Front cover image for Battle Cry of Freedom : the Civil War Era

Battle Cry of Freedom : the Civil War Era

James M. McPherson (Author)
Now featuring a new Afterword by the author, this handy paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive 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 including the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. From there it moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering by each side, 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
eBook, English, 2003
Oxford University Press, USA, New York, 2003
History
1 online resource (1807 pages)
9780199726585, 9780199743902, 0199726582, 0199743908
930059057
Editor's Introduction
Prologue: From the Halls of Montezuma
1. The United States at Midcentury
2. Mexico Will Poison Us
3. An Empire for Slavery
4. Slavery, Rum, and Romanism
5. The Crime Against Kansas
6. Mudsills and Greasy Mechanics for A. Lincoln
7. The Revolution of 1860
8. The Counterrevolution of 1861
9. Facing Both Ways: The Upper South's Dilemma
10. Amateurs Go to War
11. Farewell to the Ninety Days' War
12. Blockade and Beachhead: The Salt-Water War, 1861-1862
13. The River War in 1862
14. The Sinews of War
15. Billy Yank's Chickahominy Blues
16. We Must Free the Slaves or Be Ourselves Subdued17. Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
18. John Bull's Virginia Reel
19. Three Rivers in Winter, 1862-1863
20. Fire in the Rear
21. Long Remember: The Summer of '63
22. Johnny Reb's Chattanooga Blues
23. When This Cruel War Is Over
24. If It Takes All Summer
25. After Four Years of Failure
26. We Are Going To Be Wiped Off the Earth
27. South Carolina Must Be Destroyed
28. We Are All Americans
Epilogue: To the Shoals of Victory
Afterword
Abbreviated Titles
Bibliographic Note
Index