Synopses & Reviews
Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. The third edition incorporates recent scholarship and addresses renewed areas of interest in the Civil War/Reconstruction era including the motivations and experiences of common soldiers and the role of women in the war effort.
About the Author
James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis 86 Professor of American History at Princeton University where he has taught since 1962. He received his BA from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1958 and his PhD from The Johns Hopkins University in 1963. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a Scaver Institute Fellow at the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California. In 1999, McPherson received the Public Humanities Award of the New Jersey Council of the Humanities. A leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author, McPherson has written many books including most recently, What They Fought For, 1861-1865 (1994), Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (1996), For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), and Is Blood Thicker Than Water? Crises of Modern Nationalism (1998).
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Setting of Conflict
Part One: The Coming of WarChapter One: American Modernization, 1800-1860Chapter Two: The Antebellum SouthChapter Three: The Ideological Conflict over SlaveryChapter Four: Texas, Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850Chapter Five: Filibusters, Fugitives, and NativistsChapter Six: Kansas and the Rise of the Republican PartyChapter Seven: The Deepening Crisis, 1857-1859Chapter Eight: The Critical Year, 1859-1860Chapter Nine: Secession and the Coming of WarPart Two: The Civil WarChapter Ten: A Brothers War: The Upper SouthChapter Eleven: Mobilizing for WarChapter Twelve: The Balance Sheet of WarChapter Thirteen: The War at Home and AbroadChapter Fourteen: The Springtime of Northern HopeChapter Fifteen: Jackson and Lee Strike BackChapter Sixteen: Slavery and the War: Northern Politics, 1861-1862Chapter Seventeen: The First Turning Point: Antietam and EmancipationChapter Eighteen: The Winter of Northern DiscontentChapter Nineteen: The Second Turning Point: Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and ChattanoogaChapter Twenty: War Issues and Politics in 1863Chapter Twenty-One: Behind the LinesChapter Twenty-Two: Wartime Reconstruction and the FreedpeopleChapter Twenty-Three: Military Stalemate, 1864Chapter Twenty-Four: The Third Turning Point: The Election of 1864Chapter Twenty-Five: The End of the ConfederacyPart Three: ReconstructionChapter Twenty-Six: The Problems of PeaceChapter Twenty-Seven: The Origins of “Radical Reconstruction”Chapter Twenty-Eight: Reconstruction and the Crisis of ImpeachmentChapter Twenty-Nine: The First Grant AdministrationChapter Thirty: The Southern Question, 1869-1872Chapter Thirty-One: Social and Economic ReconstructionChapter Thirty-Two: The Retreat from ReconstructionChapter Thirty-Three: The New SouthEpilogue