Janey Willis

            American History

            Escobar

            1/11/15

After reading the reviews on ‘Battle Cry Of Freedom’ by James M. McPherson I am actually much less nervous about this course and think I’ll have more focus when reading the book. I am looking forward to the fact that the book is from a standpoint that is more on military strategy rather than politics, since I feel like I will get less bored when reading about the civil war from this perspective.

            Seeing parts in the reviews about this book being written in perspective that is more engaging certainly encouraged me, as the civil war can be a topic that while fascinating, is not always that exciting to learn about. Hopefully with the nature of the writing and narrative it will keep my attention and help me succeed in this class.

            I am not particularly worried about the historical accuracy of this. From what I understand this is a well-documented and highly studied topic and I believe that those who study and write about it are focused on accuracy and truth. However, from the reviews it seems clear that things on both sides are reported on. Because of this I feel like most information that we will be receiving is fairly accurate. I do however worry a little about the fact that because this is an issue that has two sides there could be a little bias which can of course cause information that isn’t exactly true to be presented as true or to be altered.

            With all things considered after reading the reviews I have a lot of faith and confidence in this text and think that it will do a good job of teaching the subject. From the reviews I get the idea that there is a large amount of information presented in an engaging and easy to follow way.