James mcpherson battle cry of freedom download#

But to me neither soldier nor fugitive speaks with so deep a meaning as that dark human cloud that clung like remorse on the rear of those swift columns, swelling at times to half their size, almost engulfing and choking them. Some see all significance in the grim front of the destroyer, and some in the bitter sufferers of the Lost Cause. Three characteristics things one might have seen in Sherman’s raid through Georgia, which threw the new situation in shadowy relief: the Conqueror, the Conquered, and the Negro. WEB DuBois wrote this memorable description of Sherman’s army on its March to the Sea: Confederates regarded the placing of weapons in black hands as itself a war crime, and a terrible one, justifying the most terrible retribution. But captured black Union troops were often massacred - and sometimes sold as property. 566.)ĭavis never carried out this threat. Jefferson Davis’ message to Congress on January 12, 1863, proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man.” Davis promised to turn over captured Union officers to state governments for punishment as “criminals engaged in inciting servile insurrection.” The punishment for this crime, of course, was death. Both sides of the terrible conflict insisted that the war was a war for freedom. What struck me most, on this rediscovery, is how brilliantly apt is McPherson’s title.

James mcpherson battle cry of freedom download#

The anniversary moved me to download the book in audio format and re-ingest it after the long lapse of time. James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is now, incredibly, 25 years old. Slavery was always, always there: the war’s fundamental cause, the war’s shaping reality. This refusal ended the negotiations, for (as Grant wrote), the United States “is bound to secure to all persons received into her armies the rights due as soldiers.”įrom time to time, we hear denials of the centrality of slavery to the Civil War. “egroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition.” Grant imposed only one condition: black soldiers must be exchanged on the same terms as whites. A presidential election was approaching, and anything that could be done for the benefit of the soldiers would redound to the benefit of the administration party. More than 100,000 men were held in camps on both sides, but more in the South than in the North. By the fall of 1864, word of the horrific conditions at Southern prisoner of war camps - especially Georgia’s Andersonville - had spread through the North. He proposed to Grant that the two armies resume the prisoner exchanges that had ceased in the first half of 1863.ĭespite his reputation as a ruthless practitioner of attrition warfare, Grant was amenable to Lee’s request. Lee needed every man he could get to defend the lines, and he didn’t have enough.

Now, Lee’s force were besieged inside the Richmond-Petersburg fortifications. Yet that smaller Confederate total represented a higher proportion of Confederate strength, 46%. Union forces had suffered about 50,000 casualties the Confederates, about 32,000. In May and June of that year, Grant had chased Lee across Virginia in the murderous Overland Campaign.

And enough quotes and excerpts from letters and diary entries to personalize those affected by the war, North and South.In October 1864, Robert E. Enough battle facts to satisfy you if you aren't studying military tactics. There is enough storytelling to bring characters like Grant, Jackson, Johnston, McClellan, and Sherman alive. If you're interested in the history of the time but have American primary and secondary school knowledge, this is a great book. I did not understand the significance of the Whig party and its relationship to the Republican Party. The Mexican-American war the role of Manifest Destiny in the expansion or curtailment of slavery is made clear. Now I understand the tension created by the Missouri Compromise that led to the Pottawatomie Massacre that led to the Lawrence Massacre. Before this, the war, in my limited knowledge, started with Dredd Scott and Harper's Ferry. The appeal of this narrative is that it paints a cohesive picture of the United States in the preceding decades before the war that helps to explain its causes.