Linda Hall

HST 209

Just the very name Battle Cry of Freedom suggests a very interesting story. If I just saw this book in the bookstore, I would be interested in reading it just for the name alone.  After reading all the reviews that were listed for this book, I was disappointed in some of them. I felt like after reading most of the book that James McPherson did an excellent job of writing this book. To me the book was and is fascinating and is not dry, he does not bore the reader with some of the details that to be quite honest are very boring and dry. By reading this book, I found myself being back in the era, which to me is a great tribute to the author. Yes, he did leave some details out but I think that for the most part he captured the Civil War in all its’ losses and wins. He gives insight into various political figures of that time, such as Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and both the republican and democratic parties of that time. He reminds the reader that all actions have consequences and that we as a nation need to understand what went wrong and caused the war, and to learn from that and not make the same mistakes over and over again. 

I was grateful that at the bottom of most pages he had footnotes and other books or articles that the reader can read to learn more about the war and all the players involved. For instance do you know how West Virginia got its’ statehood?  What were Robert E. Lees’ political ambitions during the war and after the war?

He told of Lincoln’s  assassination  then went from there to the next chapter, which left the reader with the question “What Now”, This is probably how the nation felt after the  assassination ,how do we go on, what do we do now?

I think that the issues that I would like to have seen addressed more were the reasons why some of the southern states were for succession and some were not. I know that McPherson did have many footnotes relating to this issue and listed a lot of other either books or articles, which would and did address this issue further, which I found very interesting. After reading most of this book, I feel like my confidence level in his book is high. I found the entire book interesting, would, and have recommended it to several other people who are not in a class but are interested in the Civil War I believe that he paints a very good picture of that time in history and while he might not go into great detail on some of the problems he does address at least to me most of the major ones.