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

Now featuring a new afterword by the author, this paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson s fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. The book s title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict. The South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war, slavery, and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This new birth of freedom, as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America s bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing second American Revolution we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty. Publisher: Spring Arbor/Ingram, Oxford University Press 2003 Author:James M. McPherson Format: 952 pages, paperback ISBN: 9780195168952

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