Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era 1st Edition

McPherson's "Battle Cry" is arguably the best single-volume account of the Civil War. Nearly 30 years since its initial publication by Oxford, this book is still being used at the university level to educate students about the Civil War. McPherson not only wrote a masterful narrative, he also sourced the text impeccably. Further, I disagree with some previous reviews that the writer has a political bias or agenda, if you will. As a Civil War historian, I can confidently state that writing in a neutral voice about this period is one of the most difficult challenges an author faces. McPherson gives ample time to both "sides" of the cause and puts forth well-documented facts. Those who dispute his objectivity have ample resources, provided through detailed footnotes and an extensive bibliography, to research the author's claims.
If you are just becoming interested in the Civil War or seeking to extend your knowledge, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. From novices to academics, this is the one book that must be on your shelf.

I have read at least 50 books about the Civil War. The Battle Cry of Freedom was the one book that tied everything together as to why we were at war in the first place. It is not just about the war itself but about those times in America where our attitudes were. The book ties in everything about the those times and the war itself and how one issue or battled lead to political issues that had a huge impact on decision. It really shows how strong Abraham Lincoln was in his determination not to give in and to preserve one nation. If you could read only one book about this troubling time in our country, this would be the book.

This is a very good one-volume history of the Civil War. It is much more than a military history, an endless litany of battles and military campaigns and strategy. Although it is partly a military history, it is also a social, political, economic, and diplomatic history of the Civil War period. It is a scholarly history; McPherson documents his conclusions, opinions, and quotes with voluminous endnotes. (Since this was an e-reader edition, it is rather effortless to tap on the superscripted numeral and view the endnote.)

McPherson begins his history well before the outbreak of hostilities in 1861. The first chapter, “The United States at Midcentury,” takes a look at American society and politics in the 1850s. The American South “dominated the world market” for cotton. The industrial revolution was changing society, primarily in the North, as millions moved from farms to urban centers to work in factories. A religious awakening was sweeping the North generating moral and cultural reform movements, especially a push for the abolition of slavery, which would put the northern states on a collision course with the South. In the next few chapters, the author covers political events that were shaking the country in the turbulent 1850s. The Mexican War brought new territories into the United States, which exacerbated the ongoing debate over whether new states should be admitted to the union as slave states or free states. Pro-slavery and free-soil settlers were fighting and killing each other over slavery in the Kansas territory during the 1850s. And a new political party, the Republicans, arrived on the American scene and elected an unlikely western-born man named Abraham Lincoln as their candidate in the 1860 presidential elections. And to raise the stakes in this crucial election Lincoln was known to be an anti-slavery man.

It is not until the very end of chapter 8, when South Carolina starts the Civil War on April 12, 1861, by firing on the federal fort at the entrance to Charleston harbor, Fort Sumter. The first eight chapters of this history are dedicated to the all-important task of laying the groundwork for an understanding of the events and ideas that led to this tragic conflict.

Even for those very familiar with the battles that swept over the American landscape during the next four years, there is much to be learned from McPherson’s narrative. The author skillfully weaves into the war stories the social, political, and cultural context for these events. How did the war affect the people of the South where most of the battles were fought? How did they survive when their men went off to fight, when the value of their currency turned to almost nothing, when there was nothing in the stores to buy with their worthless money, when their slaves that did the hard work of growing their cotton and food crops ran away to follow the liberating Yankee army? And in the North, how did the people deal with the forced conscription that pulled young men from their homes, farms, and families? Many of these conscripts were recent immigrants. How did they cope with the demand that they risk their lives to save their new country? McPherson investigates all of these concerns in Battle Cry.

This long book (almost 1,000 pages) pulls the reader into its narrative almost immediately. I found it hard to put down. Even though we all know how the war turned out, surely its participants did not. Those who were certain of triumph at the beginning (Jefferson Davis and seemingly most of the secessionists) turned out to be wrong. Those who felt a sense of doom and wondered if even God had deserted them (especially, at times, Abraham Lincoln) often ended in triumph. The reader, even viewing these events in retrospect, becomes engaged with the drama and feels empathy for the emotions of the actors is this great national tragedy.

Note: I read this book on a Kindle. The battle maps in the Kindle edition are hard to read and of little use on my paperwhite Kindle, but show up clearly on a Kindle Fire.

I am a military historian and my opinion is that Dr. McPherson has written the definitive encompassing Civil War historical work. "The Battle Cry of Freedom" (supplemented with some of Dr. McPherson's related books like "The Atlas of the Civil War," and others) is second-to-none. I mean no disrespect what-so-ever to Shelby Foote's "The Civil War." Foote's works speak for themselves, no question. But because Battle Cry is written in such an engaging style that reads like a novel while extensively relating and documenting the historical intricacies of the times was, for me, a pleasure to read and study. I highly recommend this text for anyone, scholar or layman, who is looking for a descriptive and informed one-volume history of this tragic time in America's history.