Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.

MCPHERSON, James M.

Item Number: 140789

New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

First edition, early printing of the author’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work. Octavo, original blue cloth, illustrated. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “To Peter Best Wishes ‘We are all Americans now’ James McPherson.” Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Honi Werner.

The book's title "Battle Cry of Freedom" refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict. The South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war, slavery, and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. The standard one-volume history of the Civil War. Listed on Modern Library's 100 great nonfiction books of the twentieth century.