Bruce Catton

Bruce Catton 1899-1978, American historian, b. Petoskey, Mich. He studied at Oberlin College and then entered upon a varied career as a journalist (1926-42) and public official (1942-52). His service with the War Production Board during World War II led to his first major book, The War Lords of Washington (1948). After 1952 he devoted himself to full-time literary work, serving as an editor from 1954 (senior editor, 1959) of the American Heritage magazine. In 1954 he received the Pulitzer Prize for his historical work, A Stillness at Appomattox (1953). Catton has written extensively on the military history of the Civil War; his many works include Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951), Glory Road (1952), This Hallowed Ground (1956), Grant Moves South (1960), Grant Takes Command (1969), The Centennial History of the Civil War (3 vol., 1961-65), and Prefaces to History (1970).

Catton, Bruce (1899–1978), born in Michigan, attended Oberlin College, became a journalist, and served in World War II. His trilogy of historical studies about the Army of the Potomac is Mr. Lincoln's Army (1951), Glory Road (1952), and A Stillness at Appomattox (1953, Pulitzer Prize). Later works related to the Civil War, his central subject, include: U.S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1954) and its sequels, Grant Moves South (1960) and Grant Takes Command (1969); This Hallowed Ground (1956), on the Union side of the war; a Centennial History of the Civil War in three volumes: The Coming Fury (1961), Terrible Swift Sword (1963), and Never Call Retreat (1965); and Two Roads to Sumter (1963), biographies of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis written in collaboration with his son William. He also wrote a memoir of his youth, Waiting for the Morning Train (1972), and Michigan: A Bicentennial History (1976).