60 Quotes by Bruce Catton

Between 1861 and 1865, Americans made war on each other and killed each other in great numbers - if only to become the kind of country that could no longer conceive of how that was possible.

What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew. The war was about a new birth of freedom.

The 1860 election became a referendum on the southern way of life.

Shiloh had as many casualties as Waterloo, and yet there were another 20 Waterloos to come.

Like most Rebel soldiers, Sam Watkins owned no slaves.

The Confederate Constitution was almost identical to that of the United States.

Yet there is a dignity in the human spirit which can become most clearly visible in the moment of defeat and disaster.

Men see things late, and it may be that at times an evil fate drives them on.

Abraham Lincoln was not all brooding and melancholy and patient understanding. There was a hard core in him, and plenty of toughness. He could recognize a revolutionary situation when he saw one, and he could act fast and ruthlessly to meet it.