Why read A Stillness at Appomattox?

Book cover of A Stillness at Appomattox

Book description

Recounting the final year of the Civil War, this classic volume by Bruce Catton won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for excellence in non-fiction.

In this final volume of the Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Catton, America's foremost Civil War historian, takes the reader through the…

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Topics

The American Civil War

Genres

American history

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Why read it?

2 authors picked A Stillness at Appomattox as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Bruce L. Brager

Author

These are the first books I read on the American Civil War as an adult (thank you, History Book Club). Catton lets the reader march with the Army of the Potomac through the war in the east. You don’t just learn what happened, and why. You feel what it was like to be there. Catton never forgets the need to make history a good read as well as a way to transmit information.

From Bruce's list on The best books on leadership in the American Civil War.

S. C. Gwynne

Author

This book is the reason I originally became obsessed with the Civil War and the reason millions of other Americans discovered it. Catton was one of the first historians to apply lyrical, poetical writing to the grisly events of the war, and it is the writing that makes his books stand out. He won the Pulitzer with it in 1954. The subject is the war as seen from the point of view of Grant and his Army of the Potomac.

From S. C.'s list on The best books to start with on the American Civil War.