James M. Mcpherson's Battle Cry Of Freedom

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 had the right to prevent the secession. However, when discussing the America Civil War and the idea of separation, it is important to be mindful that separation did not simply end at the state level. Letters written by Jesse Rolston, Jr. and Jedediah Hotchkiss portray two significantly different attitudes toward the war, despite the fact that the writers both fought for the Confederate States and give accounts of the same battle, one of which ended in the Confederate’s favor. When examining the documents, both writers express different viewpoints on life on and off the battlefield. This significant difference represents a division amongst the Confederate army.

America’s transformation into the country we live in today has been formed through numerous events during its short history but the event that will split the United States into North versus South is truly one of the most defining events in American history. Through numerous events leading up to the start of the Civil War, I will attempt to show how the United States was destined for conflict and that the Civil War was inevitable. The first way I will show how the war could not be avoided will deal with the issue of slavery. Slavery should be the first mentioned because many conflicts within the United States leading up to the Civil War and the division of the United States dealt with slavery. The Missouri Compromise should also be talked

In 1994, McPherson wrote the book, What They Fought For: 1861-1865, about his exploration on the motivations of the soldiers that fought in the Civil War (“James M. McPherson” par. 6). He analyzed the letters and diaries of twenty-five thousand soldiers, ultimately determining the reasons for the soldier’s continuance to fight during the Civil War.

There has been many historians and theorists who have tackled colonial slavery. One of them is Ira Berlin whose book Many Thousands Gone is his take on slavery diversity in American history and how slavery is at the epicenter of economic production, amongst other things. He separates the book into three generations: charter, plantation and revolutionary, across four geographic areas: Chesapeake, New England, the Lower country and the lower Mississippi valley. In this paper, I will discuss the differences between the charter and plantation generations, the changes in work and living conditions, resistance, free blacks and changes in manumission.

Company Aytch, a memoir written by Sam Watkins, tells the personal tale of a lowly private fighting four long years in the American Civil War. Watkins was from Columbia, Tennessee, and was a part of Company H, 1st Tennessee Infantry. He recounts his military career in chronological order, from before the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 to the day the Confederacy surrendered at Nashville in 1865. Watkins is a humble writer, often reminds the reader that he is not aiming to provide a comprehensive account of the entire war, but rather a collection of personal stories. Military history books often recount the lives of generals and of great strategies, but this book insists that history should not exclude the common men who filled the ranks of the military.

While many have described the civil war as simply the war between the States, Bruce Levine in his book “Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War” has put together an 80 year survey from around 1773 the pre-revolutionary era to the Civil War with well documented evidence of the social, cultural and political idealisms of our once divided nation. This book review will emphasize points on each of the book’s chapters which are put chronologically and particularly comparing the southern slave labor system to the free labor system in the north. Levine’s thesis statement on page four of his book reads as follows, “What impelled so many-rich, middling, and poor; white and black; native-born and immigrant- to risk and sacrifice so much? To answer such questions, this book reexamines the antebellum political history in the light of the broader economic, social, cultural, and ideological developments that shaped the lives of the American people”. (p. 4) Clearly the author of the book has researched numerous historical papers and has placed them in the direction his thesis will be provided with hard evidence from the founding fathers’ letters, written memos and of course the laws put into the United States constitution.

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.

The book Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, was written by James M. McPherson to argue why the Battle of Antietam was the battle that changed the cause of the Civil War. While McPherson argued this he also argues that the Civil War had many other turning points and was not settled by just one battle. McPherson’s targeted audience would have to be those interested in the Civil War and the events that led to it. McPherson wrote this great book which came to be an important contribution to our collective historical knowledge and understanding because this book explains the important arguments that took place and made the Civil War happen and stop.

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

Although James McPherson presents Lincoln as having numerous qualities that defined him as a brilliant leader, he wastes no time in revealing what he believes to be Lincoln’s greatest strength. In his Introduction, McPherson states regarding Lincoln’s political leadership: “In a civil war whose origins lay in a political conflict over the future of slavery and a political decision by certain states to secede, policy could never be separated from national strategy…. And neither policy nor national strategy could be separated from military strategy” (McPherson, p.6). Lincoln could not approach the war from a purely martial standpoint—instead, he needed to focus on the issues that caused it. For the catalyst of the war was also the tool for its solution; a war started by differing ideologies could only be resolved through the military application of ideology. This non-objective approach to the waging of the war almost resembles the inspired approach McPherson brings to his examination of Lincoln himself.

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

By using primary sources from soldiers, he is giving a voice to those people. He is not trying to undermine the importance of abolishing slavery, but wants to educate people on history that might have been taught differently to them. He also wants to clear up the impression that Civil War soldiers did not know what they fought for (McPherson, 2). He wrote this book to set an outline for a larger book that he made called, “Why They Fought” (McPherson, 1). The author’s main argument is to show that the Civil War was not initially about slavery and that the soldier’s did have reasons on why they were fighting. In the many letters both the Union and Confederacy soldiers had a hate for one another. They both want to destroy the other and would not stop until the end. A soldier from Virginia said, “I intend to fight them to the last… I will kill them as long as I live” (McPherson, 20). This quote and many others explains the author’s argument on that the soldiers had their

What they fought for is an analysis of a collection of nearly a thousand personal letters and journals entries written by the soldiers who fought America’s famous Civil War. This book seeks to define the ideology of what the soldiers understood they were fighting for, and their comprehension of the outcome of their service .Although counter arguments agree that most soldiers could not give a solid explanation of why they fought for, nor the real Constitutional issues that were at stake; the thoughts the soldiers recorded show that they fought for more than just masculine identity; they highly valued being at home safe with their loved ones, at any cost. This book gives an inside perception of the Civil War, and a

The author tries to achieve the stated purpose in his book by diligently examining and studying all the letters and diaries in order to recreate and give an accurate and detailed description of the life and times of the people who lived during the civil war. No historical account can be accurate without the author's complete dedication to his work and the subject matter. McPherson is passionate about this subject and ensures that no detail is left out, no stone unturned, in his quest to give an accurate account of the Civil War. If he did not do this, he would not be doing justice to the people who lived through those difficult and trying times. He would be committing historical blasphemy.

One of the most, if not the most, controversial and heated debates following the United States independence was regarding the institution of slavery. In the introduction to his book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine quotes Carl Schurzs’ observation as the “slave question not being a mere occasional quarrel between two sections of the country divided by a geographic line, but a great struggle between two antagonistic systems of social organization (p.15)”. The Nouthern states that allowed slavery benefited from the agricultural labor that those slaves provided. The Northern states that prohibited slavery did so for moral and pragmatic reasons; they felt it was morally wrong to deny another human any form of rights, and did not like the economic advantage it gave to the Southern states. With the use of slavery largely concentrated in the South, the movement against it came from the North and was led by abolitionists; those who were committed to bringing an end to the practice. In this course we have defined “Practice” as the conduct of policy, such as opinion, election, parties and law-making (Lecture). We define Policy as the goals of politics, those being sovereignty, defense, and a collective well-being (Lecture). The following analytical essay will examine antislavery sentiment and practices in the Northern states and the reaction of Southern states. Additionally how the pressures from both sides influenced the Policy of the United States following independence then