James M. McPherson
James M. McPherson is George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History Emeritus at Princeton. His most recent book is This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War, a collection of essays. (April 2008)
From the Review
April 17, 2008: Dark Victories
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America's Culture of Death by Mark S. Schantz
March 20, 2008: They Chose Freedom
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation by David W. Blight
February 14, 2008: Was It More Restrained Than You Think?
The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction by Mark E. Neely Jr.
October 11, 2007: The Fight for Slavery in California
The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War by Leonard L. Richards
April 26, 2007: Lincoln & Race (letter)
March 29, 2007: What Did He Really Think About Race?
The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes
November 30, 2006: The Great Betrayal
Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War by Nicholas Lemann
March 23, 2006: Was It a Just War?
Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History ofthe American Civil War by Harry S. Stout
December 15, 2005: The Bloody Partnership
Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861–1865 by Steven E. Woodworth
Grant and Sherman: The Friendship That Won the Civil War by Charles Bracelen Flood
October 6, 2005: Brahmins at War
Harvard's Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry by Richard F. Miller
The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., 1835–64 by Carol Bundy
May 12, 2005: Days of Wrath
John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds
John Brown: The Legend Revisited by Merrill D. Peterson
Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown edited by Peggy A. Russo and Paul Finkelman
December 16, 2004: Specimen Days
Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War by Ernest B. Furgurson
August 12, 2004: The Greatest Republican
Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Him President by John A. Corry
Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President by Harold Holzer
Why Lincoln Matters Today More Than Ever by Mario M. Cuomo
Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion After the Civil War by Elizabeth D. Leonard
March 11, 2004: The Moses of Her People
Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez
Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero by Kate Clifford Larson
Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Fagan Yellin
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
February 27, 2003: A Confederate Guerrilla
Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War by T.J. Stiles
June 13, 2002: Could the South Have Won?
Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America by William C. Davis
The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War by William W. Freehling
Lee and His Army in Confederate History by Gary W. Gallagher
The War Hits Home: The Civil War in Southeastern Virginia by Brian Steel Wills
April 12, 2001: Southern Comfort
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan
Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War Charles B. Dew
The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780–1860 Leonard L. Richards
February 8, 2001: The Canadian Connection (letter)
November 30, 2000: Blitzkrieg in Georgia
Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy by Richard M. McMurry
Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865 edited by Brooks D. Simpson, by Jean V. Berlin
February 4, 1999: The Unheroic Hero
March 26, 1998: Lincoln's Herndon
Lincoln Before Washington: New Perspectives on the Illinois Years by Douglas L. Wilson
Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln Edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis
Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln by Douglas L. Wilson
October 23, 1997: The Heart of the Matter
Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War by Michael A. Morrison
Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War by Maury Klein
Behind the Lines in the Southern Confederacy by Charles W. Ramsdell
The Confederate War by Gary W. Gallagher
December 21, 1995: Götterdämmerung
The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865 by Mark Grimsley
Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman by Michael Fellman
Robert E. Lee: A Biography by Emory M. Thomas
Davis and Lee at War by Steven E. Woodworth
April 21, 1994: Liberating Lincoln
Lincoln in American Memory by Merrill D. Peterson
The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln by Phillip Shaw Paludan
The Lincoln Persuasion: Remaking American Liberalism by J. David Greenstone
July 16, 1992: The Art of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills
November 7, 1991: How Noble Was Robert E. Lee?
Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History by Alan T. Nolan
Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861–1868 by Brooks D. Simpson
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans by Charles Royster
March 28, 1991: Generals in Politics
Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West by Steven E. Woodworth
Abandoned by Lincoln: A Military Biography of General John Pope by Wallace J. Schutz, by Walter N. Trenerry
Damned Yankee: The Life of General Nathaniel Lyon by Christopher Phillips
April 12, 1990: Wartime
Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar
The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War by Iver Bernstein
Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War by Michael Fellman
October 12, 1989: How the North Nearly Lost
Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History by Richard M. McMurry
Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier by John Bowers
The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860–1865 edited by Stephen W. Sears
Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander edited by Gary W. Gallagher
January 19, 1989: The War of Southern Aggression
John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography by John Niven
Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder edited by Carol Bleser
Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860 by Lacy K. Ford Jr.
Books by James M. McPherson
Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg (2003)
Gettysburg Battlefield: The Definitive Illustrated History (2003)
Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (2002)
Fields of Fury: The American Civil War (2002)
Is Blood Thicker Than Water?: Crises of Nationalism in the Modern World (1998)
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997)
Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (1996)
What They Fought For, 1861-1865 (1994)
Images of the Civil War (1992)
Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (1991)
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988)
The Negro's Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union (1982)
Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1982)
The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (1975)