This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil WarOxford University Press, 2007 M01 29 - 272 pages The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the New York Times bestsellers Crossroads of Freedom and Tried by War, among many other award-winning books, James M. McPherson is America's preeminent Civil War historian. In this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the enduring questions about one of the defining moments in our nation's history. McPherson sheds light on topics large and small, from the average soldier's avid love of newspapers to the postwar creation of the mystique of a Lost Cause in the South. Readers will find insightful pieces on such intriguing figures as Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Jesse James, and William Tecumseh Sherman, and on such vital issues as Confederate military strategy, the failure of peace negotiations to end the war, and the realities and myths of the Confederacy. This Mighty Scourge includes several never-before-published essays--pieces on General Robert E. Lee's goals in the Gettysburg campaign, on Lincoln and Grant in the Vicksburg campaign, and on Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief. All of the essays have been updated and revised to give the volume greater thematic coherence and continuity, so that it can be read in sequence as an interpretive history of the war and its meaning for America and the world. Combining the finest scholarship with luminous prose, and packed with new information and fresh ideas, this book brings together the most recent thinking by the nation's leading authority on the Civil War. |
From inside the book
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Page 7
... antislavery radicals, even antislavery moderates like Lincoln, who harped on the evils of slavery and expressed a determination to rein in what they called the Slave Power. Their rhetoric goaded the South into a defensive response that ...
... antislavery radicals, even antislavery moderates like Lincoln, who harped on the evils of slavery and expressed a determination to rein in what they called the Slave Power. Their rhetoric goaded the South into a defensive response that ...
Page 8
... antislavery Republicans called the Slave Power and sometimes, more darkly, the Slave Power Conspiracy. Historians have often dismissed such labels as another example of the “paranoid style” of American politics. But in an eye-opening ...
... antislavery Republicans called the Slave Power and sometimes, more darkly, the Slave Power Conspiracy. Historians have often dismissed such labels as another example of the “paranoid style” of American politics. But in an eye-opening ...
Page 9
... antislavery petitions from Northern states. The Post Office banned antislavery literature from the mail if it was sent to Southern states. In 1850 Southerners in Congress plus a handful of Northern allies enacted a Fugitive Slave Law ...
... antislavery petitions from Northern states. The Post Office banned antislavery literature from the mail if it was sent to Southern states. In 1850 Southerners in Congress plus a handful of Northern allies enacted a Fugitive Slave Law ...
Page 14
... the Slave Power in Washington had engineered the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, the antislavery bloc in Congress determined to flex its muscles. In 1846 David Wilmot of Pennsylvania 14 SLAVERY AND THE COMING OF WAR.
... the Slave Power in Washington had engineered the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, the antislavery bloc in Congress determined to flex its muscles. In 1846 David Wilmot of Pennsylvania 14 SLAVERY AND THE COMING OF WAR.
Page 15
... antislavery Northerners wanted to keep slavery out of these territories. The Free Soil Party was founded on this platform in 1848. Six years later it evolved into the Republican Party. “We are opposed to the extension of slavery ...
... antislavery Northerners wanted to keep slavery out of these territories. The Free Soil Party was founded on this platform in 1848. Six years later it evolved into the Republican Party. “We are opposed to the extension of slavery ...
Contents
THE LOST CAUSE REVISITED | 41 |
ARCHITECTS OF VICTORY | 107 |
HOME FRONT AND BATTLE FRONT | 143 |
LINCOLN | 185 |
Notes | 223 |
Index | 253 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abraham Lincoln Adams American American Civil War Ann Rutledge Antietam antislavery Army of Northern attack Basler battle biography campaign capture Charles Charles Francis Adams Civil command Confeder Confederacy Confederate armies Confederate Veterans Congress Constitution Copperhead Davis’s declared defeat defensive Democrats Diary election emancipation Emancipation Proclamation enemy Federal Fehrenbacher fighting forces fought Gettysburg Grant Greeley Halleck Harriet Harriet Tubman Henry Herndon historians Ibid James Jefferson Davis Jesse John Brown July later Lee’s army letter Lowell March Maryland Massachusetts McClellan McClernand military Mississippi Missouri negotiations newspapers North Northern Virginia officers Papers peace political Potomac president Proclamation quoted raid rebels regiment Republican Richmond River secession Seven Days battles Seward Sherman slavery slaves South Carolina Southern strategy Tennessee territory theater tion troops Tubman Union armies Union soldiers United Vicksburg victory vols Washington William Wilson words wrote Yankee York York Tribune