Bruce Catton, Civil War historian and longtime editor of American Heritage magazine, ranks as one of the most successful proponents of "popular" history, attracting the general as well as the professional reader. Combining a lively and readable prose style with contemporary reflections and reminiscences, Catton specialized in producing both thrilling and historically accurate narratives of the Civil War years.

Charles Bruce Catton was born in Petoskey, a northern Michigan lumber town, to George Robert and Adella Maude Patten Catton. His family moved to nearby Benzonia several years later, where Catton's father, a Congregationalist minister, became principal of struggling Benzonia Academy, which closed its doors soon after the younger Catton's graduation in 1916. By his own admission, Catton's childhood was a happy, if disciplined, one, instilling values that were as influential to his writings as they were important to his life.

Benzonia had been founded in the 1850s by a...