It is a rich account of a quintessential American identity crisis. “Nevertheless, Battle Cry of Freedom is not a political tract. It’s awfully hard to argue that the war wasn’t about slavery when Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Robert Toombs, and Edmund Ruffin say it was. And what’s worse (well, for southern apologists, Lost Cause advocates, and neo-Confederates, at any rate), is that McPherson meticulously sources his work from the words of the southern secessionists themselves. McPherson makes it clear: no slavery in America would likely have meant no American Civil War. The causes of the Civil War really were many and complex, but African slavery lies at or near the roots of any cause the South cared to name. A reading of Battle Cry of Freedom makes clear the problem with that thesis. They argue the conflict was more accurately a principled dispute over sectional economics and political philosophy. “Southern apologists have taken issue with McPherson over the causes he gives for the Civil War, misunderstanding or mischaracterizing his study as a simplistic contest over slavery. If you haven’t read it, your understanding of the war is at best incomplete. For what it’s worth, I’ll add my voice to the chorus. McPherson’s fellow historians, along with reviewer after reviewer, have found Battle Cry to be the indispensible single-volume history of the conflict. And it’s largely due to McPherson’s thorough and compelling history of the events and issues leading up to, and beyond, the war. “I think anyone who completes a reading of James McPherson’s 869-page Battle Cry of Freedom could be forgiven for feeling as though they themselves have lived through the U.S. Particularly notable are McPherson’s new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union’s victory. From there it moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself–the battles, the strategic maneuvering by each side, the politics, and the personalities. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War including the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.James McPherson’s fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war-slavery-and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War-the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry-and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself-the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. The Supreme Court Historical Society Homepageįilled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War.
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