Battle Cry of Freedom - James McPherson

The crucible of the nation's history. The Civil War reflects many of the fault lines which still divide Americans. Section, class, race, rural and urban, majority and minority. Each of these simplify and marginalize the different complications of this epochal confrontation. Yet a modicum of truth is contained in simplified versions of history. The lived-experience of an event bears upon its reception and interpretation through the ages, but the histories which touch the lives of nations exist in memory and legacy longer than in lived-experience. The Civil War is a recurrent circle: it ebbs and flows through the American experience. It bubbles and percolates. South versus North; slave versus free; the simple divisions were overcome at Appomattox. The rifts could not have been cast aside by a treaty.

As a one volume history of the Civil War, McPherson's narrative casts a wide net, bringing the reader into contact with the numerous threads preceding the war, and fronts which defined it. Bull Run, Chickamauga, Wilderness, Vicksburg, Gettysburg; these were the pivotal moments of the war. But the lesser fronts and often overlooked efforts: of the navy, government functionaries, railroad workers, ladies' aid societies, and many more, put the Union and Confederate armies in position to decide the contest. The Civil War placed the entire country on a war-time footing. Soldiers' stories make up only a portion of its history.

Ending with the death of President Lincoln, McPherson does not treat Reconstruction. Because much of the Civil War's legacy was born in the years following the battles this omission is notable. Within one volume McPherson's work is fine introduction to the conflict and the period in American history. Distilling mountains of scholarship is no mean feat. It may be next to impossible to write something 'new' about the Civil War. Perhaps it is far more valuable to write something true about it. McPherson seems to have accomplished this.