"I write then in a field devastated by passion and belief. Naturally, as a Negro, I cannot do this writing without believing in the essential humanity of Negroes, in their ability to be educated, to do the work of the modern world, to take their place as equal citizens with others. I cannot for a moment subscribe to that bizarre doctrine of race that makes most men inferior to the few. But, too, as a student of science, I want to be fair, objective and judicial; to let no searing of the memory by intolerable insult and cruelty make me fail to sympathize with human frailties and contradiction, in the eternal paradox of good and evil. But armed and warned by all this, and fortified by long study of the facts, I stand at the end of this writing, literally aghast at what American historians have done to this field.”----W.E.B. DuBois “The Propaganda of History”
When it comes to Civil War History, James McPherson is considered an expert, one of the top in the field, and for good reason. The early to mid-1800's in the United States is one of the most complicated periods in our History to cover, mainly because there was such widespread change at a rapid pace. It boggles the mind the things a good Historian must both juggle and analyze to give one a good picture and interpretation of the period. One cannot emphasize enough just how numerous and complicated the variables were to adequately discuss this period.
In looking at the entire period, and in going into depth with the interplay of some very profound concepts, it can be argued that James McPherson has very few equals. He talks about the Industrial Revolution and its myriad effects on the free labor/slaveocracy of American life. He talks about the transportation revolution, and how the railway sped up travel in so many ways and the reverberations and consequences of the ways a number of transportation mediums changed things. He talks about the evolving banking system, and the way that played out in the culture. He talks about the expansion West, and all of the profound, nuanced and potent political questions that were raised, the arguments going back and forth, blowing in winds of change on all fronts. Central to this discussion are the outcome and consequences of The Mexican War. He compares the overall Northern culture to the Southern culture, comparing and contrasting how all of that affected The War. He talks about certain important works of art, and their effect on the coming Civil War.
Then once the War actually starts, McPherson has his index finger on the pulse of the military strategy of the War, capably explaining all of the strengths and weaknesses of the major leaders of the War and describing how those characteristics played out on the battlefield. He is quite keen in vividly describing the weaknesses of a succession of leading Union Commanders, who almost to a man, seemed to be frozen with awestruck fear of Robert E. Lee. That is until one U.S. Grant appears on the scene. One can make a great case that Union General George B. McClellan should have been tried and convicted of Treason, since it becomes painfully clear in this book that his negligence, or downright refusal, to act proactively in prosecuting the War probably led to countless numbers of deaths on both sides by prolonging the Contest. The strategies, terrain and other physical features of the various battlefields, both the military and political importance, along with all of the variable factors leading to outcomes of all of the major battles of the War are laid out by McPherson so that the reader can see the evolution and vicissitudes of the War, over the 4 years of its existence. It gives one some understanding of how things wound up as they did. I am not sure McPherson could have done a better job with all of this. I would argue that in terms of its overall comprehensiveness, this book may incorporate one of the widest scopes, and have one of the the most intricate and involved analysis of the Civil War that has ever been written.
But, despite its wide scope of analysis, there is a fundamental, and almost humorously elementary phenomenon that spills a gigantic, problematic, figurative, blotched, red ink stain all over this work. The reader will have to grant me some psychology to understand where I am headed.
Throughout the entire History of America, there has been a wacky, bizarre, blind denial among many White people, as a general concept, in regards to African-Americans. There is an inability by many White people to comprehend, to truly grasp and to acknowledge the depth, acuity, penetration, perspicuity and sagacity of African-American intelligence, even when multiple forms of objective evidence confirms it. This White blind denial is usually accompanied by a condescending, narcissistic, arrogant belittling of African-American intelligence, so much so that it is too blind to grasp that African-Americans see it. It's bizarre because, from the eyes of the confronted African-American, it looks as if the White person is being deliberately obtuse. The White person comes off as looking totally stupid because the African-American “gets it” that the White person truly does not grasp the African-American's genuine intelligence. This blanket, blind denial of many White Americans towards African-American intelligence and reality, lies at the heart of Ralph Ellison's novel “Invisible Man,” for that is exactly the feeling African-Americans are left with by White people exhibiting this blind denial—that we are basically invisible. These White people who are lost in their blind denial seem to suffer some kind of psychological malady, as if their whole being would vanish and disappear if they simply acknowledged and respected the objective intelligence of African-Americans. It is even more complicated when an African-American realizes that this blind denial of White people has nothing to do with IQ and intelligence, for African-Americans have seen this bizarre blind denial in some of the most “intelligent” White people. White people who suffer from this blind denial also have a problem in giving credit to African-Americans for our accomplishments, often finding ways “to steal away” credit that rightly belongs to us, only to redirect it to some White person. White people with this blind denial have problems giving credit to African-Americans because their minds rebell at the notion of accepting the independent intelligence of African-Americans, since they can't wrap their minds around the idea of Black people having the capacity of penetrating insights. Since White people with this blind denial cannot accept that we have the mental capability to perform at high levels, it follows that they are often in denial in acknowledging African-American agency as it flows from an analysis of reality as seen through African-American eyes. Let's start by taking the concept of Slave Insurrections.
A human being would have to search far and wide to find a group of people more violated anywhere in the World, as a distinct group, than African-Americans have been, from the time of Slavery until now. The people providing this violation have been White Americans. As African-Americans, we had our ancestors kidnapped in Africa by White people, herded like animals into the hulls of slave ships, chained one-to-another and packed like sardines for the long voyage of The Middle Passage. As we suffered through sleeping in hulls of ships, chained one to another in our own urine, defecation, mucus and vomit, we wondered what Hell was waiting for us once the ships got to where they were going, if indeed we survived the voyage. We would watch as fellow Africans, who had gotten really sick and died during the voyage were simply thrown overboard by the White overseers, with an estimated millions of us being thrown overboard like worthless meat. Yes, you read that correctly. Millions of us.
The women amongst us suffered rapes and all kinds of sexual mistreatment at the hands of White men. When the ships finally made their way to these shores, the brutality continued, with us working from sunlight to sundown, only to see White people enrich themselves from our stolen labor. The same incessant violence that existed on the ships, the rapes, the mangling and the brutality continued once we got here. White people stood over us, brandishing whips if we did not work to their satisfaction. We were whipped and physically mangled for all sorts of things, with our limbs often severed from our bodies for all kinds of alleged reasons. Our lives could be taken from us at the whim of a White person. Our relatives were snatched away from us, sold at a White person's whim with no regard for family relations. This went on for nearly 250 years. Say the words slowly. Two Hundred and fifty years. Does any human being really have a grasp of the enduring duration of how long 250 years is?
In that World, that World of Slavery, where who is, and who is not slaves is defined clearly by skin color, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine certain things. First amongst these imaginings, is the idea that any particular Black person with clear common sense in that context might see ALL White people as his enemy, that every single White person he knows is either a slave-owner, an overseer of slaves or someone who will give every resource he or she has to help maintain that system, a system that destroys every conceivable life chance for you and your family. There were, and are, millions of African-Americans who both grasp and analyze this concept just written at a depth that would probably shock the White people who maintain a blind denial, but that is simply the truth. I have brought this concept up of the blind denial of many White people to make the point, that it is my view that this work by James McPherson suffers, at a key and critical juncture, from his blind denial.
Make no mistake about it, Slavery as a concept was the ultimate declaration of War, where the overriding, vast majority of American White people did everything they could to maintain that State of War against Black people. It would have been totally rational for a Black person existing within the context of Slavery to see every single White person he met, figuratively, and literally, as an armed soldier of the opposing Army of White people. Anyone who simply imagines the gut-wrenching, soul-shattering, ice-down-the-spine wail of a mother physically fighting off several White men, who are vigorously wrestling with her to take her child away from her to be sold...any person who sees a White person cut off a Black man's leg at the ankle with an ax to keep him from running away from Slavery...any person who witnesses the welt-filled back of a Black man who has been whipped repeatedly for alleged violations of slave codes...any person who simply imagines all of the monstrosities of American Slavery cannot escape the logic of seeing it as a War of White people against Black people. Satan himself could not have thought up some of the things that were done to us as African-Americans during Slavery by White people. Everything that has been said in this paragraph is just par for the course for the vast majority of African-Americans, who are quite sagacious and perspicacious in seeing these concepts.
Any Black person existing in that context of a State-of-War, who might see ALL White people as his enemy, was not crazy. He was simply following the logic of everything that his senses, observations, mind, analysis and experiences were telling him, and he did not need the stamp-of-approval of White people to listen to his own intelligence. Despite the overpowering, tidal-wave-like logic, reason and simplicity of the ideas expressed here, very few Caucasian Historians have had what it takes inside to acknowledge them as truths. The concept of Slavery as a War of White People against Black people was a fundamental, elementary truth accepted by millions of African-Americans during the antebellum period. Despite millions of Black people's understanding of this idea, James McPherson's blind denial doesn't appear to allow him to see the depth at which many African-Americans understood this idea under Slavery. Even if he does “see” it, he cannot bring himself to talk about the African-American independent analysis and agency of Black Insurrectionists.
Given the reality of Slavery as a State of War, it is simple common sense that within the concept of Slave Insurrections, as they are tied to our potential freedom, African-Americans would be, and were, the first, pioneering and self-authorizing agents to pursue them. Serious History, with the heaviest of gravitas, knows of The Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, Sojourner Truth's efforts at abolition, Gabriel Prosser's Plot, Denmark Vesey's Rebellion, Nat Turner's Rebellion, Cinque's Amistad Mutiny, Madison Washington's Creole Mutiny, Harriet Tubman's leading hundreds of slaves to freedom, with all of these efforts authored through the agency of African-American analysis and reality as seen through the eyes of Black people. In addition to this, in 1828, a Black man named David Walker wrote a pamphlet called “David Walker's Appeal To The Coloured Citizens of The World, But In Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United States of America.” This pamphlet is one of the most sagacious, lucid, reasoned, balanced analysis of Slavery that has ever been written, and its final message is a Gabriel-like trumpet call to African-Americans, urging us to armed rebellion of Slavery. Given that it was written in 1828, it was considered highly seditious and the South went to great lengths to suppress it. In some places in the South, it was said to have been illegal to have copies of it. It is also no wonder that David Walker eventually died under mysterious circumstances, with some stating that he had died by poisoning.
Despite the Souths efforts to suppress Walker's Appeal, one former slave who took out his own form of vengeance was a man named Nat Turner. In 1831, Turner took a band of slaves on a bloody rampage in Virginia, killing every single White person his group met, in an excursion that lasted for hours, with some accounts indicating his group killed as many as 70 people. The reason we as moderns do not know the exact number killed by Turner's group is because the White people of the time considered what he did so execrable that they purposely destroyed the Historical record. I would argue that the blind denial of the White people of that time,wanted to blot out the mere notion that African-Americans had the acuity and intelligence to independently analyze reality, and made them destroy the Historical record so that they could live comfortably with their delusion of Black inferiority. They would also not have to deal with the reality of their denial and the ultimate potential repercussions and consequences of what they had done to Black people. The truth and reality of it is that denial did nothing to stop the Nat Turner's Rebellion. If measured simply by the number of people killed, and its real effect on true reality as reality, i.e., American History, Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831 was far more effective and significant than the one waged and led by John Brown twenty-eight years later. That's right, the Nat Turner Rebellion preceded John Brown's by 28 years, but yet, there is, to my recollection, only one, small, slight obscure allusion to the Turner Rebellion in McPherson's entire 862 page book.
The Nat Turner Rebellion is not “The elephant in the room” of American History. I would argue instead that the Nat Turner's Rebellion is “The planet Pluto in the room” of American History. The reverberations, repercussions, revelations and negative possible consequences for White people laid bare by the Turner Rebellion were that humongous. They were so humongous that all of American culture, from that time to this, has gone out of its way to deny the “Bogeyman” aspect of Nat Turner. Turner, within White popular culture, is the embodiment of the worse possible reality to haunt American life. No doubt he was the worse possible nightmare for the White South in antebellum America. This is why there has been so much effort put into trying to banish him out of the History books. But, any good psychologist will tell you that a highly demonstrative level of blind denial is really a testament to an event's importance.
The major point here, is that of all of the African- American Slave rebellions mentioned above, ALL of them were authored through African-American independent analysis and agency. None of the Black people who were part of the Rebellions neither sought, nor cared, what any White person thought about what they were doing, nor did they feel the need to seek White people approval before carrying out their acts. This is the crux of my criticism of James McPherson.
When he does finally get around to speaking of a “Slave Rebellion” in this book, McPherson chooses to focus on the White man, John Brown. By focusing on John Brown as the sole “Slave Insurrectionist” in his work, it is subtlely implied that African-Americans were just sitting around waiting on our hands for “The Great White Man As Savior” to enlighten us as to how bad Slavery was, and then to lead us to The Promised Land of insurrection. That is the biggest Historical lie ever written. McPherson's focus on John Brown as a Slave Insurrectionist, is a big, wide, round-house slap in the face to all of the African-Americans who led armed Slave Rebellions long before John Brown was ever heard of. I am not criticizing John Brown and his efforts. What I am criticizing is the notion that John Brown was some kind of pioneering Slave Insurrectionist, when in fact, John Brown was simply following in a long shadow and tradition of African-American Slave Insurrections, independently authorized and agencied by Black folks. I am also criticizing McPherson's shifting of the Historical spotlight and credit of glory for Slave Insurrections away from the African-American pioneers and initiators of them, and then applying an exaggerated and bloated spotlight and credit to John Brown. The true Historical spotlight and credit should be shined on the African-American pioneers of Slave Insurrections, not John Brown. Was Brown's planned raid more impactful to American History than Nat Turner's? I don't think so, yet Nat Turner's Insurrection is given nothing close to decent treatment in McPherson's work. No one in the World probably knows the true ramifications of McPherson's negligence of the Turner Rebellion better than James McPherson. James McPherson has no clue as to the bottomless insult he aims at these Black, pioneering, slave insurrectionists and at African-American intelligence in general. How does he prosecute this insult? By focusing almost exclusively and solely on a single White man as the ONLY Slave insurrectionist of significance. It's almost laughable. He makes a White man THE hero of what the Historical facts, logic and reason dictates is a Black phenomenon! McPherson has no idea of the level of insult. No idea. With regard to African-American-led Slave Insurrections, his work does a serious disservice to true History by insisting upon a blind denial of their existence. He basically gives no credit, whatsoever, to African-American-led Slave Insurrections because his White blind denial of African-American intelligence and Agency will not allow McPherson to do so. If McPherson, as a White Historian, wants to live with the delusion of Black inferiority, that is his choice, but he does the reality of History a disservice in doing so.
One could look at some of McPherson's other works, and say, “Well, he does talk favorably about Black resistance to slavery.” They could point to his work on Black Soldiers during The Civil War in both the Union and Confederate armies, and his more-than-a-hints respect for the Black activist, Frederick Douglass, that appears in his work. I think he even has a whole book about Black Soldiers during The Civil War. However, there is one problem with all of these ideas. In each case, the Union Cause, the Confederate Cause and even in the case of Frederick Douglass, the logic flows that McPherson is giving Black people credit here because none of these phenomenons are authored and agencied by independent African-American analysis, that Black people are simply using the armed force under the umbrella that is primarily authored and agencied by White men. Even in the case of Frederick Douglass, Douglass ultimately expends his energy trying to recruit Black men to fight under the umbrella of the Union Army, again, armed force primarily authored and agencied by White men. It seems to be an axiom with McPherson that it is ok for Black people to use armed force to obtain freedom, so long as White people are the initiators, authors and people who channel it. McPherson seems to have a real problem if it is Black people deciding amongst themselves, for themselves, to independently initiate, author and channel armed force through African-American intelligence, eyes and interests. McPherson struggles, and seems to be in total blind denial that there were African-Americans who made profoundly significant impacts on The Civil War who did their own independent analysis and choose what they ultimately did through their own interests and agency.
If James McPherson wanted to do American History serious justice, as it relates to the John Brown Rebellion, there seems a reasonable approach that was available to him. Since all of the Black Insurrectionists mentioned above preceded Brown, McPherson could have talked about the Insurrectionists in their full flower and glory, as background to the John Brown Rebellion. McPherson could have explored what John Brown may have known about each of the Black Insurrectionists mentioned, perhaps laying out the ideas of the Black Insurrectionists and given credit to them in terms of how Brown may have learned from, and been influenced by them. McPherson could have asked the fascinating and exciting questions, “Did John Brown ever read 'David Walker's Appeal'? If he did, what did Brown learn from it and how did it affect him.” If McPherson had explored things from the angle I mention, he would have added a layer of complexity and realness to his work. McPherson's work would have obtained a more noble and sublime aspect. He would have given major affirmation to African-American humanity in line with reality. But, by choosing to write major Black Insurrectionists out of his work, McPherson chooses a slight and subtle way to undergird the white supremacy that pollutes and contaminates so much of American History written by White Americans. He maneuvers a nuanced support of a negative false fantasy of Black inferiority. McPherson's book then suffers from one of the major illnesses of a Historical work, the illness of the untold story. The illness within his work is the near-absence of discussions of Black Slave Insurrections independently authored and agencied by African-Americans. McPherson writes his book as if John Brown existed in a vacuum, with no possible Historical importance to the efforts of the Black Insurrectionists who preceded Brown and no influence upon Brown attributable to these previous Black Insurrectionists. In a strange developing of things, in not including facts about Black Insurrectionists in his work, McPherson is attempting to destroy the Historical record of them, which is right in line with what the White people of Southampton county Virginia did in 1831 in reference to The Nat Turner Rebellion. In both cases, this means that true History misses out.
PS--I read McPherson's work no more than 2 pages at a sitting. This is the only way I could digest this mountain of information, to “eat this elephant-of-a-book-of 862 pages only one spoonful at a time.” It takes Job-like patience to do it this way. This is not the kind of book I could do marathon reading with, breezing through 30 to 50 pages at a sitting. If I had done that, I would have gotten bored and bogged down. I also looked up all words in this book in a dictionary that were unfamiliar to me, and copied them down into a notebook. Though I pride myself on having a very comprehensive reading vocabulary, McPherson's verbiage had me looking up and writing down quite a number of words. I am glad that I read the book slowly and to have also looked up all necessary vocabulary words, absorbing much more information doing it this way than any other way. It took me 6 months to read it, but I am profoundly blessed to have done it my way. I can only hope the level of my reading is reflected in this review.
Relevant References And Resources To Give Credit Where It Is Due And To Help Shore Up One's Understanding of The Civil War:
1. “Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739” by Peter Charles Hoffer
2.“Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol” by Nell Irvin Painter
3.“Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 & 1802” by Douglas R. Egerton
4.“Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story Of America's Largest Slave Rebellion And The Man Who Led It” by David Robertson
5.“David Walker's Appeal To The Coloured Citizens of The World, But In Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United States of America” ed. By Charles M. Wiltse
6.“Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion” by Herbert Aptheker.
7.“Mutiny On The Amistad” by Howard Jones.
8. "The Creole Mutiny: A Tale Of Revolt Aboard A Slave Ship" by George Hendrick and Willene Hendrick
9.“Harriet Tubman: Imagining A Life” by Beverly Lowry
10.“Harriet Tubman: Conductor On The Underground Railroad” by Ann Petry.
11.“There Is A River: The Black Struggle For Freedom In America” by Vincent Harding.
12. "The Racial Contract" by Charles W. Mills.
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The greatest danger to American survival at midcentury, however, was neither class tension nor ethnic division. Rather it was sectional conflict between North and South over the future of slavery.Highlighted by 1,390 Kindle readers- The emergence of industrial capitalism from 1815 to 1860 thus began to forge a new system of class relations between capitalists who owned the means of production and workers who owned only their labor power.Highlighted by 1,356 Kindle readers
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Great one volume treatment of civil war, wish maps were not dark and blurry.
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2020
If you are looking for a one volume treatment of the Civil War in including politics behind the scenes, this book is it! Had to knock it down one star because all 23 maps are dark and blurry, like copies of copies.
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2020
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Liam Kelleher
An awesome, and highly readable, broadbrush account of the American Civil War
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 26, 2022
J. C. Bailey
ONE OF THE BEST CONCISE HISTORIES EVER WRITTEN
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2002M Clark
This 900+ page history of the civil war turned out to be a page-turner.
Reviewed in Germany on October 24, 2022R. M. M.
Balanced, insightful, vivid
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2014D_S
Still the best book on the subject
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 21, 2020
