James McPherson: Why the Civil War Still Matters

I just finished ''Battle cry of freedom''. An excellent, excellent book !!!

“A large part of McPherson’s success is due to the fact that his sources are incredibly reliable since they originated from the actual war years instead of potentially revised, sentimentalized, or sanitized remembrances recorded years after the war. More importantly he addressed one of the most crucial concerns that dominate this type of scholarship: What made men willing to go to war, and, once there to endure it? By tackling this question, he was able to confront an imperative issue of our own generation-the soldiers personal ideology to slavery” (William B. Rogers and Terese Martin ‘A Consensus at Last: American Civil War Texts and the Topics that Dominate the College Classroom’ p. 524). “A considerable part of McPherson’s success can be contributed to the fact that he clearly conveyed the relevance of the slavery issue in regards to the cause of the war. In particular, his research on the years leading up to the war clearly demonstrated how the economic, political, and social struggles of the time were all interconnected with slavery” (William B. Rogers and Terese Martin ‘A Consensus at Last: American Civil War Texts and the Topics that Dominate the College Classroom’ p. 527). “Most of these monographs as well as McPherson’s text share one common thread; they acknowledge the significant role slavery had in the events leading up to the war as well its lasting ramifications on American society. Thus, many of these works contain little debate over war causation since they recognize that slavery was the root cause of the war” (William B. Rogers and Terese Martin ‘A Consensus at Last: American Civil War Texts and the Topics that Dominate the College Classroom’ p. 530).

Fully agree. Best single volume on the Civil War I have heard of. Great read. First and only time America fought a major war on the US mainland since Independence, bar perhaps, the Mexican War. A terrible loss of life. As Shelby Foote said in the Civil War series, some say that Americans never knew what it's like to lose a war pre-Vietnam. Just ask a Southerner he says. Perhaps it explains why the US it not slow to fight wars on some one else's land. Not enough Southerners remember what it actually was like to fight & lose one on their own soil.

Sorry there weren't more comments on Grant's Presidency in the context of this dicussion.

Population of usa would be approximately 12 percent more if no civil war

The Reconstruction Amendments perfected or rectified the contradiction in the Declaration of Independence.

You could have skipped the announcement of some upcoming duopoly debate at the start. James is too great to have to be a backdrop to that nonsense.

You are correct on a number of points. The US today is ruled by an oligarchic regime. If the Civil War had somehow been averted, slavery would have diminished because ot couldn't compete with mechanized farming and manufacturing. Those opposed to the war were right, it was a disaster that solved really nothing. And the whole thing was a damn shame. I'm puzzled why you think that opposition to civil rights would have helped anything. True, the 13th - 15th Amendments were widely ignored in the south. But in the north, they created opportunities for blacks to attain education and political power. Without them, they would have remained an oppressed, powerless minority nationwide. And l doubt that slavery would have disappeared altogether without any law against it. For one thing, it would be a very attractive option to those oligarchs. Thanks for listening.

No one to this day can justify a state wishing to leave the union as the states had sovereignty and no limit as was such under the articles of confederation which was removed in the building of the constitution, can claim that a peaceful withdraw from the union was uncostitutional. And so it was by force of arms that the states were compelled to rejoin to subject themselves to tyrany achieved by such means.

His conflation of the tea party and antebellum slave holders is demonstrative of everything that is wrong with contemporary political discourse. It’s alarming that someone of his acumen could make such an analogy.

Love Dr. McPherson. I would add a personal observation. Lee may have been the most clever General in history, but NOTHING else in his life is worthy of admiration. Just another self-anointed "Christian" who was certain his gawd supported the ownership of human beings. Really? To claim to know the mind of the creator is a sure sign of a delusional mind incapable of rational thought. Lee was responsible for the death of 600,000 (now they say 700,000) Americans because of his mindless and amoral view that a soldier can "just follow orders". No normal, caring human being could have ordered Pickett's Charge - only an arrogant old man with delusions of grandeur. The Civil War never ended. The Civil War was the 2nd revolution where we moved closer to perfection, but at a terrible bloody cost. The real revolution will continue to echo down through the centuries until we form a "more perfect union" or watch hatred and bigotry destroy our great experiment. Personally, I think the United States is circling the drain...

i enjoyed his book but his opinion that FDR was a good president is questionable to me

He talks like he writes, boring as hell.

McPherson is too biased in his writing. He doesn't even come close to understanding the Southern view.

-----------Lee and the South justly fought for their God given rights of self determination, and therefore Lee's participation and the South's participation against the War Of Northern Aggression was among the most noble, brave and exemplary acts of humanity that the world has ever known! ---------It's obvious that Lincoln's War Of Northern Aggression was among the most immoral and heinous acts ever perpetrated in the annals of history against the Southern States is both an indisputable and unalterable reality for every informed and objective individual of the, 21st century! --------The North's unjustifiable violence and egregious invasions against the South are grounds for reparations being paid by the United States Government to all Southern descendants of the Confederacy must be funded to off set the pervasive atrocities committed by Northern Forces upon the South and its abject deprivation and hardships must be compensated for without fail in the, 21st century!

I say looking back at the Civil War in the Civil Rights Movement now in 2023 the people that were opposed to both of those things were correct. The expansion of federal power under the guise of something righteous like civil rights and ending slavery is what led to the corrupt oligarchy that we now have in the United States and what will eventually be the downfall of the empire in the near future. If the Civil War never happened and slavery was allowed to end naturally coinciding with the birth the Industrial Revolution there would have been a lot less animosity in the South and less animosity between blacks and whites in general in the early 1900s. Whole thing is a damn shame!