battle cry of freedom mcpherson book cover

'Deftly coordinated, gracefully composed, charitably argued and suspensefully paid out, McPherson's book is just the compass of the tumultuous middle years of the 19th century it was intended to be, and as narrative history it is surpassing. Williams, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 'Anyone interested in Texas and the republic to which it belongs should set some weeks aside for this big, smart porcupine of a book' - Patrick G. 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. This new birth of freedom, as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's 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 Unionįounded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. 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. 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.

Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes

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. Filled 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.

Battle cry of freedom mcpherson book cover