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Battle Cry of Freedom

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United States History i | Battle Cry of Freedom | The Civil War Era by: James M. McPherson | | Sandra Dunlap | 4/16/2010 |

James M. McPherson was born October 11, 1936. He is considered to be an American Civil War historian and he is a professor at Princeton University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his book Battle Cry of Freedom and Wikipedia states this was his most famous book. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Ph. D. and teaches United States History at Princeton University.
“Battle Cry of Freedom; The Civil War Era id a work of such vast scope necessarily emphasizes synthesis at the expense of theme. If there is a unifying idea in the book, it is McPherson 's acknowledged emphasis on “the multiple meanings of …show more content…

For this reason he chose a narrative rather than a thematic format, integrating political and military events to emphasize complex patterns of cause and effect. Thus, he emphasizes that the failure of the Army of the Potomac to reach Richmond during the Seven Days’ Battle in the spring of 1862 changed Union policy from the limited goal of restoring the Union into one of total war to destroy the Old South and consequently gave rise to the Copperhead faction of antiwar Democrats in the North. Antietam was a major turning point not only because Lee 's Army of Northern Virginia was driven back across the Potomac, but also because it ended Confederate hopes for European recognition and military assistance, and gave Lincoln the military victory he had been waiting for as a backdrop for his Emancipation Proclamation.
Especially in the North, where the two-party system still operated and the Republican position on slavery was still evolving and far from unified, Union military success or failure had far-reaching effects. The defeats at Bull Run and Ball 's Bluff led Congress to establish the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, and the Union failure at Fredericksburg gave

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