Two Roads to Sumter: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and the March to the Civil War

by Catton, William; Catton, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780785815976
• ISBN10: 078581597X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Book Sales

Summary

This is the tragic story of the North and South as they begin their long, heartbreaking march to Civil War. Using the early lives and careers of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as theme and framework, these brilliant historians recreate this complex period of American history. The growth and development of both Lincoln and Davis is given, in parallel form, showing the moral and intellectual forces that shaped the two figures that became the war leaders in the next decade. The clash of opinions led to the clash of armies and in this incisive, psychological portrait of two idealists, America's story, in the decades before the Civil War, is told in engaging and eloquent prose. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Bruce Catton was born in Petoskey, Michigan in 1899. He studied at Oberlin College and then entered upon a varied career as a journalist (1926-42) and public official (1943-52). His service with the War Production Board during World War II led to his first book. The War Lords of Washington. After 1952, he devoted himself to full-time literary work, serving as an editor from 1954 of The American Heritage magazine. In 1954 he received the Pulitzer Prize for his historical work, A Stillness at Appomattox. He died in 1978 William Catton was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised there and in Washington DC. He taught at Northwestern University (1953-54), the University of Maryland (1955-58), Princeton University (1958-64), and Middlebury College (1964-84). Since his retirement in 1984, he has lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(4)
ONE Like a Crouching Lion	5	(19)
TWO The Shaping Years	24	(33)
THREE Sunlight & Shadow	57	(23)
FOUR Moderation Challenged, 1846-1854	80	(32)
FIVE Moderation in Retreat, 1854-1858	112	(40)
SIX Moderation in Eclipse, 1858-1860	152	(44)
SEVEN The Campaign of 1860	196	(47)
EIGHT And the War Came	243	(38)
Index	281