The Coming Fury (2). Bruce Catton.

The Centennial History of the Civil War. Vol. One. The Coming Fury (2). Bruce Catton. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.

1961

10-second review: People did not think the Civil War would come, but North and South kept drifting into war, the motives not always clear, even though slavery was obsolete because the nation, as a whole, was becoming industrialized—the real reason that the North won the war.

“But although [Alexander] Stephens hoped the Union might be preserved, he would go where Georgia went, bowing to the will of the people: ‘Their cause is my cause, and their destiny is my destiny.’ ” p. 113. ………. The Election of 1860 did not solve anything but people were tired of talking about slavery; they wanted something done, but no one specified what it was that should be done. p. 118. ………. Buchanan: Long cabinet meetings brought only indecision. p. 128. ……….

Buchanan did not believe in preserving the Union by coercion. “Our Union rests upon public opinion and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in a civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of its people it must one day perish.” p. 128.

People in 1860 wanted peace, but kept drifting toward war. p. 130. ………. “…600,000 young men who otherwise might have lived were going to die, but it seemed that there was no help for it.” p. 130. ………. “…and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘The United States of America,’ is hereby dissolved.” p. 133. ………. “Outright war could be averted now only if somebody backed down.” p. 165.

Buchanan to Alexander Stephens: “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted…. For this, neither [side] has any just occasion to be angry with the other.” p. 168. ………. Lincoln thought there was a strong vein of loyalty to the Union across the South if it could be tapped. But when secession occurred, the people of the South supported their states.” p. 188. ………. “They [the Republicans] had campaigned on the notion that there should be no extension of slavery in the territories and on that point they would not yield an inch. p. 201. ” ………. Once secession had occurred, there was little room for negotiation. p. 201.

Robt. E. Lee: “If the bond of the Union can only be maintained by the sword and bayonet, instead of brotherly love and friendship, and if strife and Civil War are to take the place of mutual aid and commerce, its [the Union’s] existence will lose all interest with me.” p. 203. ………. “…that secession was wholly legal, that this new nation was of entire and unstained legitimacy, and in short that this revolution was really no revolution but was simply the quiet assertion of undeniable rights by men who had suffered much with great forbearance.” p. 206. ………. “…the desperate attempt to preserve a pastoral society intact in a land being transformed by the Industrial Revolution….” p. 215.

Lincoln saw in the Declaration of Independence not just hope for the U.S. but for all mankind. p. 221. ………. Lincoln wanted strong cabinet members, antagonistic Republicans, whom he thought he could control. p. 245. ………. “For better or worse, Davis had not tried the experiment Lincoln was trying, of bringing in the most forceful leaders the nation’s politics had to offer.” p. 275.