A grunt's-eye account of the Civil War. Drawing on some 25,000
letters and 250 diaries from 1,000 Yankee and Rebel soldiers,
Pulitzer Prize - winning historian McPherson (Battle Cry of
Freedom, 1989; Drawn with the Sword, 1996; etc.) examines what it
was that kept these men engaged in a horribly bloody, and often
mismanaged, conflict. Pondering the suicidal assault at Gettysburg
that history remembers as Pickett's Charge, McPherson asks at the
outset: Why did these soldiers "go forward despite the high odds
against coming out safely"? Why, despite frequent opportunities,
did they not all cut and run for home, North and South alike?
Comparing his findings to data from other wars, especially Vietnam
and WW II, McPherson concludes that the seemingly quaint concepts
of duty and personal honor motivated the fighters far more
effectively than did ideas of patriotism, states' rights, or
abolitionism, although those concepts were certainly powerful; and,
he notes, "the motivating power of soldiers' ideals of manhood and
honor seemed to increase rather than decrease during the last
terrible year of the war." Brave though these men were, their
letters and diaries, filled with expressions of the loneliness and
terror of combat, make for sobering reading. Many of the young
writers (the median age of the combatants was about 24) did not
outlive the war, and it is touching to read their hopeful words,
even at strange turns, as when a Confederate officer urges his wife
to buy another slave, remarking that, if the South loses, the money
spent would be worthless anyway, while if the South wins, the
slave's value would certainly increase. McPherson's own narrative
is somewhat flat, but he touches on many points of interest, not
least of them a thoughtful exploration of combat stress and the
madness wrought by unrelenting battle. McPherson's newest addition
to a long roster of books is valuable not only for Civil War
aficionados but for students of military history generally. (Kirkus
Reviews)
James M. McPherson is acclaimed as one of the finest historians writing today and a preeminent commentator on the Civil War. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of that conflict, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called `history writing of the highest order.' Now, McPherson has brilliantly recreated the war and battle experience of that war from the point of view of the soldiers themselves, drawing on at least 25,000 letters written by over 1000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, these men remained highly motivated and idealistic about the cause for which they fought, regardless of the obstacles and deprivation that they faced.
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