Civil War In James Mcpherson's What They Fought For

The challenges that the Union and the Confederacy faced during the Civil War were very different. Critical weaknesses that seemed unfit for war, plagued the opposing American forces, and would serve to be a continuous obstacle that would need to be conquered by patriotism of the people, for their opposing views. To allow for both sides to be competitive, the efforts put forth had to mold to the varied needs of the armies by both the civilian population and their militaries. To the people in the south the similarity to the colonists in the Revolutionary War, was assimilated to their separatist cause in the Civil War and would be their drive to compete with the dominating Northern states. This mindset started the Confederacy in the Civil

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

Ironically, both the Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers appear to have been fighting for the same overall causes. Both, the Confederate and the Union soldiers, “expressed about the same degree of patriotism and ideological conventions.” Confederate states fought for “independence, for their property, for their very survival as a nation,” as well as “resistance to tyranny” (McPherson 13, 27, 36). Similarly, the Union states portrayed the same causes as the Confederate states, including patriotism, liberty, upholding of the constitutional law, maintaining the legacy of the American Revolution, and additionally the dissolution of anarchy. Just as the inclinations for the continuance of the warfare were quite similar, both Union and Confederate soldiers attempted to justify their reasons and causes by reflecting on the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War (1776-1783), also referred to as the American War of Independence, was the fight of the thirteen colonies to become an independent

James M. McPherson sets out to discover what motivated the Confederate and Union soldiers to continue fighting in the Civil War in his book What They Fought For. McPherson analyses nearly a thousand letters, journals, and diary of Union and Confederate soldiers to determine what urged them to fight is this defining American Conflict. McPherson reads and groups together the common thoughts of the everyday soldier, from their letters and journals that none of which had been subjected to any sort of censorship, in that time period. He then generalizes the motivations that they used to fight for their country. Whether it be for slavery or for the Union, the author views both sides of the fighting to analysis their ideological issues, how deep their belief coursed through their veins to continue fighting, and how the soldiers held their convictions close to heart in the time of war.

First off, the way they declared secession and proceeded to do so was illegal. To begin with everyday we recite the pledge of allegiance where it states, “one nation, indivisible”. Those southerners recited the same pledge we did and they recited themselves that this union is indivisible. Next, under the constitution of the United States of America secession was and always will be considered illegal because of Article 10 Section 1. In this part of the constitution it was illustrated that, “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….”. The southern states obviously did not follow that and violated the constitution they agreed to abide by themselves. When they concurred to join the Union they agreed to join an indivisible nation. Nowhere could they make a complaint worthy enough to try to separate for the states that they agreed to join, but of course they tried to with the controversial subject of slavery.

The text “The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union”, by James Mcpherson, gave me great research information on the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry. McPherson tells African-American history using their feelings and actions during the Civil War as his evidence. Specifically, the book contains many letters written by heroes of this time period to tell the story forgotten by the United States. Teachers usually focus on famous battles and strategies of the two sides during the war. However, students could have grasp a better history of the war if given a broader sense of the account-which can only accomplished when one gains more knowledge on who were most affected by the war, American Blacks.

McPherson’s book explains that the Civil War was started because the Confederacy wanted liberty from the tyrants (the north), property, democratic principles, and way of life (McPherson, 27). The Union causes were government unity, to restore law and order, and to the preservation of the nation (McPherson, 56). The evidence he used to back up these claims was from

One of the key factor contributing to the Civil War was States Rights. This refers to the struggle between federal government and individual states over political power. One side argued for greater state’s rights and those arguing felt that the Federal Government needed to have more control over states. The states felt they should have the right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts. Meaning that states had the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied states this right. When nullification would not work and states felts that they were no longer respected, they moved towards secession from the Union. The southern people were viewed as democratic and depended slaves for the plantations, they were devoted to agriculture and shipped cotton up north and favored low tariffs.

The Civil War was fought from 1861-1865.(Masur,L 2011) One of its main components was slavery. Many northern states fought to end slavery, while the southern states wished to fight to keep slavery and protect its rights.(civilwar.org) The Southern states economy was dependent on cotton which to them made slavery a necessity, while the North was becoming a more industrialized economy.(Masur,L 2011)The separation in economic needs helped to create a divide between the two sections.(ushistory.org) In addition to the economy, southern states pushed for nullification. They did not believe that the Federal Government should impose its will on the states. (Masur,L 2011 pg4) The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 did little to reassure the south that their rights to own slaves would be upheld and was basically a final straw for many southern states. (civilwar.org) There were a total of eleven states that would secede from the Union from 1860-1861 prior to the start of the Civil War. These states in order of secession were

They believed that slavery could not co-exist in a country that was founded on the ideology of freedom. However, they eventually found themselves fighting to help free the slaves rather than fighting for each other. The Confederate Army was fighting to maintain its grip on slavery as it was ever so important to their economy and way of life. They depended on it so greatly that they would be willing to risk their lives on order to hold on to it.

For Cause and Comrades is a book written by James McPherson, with the help of diaries and letters written by soldiers from the Confederate and Union forces, he is able to formally detail accounts on why men fought in the civil war. Consequently, McPherson is able to shed light on the mentality and motives that soldiers possessed that made them fight in the war. Although we will never truly know why soldiers fought in the civil war, this book most definitely gives readers evidence that soldiers had certain values and morals that gave them reason to fight.

On the other side was the Union, also known as the Yankees; a group determined to put out the rebels of the South, and preserve the nation that was created in 1776. Like the Confederates, the Union also found support in the memory of the Revolutionary War. Union soldiers fought the “Traitors who sought to tear down and break into fragments the glorious temple that our forefathers reared with blood and tears” (Mc.Pherson 28). If the south was to secede it would have destroyed and undermined the power and authority of the Constitution, and therefore break the union that made up the United States of America. The Union soldiers referred to the Confederates as the “Rebels”, who did not deserve to be part of the united nation for their selfish and inhumane habits, yet their land belonged to the country as a whole. A soldier in the Sherman army wrote to his wife “We want to kill them all off and cleanse the country… their punishment is light when compared with what justice is demanded” (Mc.Pherson 40-41). Union militias could not bear the thought of secession, for they “will be held responsible before God if we don’t

This book was a good analysis of Civil War soldiers' diaries, and letters to their loved ones. Which explains what they were going through in their lives and what they fought for and risked their lives for in this conflict. In the book the author James M. McPherson uses information from l00's of diaries and letters from the soldiers to learn why they fought in this war. The Union soldiers fought to preserve the Nation that was created in 1776, to save it from destruction. The Confederate soldiers fought for their independence, liberty, self government, and for revenge.

James M. McPherson, author of For Cause and Comrades, uses more than 25,000 unaltered letters and closely 250 private journals from Civil War soldiers—both Union and Confederate—in his attempt to explain what possessed these men to endure the roaring, gruesome chaos of war. What better way to express the motivation behind fighting than words straight from the pens of the men who were physically there and experienced the Civil War to its fullest? I personally feel as though McPherson succeeded in his explanation of the different driving forces that kept each man going during these difficult years of battle. The Wall Street Journal describes McPherson’s work as “an extraordinary book, full of fascinating details and moving self-portraits.”

organization of the book is a compare and contrast organization method. The first chapter discusses the Confederates view of the war and how they felt about the situation at large. However, the second chapter is about the Unions side of the war. They both felt that they were fighting for the same things their forefathers fought for such as freedom and liberty. Finally, the third chapter discusses one of the main platforms of the civil war slavery. The Confederates wanted to keep their slaves because they felt like it was their god given right but the Union wanted to get ride of slavery since they felt that it was against the constitution. This method is very effective