Sykes Book Review: Mr. Lincoln's Army

Mr. Lincoln’s Army, by Bruce Catton, Doubleday, 363 pgs.

I relish a good book on the American Civil War the way others relish a good meal, a great film, or fine art—they’re something to be digested and appreciated. When that book just happens to be a previously unread classic, then the pleasure derived borders upon the truly fantastic. Mr. Lincoln’s Army, the first of Bruce Catton’s Army of the Potomac Trilogy, is truly a book of this magnitude.

A recurring theme within Catton’s work is the courage, commitment, and idealism of the Army of the Potomac’s volunteers. Before the horrors of Antietam and subsequent battles, the boys in blue fought because they were committed a Union of united states. Before conscription, the Emancipation Proclamation, and war as something other than a romanticized endeavor, there was just a cause and a charismatic young Napoleon in the guise of George McClellan. Before Antietam, the Army of the Potomac belonged to McClellan as much as McClellan did to its men. Catton does not deny this fact. The young Napoleon built the army into an efficient fighting force with the seemingly limitless resources of an entire nation behind it. His men loved him for it. But after Antietam and the proclamation, the army outgrew McClellan.

McClellan stood for a war of limited objectives—objectives far short of the destruction of the South and its peculiar institution. Emancipation called for a hard, destructive war to the hilt. The nation could no longer afford failure at the gates of Richmond, routs like Second Manassas, or draws like Antietam. Everyone, McClellan’s men included, realized this after the carnage of Antietam. The age of innocence and enthusiasm had passed into the night—the war now required the supreme sacrifice of the North’s resources and especially her manpower. This was the reason behind McClellan’s downfall and it is for this reason the nation’s army would ultimately become Mr. Lincoln’s Army.

Paradigm shift aside, Mr. Lincoln’s Army remains first and foremost a tribute to the Army of the Potomac. Bruce Catton was born in 1899 when the “Greatest Generation” was made up of men who fought to preserve the Union. Today, it is all too easy to fall for the nattiness of Johnny Reb, the chivalrous Southern gentleman-turned officer, the bold cavalier, the mythic Robert E. Lee, or the heroic Army of Northern Virginia. Americans today love a good underdog. And what better underdog story than one with characters like Lee, Jackson, and Stuart fighting against all odds. But therein lies the true shame. Although the Army of the Potomac’s officer corps bloomed much later in the war, her men were no less valiant than those of the South. They proved this at Antietam and subsequent fields of both greater and lesser renown. Their pedigree would lack masterpieces like Chancellorsville. They seldom had to “make do” or go without—theirs was an army of plenty. But to Catton, the Army of the Potomac was an “army of legend, with a great name that clangs when you touch it.” (pg. 14) They lacked the élan of the Army of Northern Virginia. But in Catton’s mind they made up for this with the cocky realization that their cause was right and that no other army could survive what they had and still remain a viable fighting force. They never gave up on themselves even while others gave up on them and their succession of generals.

Though originally published in 1951, Mr. Lincoln’s Army ranks among the pantheon of Civil War scholarship because of its simple yet highly literary approach to the nascent Army of the Potomac. Catton tells the story of an army whose courage, commitment, and idealism transcended the humiliation of First Bull Run to become the Republic’s best great hope to end the rebellion between the spring and summer of 1862. And despite George B. McClellan’s important role during this period, the nation’s army remains the star in this piece as it well should. It is a shame their star has dimmed while that of their opponent remains ascendant. The North moved on while the South created the scholarship of the Lost Cause. But that is another story.