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This is basically three works under one cover, as the sections on the three most well-known Confederate Ranger leaders are all independent of each other. There’s no general section on rangers, or their employment by less-successful leaders to tie things together, either. The most we get is a short introduction that mentions the CSA’s 1862 Partisan Ranger Act and a short description of its provisions.

The careers of Mosby, Morgan, and Forrest overlap quite a bit in time, and the latter two in place, so we get some repetition of external pressures in the narratives which are basically three separate works under one cover. That’s not too bad, but not the best either. More notably, all three, and Mosby in particular, are constant recounting of events and incidents without letup so it is hard to keep straight.

I would have liked to see more analysis and theorizing. Early in Mosby’s career, Black gives a description of a few things Mosby did, and then says ‘it seems someone else was already operating in the area’, and gives a similar sequence of events, but a few days earlier. To me, that sounds like perhaps someone miscounted days when writing down a proper report. But Black refuses to even speculate on that, or do anything other than assume they must be separate incidents because of the dates given.

There is some analysis given, but usually as asides in his narrative instead of breaking out a section to really sit back and chew things over. Union cavalry was largely ‘going by the book’ written in the Napoleonic era, and trying to charge to engage with sabers. As the war went on, experience and better leaders changed this, but Black never goes into how many troops had official equipment of what weapons, and what exceptions to this are known.

Of course, he is focused entirely on the Confederate side, but even here he doesn’t break down just what the Confederate cavalryman was supposed to be equipped with, and just what someone like Forrest would be working with. He does go into some depth with Mosby being very clear that he considered the saber and other melee weapons useless, and was entirely reliant on revolvers for arms (though there’s a couple of incidents that show some of his men also using cavalry sabers—probably after emptying their guns). On the subject of all the troops these various partisan ranger units tied down trying to find them and protect lines of supply from them, he’s better, but since the Union perspective isn’t a real focus, we only get incomplete accounts of what the most effective measures were, and just how back area protection of supply lines changed over time.

Unless you’re really interested in the subject, the writing isn’t up for carrying the narrative. It’s not bad, but it isn’t up to properly organizing all the constant parade separate incidents that are much like incidents directly surrounding it. (Mosby’s section is by far the worst offender here… and is the first part of the book.) The book description floats the idea that these units were forerunners to modern ranger and special forces units, but there’s no real discussion of how that might be so in the book.

It is difficult for a general history to maintain a central thesis and remain informative, and be entertaining. One of Catton’s gifts is that he does it quite well here.

Terrible Swift Sword picks up in the immediate aftermath of First Bull Run. Like The Coming Fury, it covers a bit more than a year of time (leaving the third book to do some heavy lifting). Overall, the focus remains on events and personalities, and gives good attention to many aspects of the war.

But from the first, it is obvious that Catton has something more to say. The particular period of time is chosen precisely because it is that period where the war aims of Lincoln shifted, clarified, and eventually expanded.

Lincoln, and most everyone else, would have been happy for the war to end quickly and with as little disruption to the country as possible. And the longer it went on the more disruption must inevitably follow.

Naturally, the biggest, most unavoidable disruption is to slavery. Lincoln disclaims any changes to slavery as a war goal, and has to override various field commanders who take matters into their own hands. But anywhere the Union army goes, slaves start showing up looking for protection. And the proximate cause of the war was the Republican promise to not let slavery extend into all the territories (an argument the South lost by the act of seceding). And one of the threads through the book is the move towards a bigger effect on slavery, and the book therefore ends shortly after Anteitam and the initial Emancipation Proclamation.

Along the way, we get all the major moves. We also get the smaller ones. Catton gives a good account of Island Number 10, which is too often overshadowed by Shiloh. We also see Lee’s first command in future West Virginia, and his time in charge of the coastal defenses south of Virginia. We of course also get the initial Union forays there. And we get some real sidelights. One entire subchapter is spent on smuggling and other activities transferring goods from the North to the South… and vice versa. He doesn’t try to get at any real numbers, but Catton points out that there had been one national economy at work, and suddenly declaring a border didn’t suddenly wipe out all the dependencies between the two. All the profiteering and such was inevitable when confronted with that reality.

Again, Catton does a great job covering the various parts of the war, and giving attention to all the major movements and the secondary ones as well. Combine this with especial attention to the tribulations of the government and McClellan, and that ever present pressure of what the government and the war is going to do about slavery, and you have a good book on a critical year of the ACW. Combine that with Catton’s excellent writing, and you have a great general-reader introduction to the subject.