We lived in Indian summer and mistook it for spring.

Beneath everything else, North and West, there ran a profound, unvoiced, almost subconscious conviction that the [American] nation was going to go on growing-in…

— Bruce Catton

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

— Bruce Catton

What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg…

— Bruce Catton

And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity,…

— Bruce Catton

The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida…

— Bruce Catton

Even the most painstaking history is a bridge across an eternal mystery.

— Bruce Catton

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

— Bruce Catton

“The end of the war was like the beginning, with the army marching down the open road under the spring sky, seeing a far…

— Bruce Catton

“Early youth is a baffling time. The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a…

— Bruce Catton

Here was the greatest and most moving chapter in American history, a blending of meanness and greatness, an ending and a beginning. It came…

— Bruce Catton

The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited;…

— Bruce Catton

Like most Rebel soldiers, Sam Watkins owned no slaves.

— Bruce Catton

Abraham Lincoln was not all brooding and melancholy and patient understanding. There was a hard core in him, and plenty of toughness. He could…

— Bruce Catton

Sooner or later you must move down an unknown road that leads beyond the range of the imagination, and the only certainty is that…

— Bruce Catton

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

— Bruce Catton