Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)

Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: I found McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom to be a great history not only of the Civil War, but also, as the cover suggests, the Civil War Era (includes years preceding the war). McPherson does an excellent job of plainly explaining the events that led to this bloody conflict, its causes,not to mention the war itself. It also does well detailing the great ramifications that resulted from the war, from the rise of free labor capitalism in the U.S. as well as the shaping of the modern political parties. The only problems I had with the book were the maps, which tended to contain too much information per map, and the footnotes, which became somewhat annoying. Otherwise, recommended to anyone wishing to study the Civil War Era.

Rating:
Summary: Go read Shelby Foote
Review: If you wish to read the account of the American tragedy from a true historian, and not a socialist mutt, pick up Shelby Foote's brilliant, un-PC, 3 volume set. There's really nothing else to say. James McPherson is to history as Lenin is to Russian peasants...........a butcher!

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of Historiography
Review: "Battle Cry of Freedom" has been on my mental must read list for a few years. But, other commitments (mainly law school) prevented me from sitting down and reading too many books, especially a 867-page tome. But, now that I have a certain amount of free time on my hands, as well as a renewed interest in things historical, I finally got the chance to read it. In a word: MASTERPIECE.

I'm not going to dissect the books factual accuracy or McPherson's thesis and conclusions. That's for another time. (Since the book won the Pulitzer, the odds are good that all of that was done right; the copious footnotes and bibliographical material lend credence to that.)

The merits of the book are the issue, and they are many. First, despite its considerable length, McPherson's writing is brisk, crisp, and engrossing. The first chapter or so, which reviews the developments in the United States, north and south, leading up to the Civil War, specifically the impact of industrialization on the population of the country, can be a little slow. However, when McPherson begins to examine the relationship between the north and the south, particularly the split on the slavery issue, the books really takes off, and I had great difficulty in putting it down.

McPherson's prose is very vivid. His arguments for the inescapable import of slavery to the Civil War are abundant and persuasive. But they are balanced arguments, acknowledging the ambiguities of the issue, as he differentiates pure abolitionists from those who feared slavery's impact on the free-labor, and acknowledges that not all abolitionists particularly wanted the freed slaves to remain in the United States. He is also very honest about Lincoln's initial interest in preserving the Union, regardless of the slavery issue, and charts Lincoln's shift from this stance into an essentially abolitionist by necessity as the war progressed. He also details the subsequent schism in the Confederacy wherein slavery became hindrance to independence, and debate about conscripting blacks into the army (critiques by other reviewers that McPherson discounted this are incorrect).

McPherson is also pretty evenhanded in his discussion of the war itself. He takes time to discuss the political, social, and economic impacts on both sides of the war, creating a full picture of this horrible conflict. The names you know become a little more real: Lincoln, Davis, Grant, Lee, Sherman, Jackson are just that much more real to me. While McPherson doesn't spend a huge amount of ink examining these men, he gives us vital facts about their lives, and is quite content to allow their actions speak for them. His examination of those actions are frequently instructive.

While McPherson's main interest is the politics of the war, he is no slouch when it comes to examining the battlefield. Even in the dispassionate recounting that McPherson the historian provides does little to alleviate the horror of the war. McPherson paints a brutal picture of a country tearing itself apart, and the lives lost as a consequence.

The aspect of this book that impacted my world view was the acknowledgment that the country was different after the war. This is an obvious statement. But McPherson explains a point that I "knew" but never really thought about: the South represented, in McPherson's words, the mainstream of the world, that is, it had more in common with the majority of Europe. It was the North that was "radical". All in all, I find myself pleased that the radical view won out.

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly well written and very deserving of the Pulitzer
Review: It is almost as good as Shelby Foote's excellent three volume epic on The Civil War.

Unfortunately, I cannot give Battle Cry that fifth star no matter how good the writing. If there is one thing I love in historical works, it is objectivity. James McPherson has none. He is yet another "slavery is the cause" historians who ignore obvious facts and evidence to the contrary. Several times throughout Battle Cry he states as fact, slavery was the cause, without even acknowledging the other evidence. Unacceptable.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but biased
Review: McPherson gives a good history of the war, but his opinions are evident. This professor is a strong Unionist, staunchly supports the idea that slavery was the cornerstone for the war, and has denied fact-based evidence of black Confederate soldiers. Worth reading but don't use it as your sole resource

Rating:
Summary: My thoughts on Battle Cry of Freedom
Review: It's amusing to read the various reviews that accuse McPherson of bias: they are based on the reviewers' own biases, and certainly not on any real understanding of history. Any one-volume history of this enormously difficult period will necessarily leave things out, but McPherson gets the overall flavor right, and is factually correct. The war was begun by the South, which had been fighting to extend slavery. Any other understanding is simply wrong, and is in fact a wilful misreading of history.
McPherson's writing is excellent, his research thorough, and his conclusions incontrovertable. His treatment of the political conflict leading up to the Civil War is clear, which is no mean feat in itself. This is the one indispensible book on the Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: A Standard in Civil War Research
Review: I am not one of the many "experts" on the Civil War. I am a novice on the subject. But I must say that I think it will be hard for me to find a single volume work on the Civil War that surpasses Battle Cry of Freedom. The author does a marvelous job of painting a picture of the nature of the war and the events that led up to it. This is not just a battle by battle account of the war. Rather it speaks of the battles and the political and social ramafications that those battles had. This book is award winning and does not need my written approval, but I just had to say something about. This book is a must read.