Product Description

From The Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Award - Part One of the classic Civil War study of Ulysses S. Grant that continues with GRANT TAKES COMMAND

Among the many generals created by the North in the early summer of 1861 was one named Ulysses S. Grant. Some of the other generals were more dashing, some were more learned, but none was a better fighter. It was Grant who in the next two years would move slowly, relentlessly down the Mississippi River, the very lifeline of the South, and would not stop until he had severed its entire length from the domain of his enemy. In GRANT MOVES SOUTH, Bruce Catton renders a dramatic and kaleidoscopic account of these years, during which Grant moved not only against Confederate armies but against obstacles and frustrations imposed by his own superiors.

Mr. Catton begins with Grant's first real Civil War assignment (he head left the army in disgrace seven years before), the command of the 21st Illinois Volunteers. He shows how Grant's simple, forceful manner made an orderly regiment out of a group of recalcitrant farmboys. During the subsequent move - to Cairo, to Belmont, Missouri and finally to the first major engagements at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Kentucky - this West Point officer grew ever more adept at training and leading his increasing forces of Volunteers, until they became "one of the great armies of America's history - the informal, individualistic, occasionally unmanageable, but finally victorious Army of the Tennessee."

Mr. Catton recounts such exciting, blow-by-blow accounts of the great battles at Belmont, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Chickasaw Bayou, Edward's Station and finally Vicksburg, that the reader feels he is participating, now as a member of the staff conferring with the General, now as a soldier on the front lines. And during the lulls between the battles the author describes Grant's often irritating relationships with men like Halleck and McClernand; his solution of the thorny problem posed by Blacks who kept pouring into his camps asking for protection; and his difficulties with Jesse Grant, who often tried to take commercial advantage of his son's power.

GRANT MOVES SOUTH is not only the chronological account of a series of battles which freed the Mississippi for the Union; it is also the story of a man's personal development. It describes Grant's progress from a reluctant but dedicated soldier to a forceful general, conscious of his own worth and confident of his future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #797965 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 564 pages

Baltimore Evening Sun
"Nothing in our time makes the Civil War as alive as the writings of Bruce Catton."

Charles Poore, The New York Times
"Catton's best book...the finest venture in history and biography of the year."

T. Harry Williams
"This book is exactly what a military biography should be, a really distinguished work."

Customer Reviews

Grant's Rendezvous with Destiny
In "Grant Moves South" Bruce Catton picks up the story of Ulysses S. Grant as he returns to the U.S. Army at the start of the Civil War. This is the second volume of a trilogy on Grant begun by Lloyd Lewis and completed by Catton, but the volume can be enjoyed on its own. Catton, with Shelby Foote a superb narrative historian of the Civil War, is in excellent form in this extremely well-written biography of Grant's progression from Colonel of Illinois volunteers to victor at Vicksburg.

As General William Sherman acknowledged, Grant was something of a mystery to everyone, perhaps even himself. This man, a failure at everything except his marriage and working as a clerk in his father's tannery in 1861, leverages his West Point education and some political connections into a commission as a regimental commander and never looks back.

The Grant portrayed by Catton is like many officers at the beginning of the Civil War in that he was learning his trade as he went along. But Grant is different from most of his contemporaries, many of whom had far better reputations in the peacetime army. First, Grant has a remarkable ability to make sound commom sense judgements under stress. Second, Grant married his decision-making ability to an utter determination to see a project through. Third, Grant was a man seemingly without illusions; his ability to correct characterize the task in front of him in order to attack it is rare among his contemporaries. These characteristics carried Grant through his apprenticeship as a regimental commander of volunteers, his successful campaign to secure middle Tennessee through victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, and finally his tenacious campaign to reduce the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg. Grant's ability to understand and lead volunteers was a key underpinning of his success throughout the war.

Catton does not sugarcoat Grant's record. Grant was not above politicking for jobs or assignments. He was badly surprised by the Confederates at Shiloh and avoided being beaten by to some degree refusing to admit defeat and retreat. His pre-war problems with alcohol pursued him into the service, including an apparently memorable bender during the Siege of Vicksburg that Catton unflinchingly documents. The Vicksburg campaign was marked by costly trial and error. Grant, to his credit, persisted, finally rolling the dice by crossing the Mississippi and boldly placing his army between two Confederate forces while temporarily cutting loose from his own lines of communication.

This book was first published in 1960. Details and interpretations of events have evolved, but Catton's superb prose stands the test of time as a wonderful reading experience. This book is highly recommended to the general reader with some knowledge of the Civil War and to the student of the Civil War looking for the broad sweep of history not found in highly specialized studies.

One Man's Opinion
Was Ulysses S. Grant a drunk? Did he win the Civil War simply by burying Robert E. Lee under a wave of superior manpower and resources? Bruce Catton addresses these questions, and many others, in GRANT MOVES SOUTH and its companion volume, GRANT TAKES COMMAND. Taken together, the two books chronicle Grant's Civil War experience.

I've read a lot of history, but I confess to being relatively ignorant about the American Civil War except in a very general sense. I've always been interested, I just never got very far into it. These two books are my first real foray into the subject. Both are very well researched and documented, while at the same time being very readable. Catton demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the facts as well as a genuine insight into Grant's character. The result, for me, was an experience that was at once informative and enjoyable.

What does Catton have to say about Grant's alleged drunkeness? Clearly, Catton is an admirer of Grant, but it's an admiration born of respect for the man as revealed in his personal records and actions, as well as in the record left by people who knew him. To get his take on this and other criticisms of Grant, read these books.

Conventional wisdom has it that GRANT MOVES SOUTH and GRANT TAKES COMMAND are definitive works on the subject of U. S. Grant's Civil War career. I certainly won't argue with that perception. If you have a deep interest in Grant or in the Civil War in general, they are "must haves". Beyond that, though, if you have just a casual interest, this is still great reading material. I highly recommend it.

Still the Standard on Grant's Western Campaigns
Bruce Catton's eloquent and enjoyable book summarizes Ulysses S. Grant early on: "[H]is deepest instinct as a soldier was to keep a beaten foe off balance. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the only Union officer . . . who possessed that instinct." Sherman and Sheridan notwithstanding, justly said.

The volume of Civil War books these days is staggering. They range from reconsiderations of great battles to studies of events once thought inconsequential. Contemporary historians have done a great service for all in picking apart and analyzing those four crucial years in America's history.

Given the bumper crop of Civil War titles, what place does Bruce Catton occupy? The answer: at a prominent place on your bookshelf. Catton's literary skill, balanced judgment, and appreciation of the anecdote have not diminished over the 45 years since "Grant Moves South" was first published. This book remains the classic account of Grant's life starting from his re-entry into the U.S. Army at the outbreak of war in 1861, through his first campaigns, and ending with Lincoln's congratulatory letter after the victory at Vicksburg.

Catton places Grant in the all-important context of his army of volunteer soldiers. This cannot be emphasized enough. Grant, like Lincoln, had a cooly disinterested understanding of how the North must win the war. But Grant had also mustered in his men as raw recruits; he knew what they were capable of, and what they wouldn't do. And so, like the expert horseman he was, Grant spurred on, reigned in, and allowed rest time in the corral -- all the while keeping the goal of a reunified United States fixed resolutely in his mind.

Catton has a magical ability to make the reader feel as if he standing alongside Grant as events unfold. Thus, the reader is a witness to Grant's struggles with bureaucracy, encounters with colorful characters of both the Union and Confederate variety, and considerations of tactics and strategy.

In this reader's opinion, Catton understood Grant better than anyone before or since, with the exception of Julia Dent Grant and John Rawlins. Josiah Bunting, in his excellent one-volume biography just published by Times Books, is a close second. At any rate, perhaps it is a shared Midwestern heritage that makes Catton the first-rate biographer of the Union's greatest commander.