Battle Cry of Freedom

James M. McPherson: James McPherson was born on October 11th 1936, he is an American Civil War historian. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book. McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica. In his early career McPherson wanted to leave a legacy as being known for the historian who focusses on more than one point. Through skillful narrative in a broad-ranging oeuvre of essays and books, McPherson has succeeded in telling both stories, combining social, political, and military history to reach a broad scholarly and popular audience, emphasizing all the while that the Civil War constituted a “second American Revolution.” Examining thousands of letters and diaries written by soldiers to gather a better insight and understanding, McPherson argued that deep political and ideological convictions about liberty, slavery, religion, and nation were the fundamental reasons that men on both sides enlisted and fought. McPherson’s views on the Civil War are broad in comparison to many other writers, he believes there are multiple causes to the war but that the underlying cause was slavery and that Southern states used the saying “States’ Rights” to justify their actions of slavery and secession. It became a psychological necessity for the South to deny that the war was about slavery that they were fighting for the preservation, defense and

Radical Reconstruction Following the Civil War came a period of regrowth and rebuilding known as Reconstruction. Reconstruction can be broken into different sections and types, one of which is Congressional, or Radical, Reconstruction. There are many scholarly debates about Congressional Reconstruction and its failures, successes, and its overall logistics. Another common debate concerning the Reconstruction period is its purpose and what the intentions of its instigators were. This paper will be discussing an article written by Frederick Douglass entitled Reconstruction. In this article Douglass discusses the Congressional session taking place in 1866. He calls upon the Congressmen to undo the "blunders" of the previous

A Confederate Divided The American Civil War has become a point of controversy and argument when discussing key events in shaping America. The arguments that arise when discussing the war tend to focus on whether the Confederate was constitutionally justified in seceding, or whether the North

In his conclusion, McPherson answer what may lead one to ask if the American Civil War was indeed an extraordinary revolution, one whose likes the world had ever seen. The answer lies in the exact opposite of revolution. Counterrevolution occurred at first chance which in so many ways blanketed the revolutionary characteristics to the best of its applicability. From 1865 to 1866, immediately after the war, black codes began to surface. The purpose of these codes were to keep black labor in a state of dependence and subjection as close to slavery as possible. These codes appeared in the forms of vagrancy laws, contract labor laws the subjected freedmen to peonage and sharecropping, and violence. This code also makes for the final piece of evidence toward support of McPherson’s goal in categorizing the American Civil War as a revolution. Southern redeemers, after the withdrawal of northern Republican interest, went through great lengths to counter evolve them. Why would that be? In order to

The era of Reconstruction was a fourteen-year period following the Civil War filled with political and constitutional strife, extreme suffering, grand political ambitions and huge turns in race relations and human rights (Blight 32). During this period, many Americans realized that remembering the war “became, with time, easier than struggling over the enduring ideas for which those battles had been fought” (Blight 31). To people such as Frederick Douglass, a reborn United States could not

The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s

Through journals and diaries, Mary Chesnut, Warren Goss, and Randolph Mckim provide diverse views of the civil war and no military and that time period. Because of the perspectives of the authors, their views vary in both subject matter and opinion, Chesnut was not affected by the war, only would be if the south loses, Warren goss told us about the military, through his experience in the military. Mckim illustrates what life is like is like on the battlefield. Based on these differences, Mckim provides the most compelling and accurate account of life during this time period.

The Confederacy and the Union tried to take control in many ways. During Antietam, both sides tried to advance to the other side of a cornfield. More American generals were killed than all of World War 2. It took place at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Had the fighting not happened, we might not have won.

The Battle of Antietam, or The Battle of Sharpsburg as the South would call it, took place on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek. This was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. The American Civil War was beginning its second year of combat. As the Confederate States of America came close to winning the war, independence was well on its way. At first the result of the battle was controversial, as it could not be determined who won the battle and which army made the most progress towards achieving their strategic goals. The passage of time revealed that, tactically, Antietam was a draw, but that the South lost from a strategic perspective. It was one of the major turning points in the American Civil War. This was due to President Abraham Lincoln using the Union “victory” as political impetus to issue his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. As a direct result of the Battle of Antietam, the Civil War became more about abolition than the reunification of the states, and made a peaceful reconciliation between the two combatants almost impossible. The ultimate defeat of the Confederacy occurred at the Battle of Antietam, although no one knew it at the time.

In the minds of the southerners they would rather be subjugated rather than enslaved by Yankee rule, the southerners boasted with confidence and patriotism “the concepts of southern nationalism, liberty, self-government, resistance to tyranny, and other ideological purposes quoted earlier all have a rather abstract quality” (McPherson, p, 18).

What happened in the Battle of Antietam is that general McClellan got the general Lee's plans about what he was going to do. General McClellan meet the the part of Lee's army that was on Maryland and they started to fight on September 14. Lee managed to keep his amy put together until the other part of his army came to help. When the other part of Lee's army came to help it was still not enough because again McClellan has the plan's of Lee so he knew how to hit hard. At the end Lee's army withdraw to Virginia. The North considered the battle a success. The reason the battle was considered a turning point in the Civil War because "it ended Lee's effort to bring the war to the North." Another reason why this battle was considerede a turning

The key issue of the campaign concerned the situation between the north and the south nearing the end of the civil war. The two sides disagreed on how the war was to be resolved. McClellan’s goal was to call the war off and make a compromise with the south. Mclellan’s

Oftentimes, when thinking of important battles of the infamous civil war your mind will automatically go to the well-known Battle Of Gettysburg. While that was an extremely important battle that played a significant part in the Civil war, there are lesser know battle that are equally, if not more, important to the war that divided the United States of America. One of these battles was the first Battle at Bull Run. In this paper I will explain when and why it happened. And also, how this battle influenced and shaped the outcome of the Civil War.

James McPherson can be considered a highly respected man in the area of history. Uniquely, he earned a degree at John Hopkins University and since then has been teaching American History at Princeton University (Lifson, 2016). Surprisingly, more than six hundred thousand copies of his Pulitzer Prize novel

the north denying constitutional rights such as a fair and speedy trial. The song could have