly with the United States Navy during World War I, Catton was a reporter and editor for The Cleveland News, the Boston American, and the Cleveland The Plain Dealer. From 1926 to 1941, Catton worked for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, for which he served as a Washington, D.C. correspondent. At the start of World War II, Catton was too old for military service. During 1941, he accepted a position as Director of Information for the War Production Board, and later he had similar jobs in the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Interior. His experiences as a federal employee prepared him to write his first book, The War Lords Of Washington, during 1948. In 1954, Catton accepted the position as founding editor of the new magazine American Heritage. In U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition, Catton wrote what many consider one of the best short biographies of the general. Derived from a Kirkus review: Bruce Catton's years of research into the history of the Civil War period are producing a substantial body of revealing historical recall. Bruce Catton has a gift for writing military strategy and tactics and making them human and challenging. This stands him in good stead in this book, which compasses the whole of Grant's life, but sparks it with and through the military tradition which gave him stature. The man has gone down in history as an odd combination of things he was not. Bruce Catton does much to correct the picture, showing him as a "campaigner of speed speed and brilliance", "an organizer and administrator as good as the best", "determination and strength of will incarnate", "a hard and straight thinker". From years of discouragement in army life, of failure in civilian, he rose in ten years to the peak, yet in his triumph was the beginning of tragedy. The country was like him; it did not know what to do with victory won. Grant became the symbol rather than the cause of the darkness after the war. His two terms as president would seem to prove the dangers of a military man in the White House. But most of the dilemmas were in the making before he got there. His record is darkened by the "might-have-beens". All in all, while frankly admiring, this biography strikes a happy balance in assessing both the soldier and the man. This fills a real need.