For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War

by James M. McPherson

Book Overview

General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195124995
• ISBN13: 9780195124996
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.0" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Not a hard copy ordered

Ordered a hardcover book. Sent a paperback. This is the second time my orders were incorrect. Very annoying.

Very enlightening

When I did research on one of my Civil War ancestors, I discovered that he reenlisted when his enlistment ran out, despite having just been repelled during the assault on Fort Wagner. I always wondered why he would sign on to continue the war, and the book gave amazing insight. I would have to agree with all the points made by the other reviewers who enjoyed this book just as much as I have. McPherson's vast knowledge of the Civil War, and his never-ending reading of civil war letters, had constructed a very well put together book. A reviewer noted that the book proposed Union men sought to fight to end slavery only, and that the Confederate men sought to fight to keep slavery only. Well he certainly did not read the book, for it offers a much more expansive explanation than that. In fact, McPherson pays special attention to present the factors of fighting outside of the issue of slavery, while still noting its impact. Something that I was very surprised to see was the high level of ideology that the soldiers had during the Civil War. McPherson contrasts the Civil War with other wars, such as WWII and Vietnam, where American troops often questioned their cause and quickly stopped believing in anything other than survival. The Civil War, as McPherson points out, was indeed ideological to the very end. Men wrote that even though they never again wanted to see another battle, they would gladly go in when ordered to, for god and country so to speak. The book gave me a lot of insight as to why my ancestor chose to reenlist despite seeing the horrors of war. And why so many others did the same.

What men fought and died for, and what they were thinking

This is a wonderful book. Prof. McPherson read over 30,000 letters and diaries for this, and thus I think he has provided one of the most thorough and thought provoking treatments of the psychology of Civil War soldiers and studies on why exactly they fought. For this work, Prof. McPherson also incorporates theories, reports, and research of the combat motivation, effects of combat, and psychology of men and soldiers in others war such as WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War, not to mention general medical studies from British, American, and German armies. In some instances, he uses modern knowledge to analyze the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers of the Civil War. As interesting as this is to show how soldiers in the Civil War had the same problems and feelings as most men of war, his academic findings illustrate how Civil War soldiers were also very different from soldiers in other wars.The difference lay in their devout belief in their causes, and their sustained belief in those causes, and the close relationship with the men they fought with (which is a common thread for men of all wars), throughout the war. McPherson rarely goes on for more than a paragraph or two of his own narrating. He lets the voices of the men who fought take up 90% of the book, giving you a real sense of who these people were, and allowing the reader to derive an opinion for themselves, but always with McPherson's voice in the background guiding the reader, teaching you. The causes brought up by the letters and McPherson are wide and varied, and McPherson makes sure to research each and explain as elaborately as possible, but quite noticable are the few main causes that men on both sides procliamed in verbose rhetoric. These consisted of Duty, Honor, Liberty, Independence, and the sustainment (US) or creation of (CS) a "free and independent country". For the CS the issue of slavery is brought up, but even though McPherson mentions it quite often and does what he can to explain, I did find some holes, most especially what yeoman farmers in general felt about the slavery and the strife, or what their exact definition of "states rights" (in relation to slavery) was. But that subject in of itself deserves it's own book, and I do not find that as derogative to the book at all, in fact it provoked my thoughts.This may be strange to say, but while reading it, you feel safe. In other words, the research is so sound, so well documented, so well explained, that you feel like there is no way you are falling into a trap of propagandist, shallowly researched, or off the cuff revisionist history simply masked by some good prose. McPherson is a talented writer, making the read an easy and anticipated one for the reader (I read in 3 days, and I am NOT a fast reader), but he's also an astute historian who settles for nothing less than good hard research and logical and sound analyzation of his findings (thus a lengthy bibliography), without any sway of personal opinion; the book is ent

Insightful, Thoroughly Researched, Brilliantly Analyzed

Why did they do it? Why did several million American men put their lives on the line (a bet 600,000 would lose)? It could be argued the Grey men appeared to fight for the right to own slaves most of them had no hope of ever owning themselves while the men in blue fought to stop the spread of an institution which enslaved a race most of them thought not deserving of legal, social or economic equality with themselves.In McPhereson's brilliantly researched book, he paints the Civil War soldier on both sides as a complex individual whose motives for engaging in Civil War were at times noble, idealistic or principled. The author reviewed more than a thousand letters soldiers wrote during the war to recreate the state of mind and motivations of the combatants.The results will paint a much more nuanced picture for the reader than they probably had on the subject before. This is important work that does as good a job as I can imagine of recreating the mindsets of individuals long dead but who largely defined the course of American history through our present time. This book is a relatively quick read and written in McPhereson's excellent style -- authoritative while emminently engaging.