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Summary Of Battle Cry Of Freedom: The Civil War Era By James M. Mcpherson

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James M. McPherson is an American Civil War historian and also a Pulitzer Prize winner for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. This book is packed with details but mostly about the political movements that initiated and supplemented the war efforts on behalf of the Union and Confederacy. McPherson's prose is easy to understand and he is not ever at a loss for words. This book is very long and is geared towards to the nation of readers who relish data and text about the Civil War. Along with the political overtones, he does not neglect the military details and reflects on the social aspects of the people who lived through this time.
I listened to this as an audiobook and it was as if I was on the sidelines of history. As I listened, my definition of the American Civil War changed from an adolescent view to a scholarly view that brought into view the exact details that encompassed the events of the time. The author …show more content…

James McPherson is able to give a great insight into the history of the Civil War but in my opinion his data is staunchly Unionist. He is a true scholar, but it seems that his view of the Civil War was extremely biased. He neglects the reality that the northern soldiers were fighting for the preservation of the Union and not the abolishment of slavery. His sources came from both sides however it was clear to me that I was listening to the prose of a historian who preferred the northern side of history. He believed the foundation for the war was slavery, when to me it really came across as being about the Union elitists and their economic

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He teaches the reader about a couple of the most important battles and generals of the civil war. Instead of being a plain research book about the civil war, he gives us accounts of true yet hilarious events during the civil war, such as a soldier rushing into battle with half of his hair shaved because he couldn’t finish his haircut. Or even about the time opposing soldiers did not fight and instead met at a river to trade goods like newspaper, tobacco, and card in makeshift boats. Steve Sheinkin explains the Civil war in simple, perhaps oversimplified tales and fact. This, however, does not take away the depth of the book, fully going into slavery and the impact of cotton, he does his part in explaining the Civil War.

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In chapter one of What They Fought For, I learned about the letters and diaries of the Confederate soldiers. The themes of the letters were home-sickness, lack of peace, and the defense of home against their invading enemy. The thought of soldiers fighting for their homes and being threatened by invaders, made them stronger when facing adversity. Many men expressed that they would rather die fighting for a cause, than dying without trying and this commitment showed patriotism. Throughout the letters, soldiers claimed their reason for fighting, was for the principles of Constitutional liberty and self-government.

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The bitterness the southerners and northerners felt towards each other did not subside even after the Civil War ended, and this comes into vivid detail in Suzy Barile’s (great-great-granddaughter of Ella Swain and Smith Atkins) Undaunting Heart: The True Story of a Southern Belle & A Yankee General. The novel is a historical account of the tumultuous courtship and marriage of Ella (from North Carolina) Smith (from Illinois) and the scandal that preceded and followed them. The book’s most timely message is the historical aspects of the rebuilding of a country -- two sides, North and South, still steeped in the still remaining feelings of hostility centered around the violence of the War and the ending of slavery.

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Taylor Headrick Review of: McPherson, James M. For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York, Oxford University Press, 1997. In James M. McPherson’s book, For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, he investigates Civil War soldiers’ diaries to discover why men from both sides chose to fight in the Civil War while also examining the different motives for each side. McPherson challenges traditional knowledge about the motives and mentalities of Civil War soldiers, offers new insight that differs from typical historians, and provides readers with specific details from soldiers’ journals and letters.

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The United States Civil War is possible one of the most meaningful, bloodstained and controversial war fought in American history. Northern Americans against Southern Americans fought against one another for a variety of motives. These motives aroused from a wide range of ideologies that stirred around the states. In James M. McPherson’s What they fought for: 1861-1865, he analyzes the Union and Confederate soldier’s morale and ideological components through the letters they wrote to love ones while at war. While, John WhiteClay Chambers and G. Kurt Piehler depict Civil War soldiers through their letters detailing the agonizing battles of war in Major Problems in American Military History.

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The main idea of this book is how different people view the topic on the Confederacy’s defeat: why, how, and what happened? Most of the authors whose work contributed to this book

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Innately people can be selfish, so in times when not only their own livelihood is in danger, but the lives of thousands is when a spotlight illuminates from the writer’s pen of Shelby Foote. The Civil War was not fought by superheroes, but by soldiers and he makes this clear. Foote shows us that being heroic can only be in instances and gives cases where soldiers were unheroic to paint the entire picture for readers to make their own conclusions. Dramatic irony is drawn from his toolbox to further drive home this point. Shakespearean moments that Foote could not even dream of are included for both the pleasure in telling the story and telling more about the war itself, even more specifically the Seven Days Battles.

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However, within McPherson’s book, he supports the idea that soldiers motives within the Civil War may have been influenced by social pressure, companionship, “masculinity; concepts of duty, honor, and courage” (McPherson pg. 1). Men who did not fight for this reason fought for their country as many believed that if “Our Fathers made this country, we, their children are to save it”

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McPherson addresses an issue/problem people have had when we talk/write about the Civil War. That problem is what was both sides truly fighting for. This war broke up the Union into two parts, North and South. Without the war happening, America would not be same America as today. We as Americans need to know the real reason why in 1861, the North and South went against each other and that was because of slavery.

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The living legacy of the United States Civil War is a complicated time in American history one finds difficult to describe. The ramification of the war prior, during and after still haunt the current citizens who call The States their home. Tony Horwitz’s book Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War looks at the wide gap of discontent that still looms in the late 1990s. For some southerners, the Confederacy still lives on through reenactments, stories and beliefs. For others in the South, reminders the land was dedicated to the Confederacy spark hatred and spite.

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Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Did the United States at the end of the Civil War represent the culmination of the Revolution or betrayal of the Revolution or an entirely different type of nation than one could have imagined at the Revolution? Introduction The Civil War that took place in the United States of America is an etched in people’s mind and experience in nation’s historical consciousness.

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During the American Civil War, both the industrial capitalist and planter-slaveholding system were put under major strain, causing an infinite amount of pressure to see which would last. Throughout the Civil War, while every strength and weakness

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McPherson in his book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War has identified that regardless of all other issues, the most significant factors that became the motivators for the people to join the army were a combination of duty, honor and patriotism. Both the ideas of duty and honor were "powerful motivating sources" (McPherson, p. 5) for the soldiers. As compared to what others believed, ethnic hatred and religious fanaticism were not the issue but the confederacy valued personal honor more than their lives. McPherson (p. 77) believes that "personal honor is the one thing valued more than itself by the majority of men. " The Union soldiers spoke of duty while the Confederate soldiers spoke of honor that motivated them to risk their lives.

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Primarily the American Civil War’s most pinnacle turning point was Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation at Antietam 1962, although Gettysburg’s provides a close second, whilst minor battles such as Atlanta and Lincoln’s re-election provide substance to the cause that indeed this war was not inevitable. It is Important to note that the war did not start as a war to abolish slavery but something that developed later after the most pinnacle turning point took them on a path of no return. Throughout the essay it will determine not only that the war was not inevitable but also which turning point was most significant in the whole war. Economic impacts from the civil war on the Greens bank helped further explain the significance of each key event.

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The American Civil War was a conflict between the North and South that spanned from 1861 to 1865 and led to over half a million casualties (VandeCreek). The war’s causes can be traced back to events that occurred a decade or more before the initiation of conflict. One such event is the Mexican-American War, which fulfilled for the United States its own manifest destiny while directing attention towards some important political issues. The Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1847 quickly stoked the flames of sectionalism in politics with Northerners partial to free labor and Southerners seeking the expansion of slavery; the Compromise of 1850 averted an immediate political crisis, but opened the field for other controversial acts that fed to the

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