James M McPherson

"Now featuring a new Afterword by the author, this handy paperback edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom is without question the definitive one-volume history of the Civil War.

James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight,

...

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a powerful new reckoning with Jefferson Davis as military commander of the Confederacy
“The best concise book we have on the subject… McPherson is… our most distinguished scholar of the Civil War era.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. Many Americans of his own...

McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation.

Describes the American frontier from the end of the Civil War to 1890 when the Census Bureau announced the official end to the frontier.

"More than 140 years ago, Mark Twain observed that the Civil War had 'uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations.' In fact, five generations have passed, and Americans are still trying to measure the influence of the immense fratricidal...

An analysis of the Civil War, drawing on letters and diaries by more than one thousand soldiers, gives voice to the personal reasons behind the war, offering insight into the ideology that shaped both sides.