Books by James M. McPherson
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
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.
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. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes 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. Particularly notable are 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.
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 Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. 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. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict.
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.
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$28.99
Atlas Of The Civil War
Here is the definitive reference to the battles of the Civil War, written by America's leading military historians and edited by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War expert James M. McPherson. This authoritative volume includes gripping eyewitness accounts plus 200 specially commissioned, full-color maps that detail all of the major campaigns and many of the smaller skirmishes of the war between the states. Maps provide a superb visual reference to troop movement, battlefield terrain, and communication lines. Dynamic reconstructions depict battles fought on land, river, and ocean, and time-line descriptions provide play-by-play commentary of the action. With more than 200 photographs and many personal accounts that vividly recount the experiences of soldiers in the fields, this book brings to life the human drama that pitted the north against the south.
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This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War
The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the New York Times bestsellers Crossroads of Freedom and Tried by War, among many other award-winning books, James M. McPherson is America's preeminent Civil War historian. In this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the enduring questions about one of the defining moments in our nation's history.
McPherson sheds light on topics large and small, from the average soldier's avid love of newspapers to the postwar creation of the mystique of a Lost Cause in the South. Readers will find insightful pieces on such intriguing figures as Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Jesse James, and William Tecumseh Sherman, and on such vital issues as Confederate military strategy, the failure of peace negotiations to end the war, and the realities and myths of the Confederacy. This Mighty Scourge includes several never-before-published essays--pieces on General Robert E. Lee's goals in the Gettysburg campaign, on Lincoln and Grant in the Vicksburg campaign, and on Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief. All of the essays have been updated and revised to give the volume greater thematic coherence and continuity, so that it can be read in sequence as an interpretive history of the war and its meaning for America and the world.
Combining the finest scholarship with luminous prose, and packed with new information and fresh ideas, this book brings together the most recent thinking by the nation's leading authority on the Civil War.
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Abraham Lincoln
Best-selling author James M. McPherson follows the son of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks from his early years in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, to his highly successful law career, his marriage to Mary Todd, and his one term in Congress. We witness his leadership of the Republican anti-slavery movement, his famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas (a long acquaintance and former rival for the hand of Mary Todd), and his emergence as a candidate for president in 1860. Following Lincoln's election to the presidency, McPherson describes his masterful role as Commander in Chief during the Civil War, the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and his assassination by John Wilkes Booth. The book also discusses his lasting legacy and why he remains a quintessential American hero two hundred years after his birth, while an annotated bibliography permits easy access to further scholarship. With his ideal short account of Lincoln, McPherson provides a compelling biography of a man of humble origins who preserved our nation during its greatest catastrophe and ended the scourge of slavery.
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Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution
James McPherson has emerged as one of America's finest historians. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times Book Review, called "history writing of the highest order." In that volume, McPherson gathered in the broad sweep of events, the political, social, and cultural forces at work during the Civil War era. Now, in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, he offers a series of thoughtful and engaging essays on aspects of Lincoln and the war that have rarely been discussed in depth.
McPherson again displays his keen insight and sterling prose as he examines several critical themes in American history. He looks closely at the President's role as Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces, showing how Lincoln forged a national military strategy for victory. He explores the importance of Lincoln's great rhetorical skills, uncovering how--through parables and figurative language--he was uniquely able to communicate both the purpose of the war and a new meaning of liberty to the people of the North. In another section, McPherson examines the Civil War as a Second American Revolution, describing how the Republican Congress elected in 1860 passed an astonishing blitz of new laws (rivaling the first hundred days of the New Deal), and how the war not only destroyed the social structure of the old South, but radically altered the balance of power in America, ending 70 years of Southern power in the national government.
The Civil War was the single most transforming and defining experience in American history, and Abraham Lincoln remains the most important figure in the pantheon of our mythology. These graceful essays, written by one of America's leading historians, offer fresh and unusual perspectives on both.
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For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War?
It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country."
McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war.
Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.
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Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam
The Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single day in American history, with more than 6,000 soldiers killed four times the number lost on D Day, and twice the number killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. In Crossroads of Freedom, America's most eminent Civil War historian, James M. McPherson, paints a masterful account of this pivotal battle, the events that led up to it, and its aftermath.
As McPherson shows, by September 1862 the survival of the United States was in doubt. The Union had suffered a string of defeats, and Robert E. Lee's army was in Maryland, poised to threaten Washington. The British government was openly talking of recognizing the Confederacy and brokering a peace between North and South. Northern armies and voters were demoralized. And Lincoln had shelved his proposed edict of emancipation months before, waiting for a victory that had not come that some thought would never come.
Both Confederate and Union troops knew the war was at a crossroads, that they were marching toward a decisive battle. It came along the ridges and in the woods and cornfields between Antietam Creek and the Potomac River. Valor, misjudgment, and astonishing coincidence all played a role in the outcome. McPherson vividly describes a day of savage fighting in locales that became forever famous The Cornfield, the Dunkard Church, the West Woods, and Bloody Lane. Lee's battered army escaped to fight another day, but Antietam was a critical victory for the Union. It restored morale in the North and kept Lincoln's party in control of Congress. It crushed Confederate hopes of British intervention. And it freed Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, which instantly changed the character of the war.
McPherson brilliantly weaves these strands of diplomatic, political, and military history into a compact, swift moving narrative that shows why America's bloodiest day is, indeed, a turning point in our history.
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The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters
More than 140 years ago, Mark Twain observed that the Civil War had "uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." In fact, five generations have passed, and Americans are still trying to measure the influence of the immense fratricidal conflict that nearly tore the nation apart.
In The War that Forged a Nation, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War remains so deeply embedded in our national psyche and identity. The drama and tragedy of the war, from its scope and size--an estimated death toll of 750,000, far more than the rest of the country's wars combined--to the nearly mythical individuals involved--Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson--help explain why the Civil War remains a topic of interest. But the legacy of the war extends far beyond historical interest or scholarly attention. Here, McPherson draws upon his work over the past fifty years to illuminate the war's continuing resonance across many dimensions of American life.
Touching upon themes that include the war's causes and consequences; the naval war; slavery and its abolition; and Lincoln as commander in chief, McPherson ultimately proves the impossibility of understanding the issues of our own time unless we first understand their roots in the era of the Civil War. From racial inequality and conflict between the North and South to questions of state sovereignty or the role of government in social change--these issues, McPherson shows, are as salient and controversial today as they were in the 1860s.
Thoughtful, provocative, and authoritative, The War that Forged a Nation looks anew at the reasons America's civil war has remained a subject of intense interest for the past century and a half, affirms the enduring relevance of the conflict for America today.
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The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters
More than 140 years ago, Mark Twain observed that the Civil War had "uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations." In fact, five generations have passed, and Americans are still trying to measure the influence of the immense fratricidal conflict that nearly tore the nation apart.
In The War that Forged a Nation, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War remains so deeply embedded in our national psyche and identity. The drama and tragedy of the war, from its scope and size--an estimated death toll of 750,000, far more than the rest of the country's wars combined--to the nearly mythical individuals involved--Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson--help explain why the Civil War remains a topic of interest. But the legacy of the war extends far beyond historical interest or scholarly attention. Here, McPherson draws upon his work over the past fifty years to illuminate the war's continuing resonance across many dimensions of American life.
Touching upon themes that include the war's causes and consequences; the naval war; slavery and its abolition; and Lincoln as commander in chief, McPherson ultimately proves the impossibility of understanding the issues of our own time unless we first understand their roots in the era of the Civil War. From racial inequality and conflict between the North and South to questions of state sovereignty or the role of government in social change--these issues, McPherson shows, are as salient and controversial today as they were in the 1860s.
Thoughtful, provocative, and authoritative, The War that Forged a Nation looks anew at the reasons America's civil war has remained a subject of intense interest for the past century and a half, and affirms the enduring relevance of the conflict for America today.
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Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Civil War
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a powerful new reckoning with Jefferson Davis as military commander of the Confederacy
“The best concise book we have on the subject… McPherson is… our most distinguished scholar of the Civil War era.” —The New York Times Book Review
History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. Many Americans of his own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, not to mention a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but that it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. Gravely ill throughout much of the Civil War, Davis nevertheless shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy—the quest for independent nationhood—with clarity and force. He exercised a tenacious hands-on influence in the shaping of military strategy, and his close relationship with Robert E. Lee was one of the most effective military-civilian partnerships in history.
Lucid and concise, Embattled Rebel presents a fresh perspective on the Civil War as seen from the desk of the South’s commander in chief.
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$18.00
Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
"James M. McPherson’s Tried by War is a perfect primer . . . for anyone who wishes to understand the evolution of the president’s role as commander in chief. Few historians write as well as McPherson, and none evoke the sound of battle with greater clarity." —The New York Times Book Review
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author reveals how Lincoln won the Civil War and invented the role of commander in chief as we know it
As we celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, this study by preeminent, bestselling Civil War historian James M. McPherson provides a rare, fresh take on one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. Tried by War offers a revelatory (and timely) portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. Suspenseful and inspiring, this is the story of how Lincoln, with almost no previous military experience before entering the White House, assumed the powers associated with the role of commander in chief, and through his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union.
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The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction - Updated Edition (Princeton Classics, 96)
Originally published in 1964, The Struggle for Equality presents an incisive and vivid look at the abolitionist movement and the legal basis it provided to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian James McPherson explores the role played by rights activists during and after the Civil War, and their evolution from despised fanatics into influential spokespersons for the radical wing of the Republican Party. Asserting that it was not the abolitionists who failed to instill principles of equality, but rather the American people who refused to follow their leadership, McPherson raises questions about the obstacles that have long hindered American reform movements.
This new Princeton Classics edition marks the fiftieth anniversary of the book's initial publication and includes a new preface by the author.
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Into the West: From Reconstruction to the Final Days of the American Frontier
From Pulitzer Prize award-winning historian James M. McPherson comes a thrilling account of America's westward expansion. In this sweeping tale of one of the most exciting and colorful periods in our country's growth, Dr. McPherson interweaves the nation's attempts to bind its Civil War wounds through Reconstruction with the triumphant and tragic taming of the American frontier.
Into the West contains personal narratives from settlers and soldiers as well as profiles and accounts of the actions of many historical luminaries involved in Reconstruction and the movement west, such as President Andrew Johnson, General George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Geronimo, and Wild Bill Hickock. Dr. McPherson also explores the role of women and the development of the arts on the frontier, the role and legend of the cowboy, and the destruction of the Native American way of life in this thought-provoking companion to the bestselling Fields of Fury.
Filled with maps, period photos, illustrations, and anecdotes, this vivid retelling of America's journey, Into the West, will fascinate readers, young and old.
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Co. "Aytch": The First Tennessee Regiment or a Side Show to the Big Show: The Complete Illustrated Edition
by James M. McPherson, Samuel Watkins
Read this classic memoir from the American Civil War, complete with images and other perspectives, for an enriching, unforgettable experience.
This is the most famous and best-selling memoir of the American Civil War, now fully illustrated for the first time.
Samuel Watkins faithfully served throughout the duration of the Civil War. Of the 120 men who enlisted in "Company H" in 1861, Sam Watkins was one of only seven alive when General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee surrendered to General William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina in April 1865. Of the 3,200 men who fought in the First Tennessee, only 65 were left to be paroled on that day.
Soon after the war ended, Watkins began writing his memoir, entitled Co. "Aytch": The First Tennessee Regiment or a Side Show of the Big Show,which is heralded by many historians as one of the best war memoirs written by a common soldier of the field. Sam's writing style is quite engaging and skillfully captures the pride, misery, glory, and horror experienced by the common foot soldier.
This beautifully illustrated edition of Co. "Aytch" includes writings from great Civil War generals, such as James Longstreet and William T. Sherman, as well as some of today's best contemporary historians, such as Doris Kearns Goodwin, James M. McPherson, Allan Nevins, and Bruce Catton, all of whom won the Pulitzer Prize for history. It is also richly illustrated with photos and illustrations from the Library of Congress, the George Eastman House, the National Parks Service, many of the country's major Civil War collections, and the National War College.
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War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865 (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)
Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders.
McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.
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Gettysburg Battlefield: The Definitive Illustrated History
by James M. McPherson, David J Eicher, Lee Vande Visse
Gettysburg Battlefield is the definitive illustrated history of the largest and deadliest military campaign ever waged in the Western Hemisphere. It was fought 140 years ago this July, in the farmlands of Pennsylvania. Years in the making, it draws together the most complete collection of Gettysburg imagery ever published in a single volume along with a robust narrative. The author takes the reader on a day-by-day journey through the battle, illustrated throughout with more than 480 photographs, many of them rare, including shots of Robert E. Lee and George Meade. Two visual features of this book are particularly compelling: Period photographs of key battlefield sites - taken just as the guns stilled - are juxtaposed with images of those same sites today. Three-dimensional maps were created especially for this book and offer a distinctive perspective on military strategy. Essays by civil war experts and a foreword by historian James M. McPherson complete this handsome and authoritative history. An essential addition to the Civil War library, Gettysburg Battlefield is a compelling chronicle of a legendary conflict and the ultimate pictorial record.
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The Atlas of the Civil War
From the first shots fired at Fort Sumter in 1861 to the final clashes on the Road to Appomattox in 1864, The Atlas of the Civil War reconstructs the battles of America's bloodiest war with unparalleled clarity and precision. Edited by Pulitzer Prize recipient James M. McPherson and written by America's leading military historians, this peerless reference charts the major campaigns and skirmishes of the Civil War.
Each battle is meticulously plotted on one of 200 specially commissioned full-color maps. Timelines provide detailed, play-by-play maneuvers, and the accompanying text highlights the strategic aims and tactical considerations of the men in charge. Each of the battle, communications, and locator maps are cross-referenced to provide a comprehensive overview of the fighting as it swept across the country.
With more than two hundred photographs and countless personal accounts that vividly describe the experiences of soldiers in the fields, The Atlas of the Civil War brings to life the human drama that pitted state against state and brother against brother.
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$24.99
The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union
In this classic study, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James M. McPherson deftly narrates the experience of blacks--former slaves and soldiers, preachers, visionaries, doctors, intellectuals, and common people--during the Civil War. Drawing on contemporary journalism, speeches, books, and letters, he presents an eclectic chronicle of their fears and hopes as well as their essential contributions to their own freedom. Through the words of these extraordinary participants, both Northern and Southern, McPherson captures African-American responses to emancipation, the shifting attitudes toward Lincoln and the life of black soldiers in the Union army. Above all, we are allowed to witness the dreams of a disenfranchised people eager to embrace the rights and the equality offered to them, finally, as citizens.
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War on the Waters (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era)
Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders.
McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.
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Writing the Civil War : The Quest to Understand
by James M. McPherson, William J. Cooper 著
Studies diverse topics on the writing of Civil War history
No event has transformed the United States more fundamentally―or been studied more exhaustively―than the Civil War. In Writing the Civil War, fourteen distinguished historians present a wide-ranging examination of the vast effort to chronicle the conflict―an undertaking that began with the remembrances of Civil War veterans and has become an increasingly prolific field of scholarship. Covering topics from battlefield operations to the impact of race and gender, this volume is an informative guide through the labyrinth of Civil War literature. The contributors provide authoritative and interpretive evaluations of the study and explication of the struggle that has been called the American Iliad.
The first four essays consider military history: Joseph Thomas Glatthaar writes on battlefield tactics, Gary W. Gallagher on Union strategy, Emory M. Thomas on Confederate strategy, and Reid Mitchell on soldiers. In essays that focus on political concerns, Mark E. Neely, Jr. links the military and political with his examination of presidential leadership, while Michael F. Holt surveys the study of Union politics, and George C. Rable examines the work on Confederate politics. Michael Les Benedict bridges political and societal concerns in his discussion of constitutional questions; Phillip Shaw Paludan and james L. roark confront the broad themes of economics and society in the North and South; and Drew Gilpin Faust and Peter Kolchin evaluate the importance of gender, slavery, and race relations.
Writing the Civil War demonstrates the richness and diversity of Civil War scholarship and identifies topics yet to be explored. Noting a surprising dearth of scholarship in several area, the essays point to new directions in the quest to understand the complexities of the most momentous event in American history.
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Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a powerful new reckoning with Jefferson Davis as military commander of the Confederacy
History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. His cause went down in disastrous defeat and left the South impoverished for generations. If that cause had succeeded, it would have torn the United States in two and preserved the institution of slavery. Many Americans in Davis’s own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, if not a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. In order to understand the Civil War and its outcome, it is essential to give Davis his due as a military leader and as the president of an aspiring Confederate nation.
Davis did not make it easy on himself. His subordinates and enemies alike considered him difficult, egotistical, and cold. He was gravely ill throughout much of the war, often working from home and even from his sickbed. Nonetheless, McPherson argues, Davis shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy with clarity and force: the quest for independent nationhood. Although he had not been a fire-breathing secessionist, once he committed himself to a Confederate nation he never deviated from this goal. In a sense, Davis was the last Confederate left standing in 1865.
As president of the Confederacy, Davis devoted most of his waking hours to military strategy and operations, along with Commander Robert E. Lee, and delegated the economic and diplomatic functions of strategy to his subordinates. Davis was present on several battlefields with Lee and even took part in some tactical planning; indeed, their close relationship stands as one of the great military-civilian partnerships in history.
Most critical appraisals of Davis emphasize his choices in and management of generals rather than his strategies, but no other chief executive in American history exercised such tenacious hands-on influence in the shaping of military strategy. And while he was imprisoned for two years after the Confederacy’s surrender awaiting a trial for treason that never came, and lived for another twenty-four years, he never once recanted the cause for which he had fought and lost. McPherson gives us Jefferson Davis as the commander in chief he really was, showing persuasively that while Davis did not win the war for the South, he was scarcely responsible for losing it.
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Ordeal by Fire The Civil War and Reconstruction
Ordeal by Fire blends the most up-to-date scholarship with interpretations based on decades of teaching, research, and writing, to tell an important story -- that of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The fourth edition welcomes the addition of coauthor James Hogue of University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Hogue brings his Reconstruction expertise to the third section of the book, bringing more up-to-date scholarship and interpretations to the story of repairing a nation.--Publisher.
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Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction
by James M. McPherson, James K. Hogue
Ordeal by Fire blends the most up-to-date scholarship with interpretations based on decades of teaching, research, and writing, to tell an important story--that of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The fourth edition welcomes the addition of coauthor James Hogue of University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Hogue brings his Reconstruction expertise to the third section of the book, bringing more up-to-date scholarship and interpretations to the story of repairing a nation.
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Cengage Advantage Books: Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume 1: To 1877
by James M. McPherson, Paul E. Johnson, Pekka Hamalainen, John M. Murrin, Denver Brunsman
This economically priced version of LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, 7th Edition offers readers the complete narrative while limiting the number of features, photos, and maps. A highly respected, balanced, and thoroughly modern approach to U.S. History, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER uses these three themes in a unique approach to show how the United States was transformed, in a relatively short time, from a land inhabited by hunter-gatherer and agricultural Native American societies into the most powerful industrial nation on earth. This approach helps students understand not only the impact of the notions of liberty and equality, which are often associated with the American story, but also how dominant and subordinate groups have affected and been affected by the ever-shifting balance of power. The text integrates the best of recent social and cultural scholarship into a political story, offering students a comprehensive and complete understanding of American history.
Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.
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Cengage Advantage Books: Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume 2: Since 1863
by James M. McPherson, Paul E. Johnson, Pekka Hamalainen, John M. Murrin, Denver Brunsman
This economically priced version of LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, 7th Edition offers readers the complete narrative while limiting the number of features, photos, and maps. A highly respected, balanced, and thoroughly modern approach to U.S. History, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER uses these three themes in a unique approach to show how the United States was transformed, in a relatively short time, from a land inhabited by hunter-gatherer and agricultural Native American societies into the most powerful industrial nation on earth. This approach helps students understand not only the impact of the notions of liberty and equality, which are often associated with the American story, but also how dominant and subordinate groups have affected and been affected by the ever-shifting balance of power. The text integrates the best of recent social and cultural scholarship into a political story, offering students a comprehensive and complete understanding of American history.
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