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Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
and the New York Times bestseller Crossroads
of Freedom, among many other award-winning books, James
M. McPherson is America's preeminent Civil War historian.
Now, in this collection of provocative and illuminating essays,
McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the most enduring
questions about one of the defining moments in our nation's
history.
McPherson sheds
light on topics large and small, from the average soldier's
avid love of newspapers to the postwar creation of the mystique
of a Lost Cause in the South. Readers will find insightful
pieces on such intriguing figures as Harriet Tubman, John
Brown, Jesse James, and William Tecumseh Sherman, and on such
vital issues such as Confederate military strategy, the failure
of peace negotiations to end the war, and the realities and
myths of the Confederacy. This Mighty Scourge includes
several never-before-published essays — pieces on General
Robert E. Lee's goals in the Gettysburg campaign, on Lincoln
and Grant in the Vicksburg campaign, and on Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief.
In that capacity, Lincoln invented the concept of presidential
war powers that are again at the center of controversy today.
All of the essays have been updated and revised to give the
volume greater thematic coherence and continuity, so that
it can be read in sequence as an interpretive history of the
war and its meaning for America and the world.
Combining the finest
scholarship with luminous prose, and packed with new information
and fresh ideas, this book brings together the most recent
thinking by the nation's leading authority on the Civil War.
It will be must reading for everyone interested in the war
and American history.
"James McPherson is the master historian of the Civil
War in our time."
— Gabor Borritt, Director, Civil War Institute, Gettysburg
College
"Not merely
is McPherson the leading living historian of the Civil War,
but he is a scholar whose knowledge and authority are unsurpassed;
when McPherson speaks, even in a minor key, people listen."
— Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis
'86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University.
He has published numerous volumes on the Civil War, including
Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, Drawn
with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War,
and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil
War, which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize in 1998.
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