![]() But to me neither soldier nor fugitive speaks with so deep a meaning as that dark human cloud that clung like remorse on the rear of those swift columns, swelling at times to half their size, almost engulfing and choking them. Some see all significance in the grim front of the destroyer, and some in the bitter sufferers of the Lost Cause. Three characteristics things one might have seen in Sherman’s raid through Georgia, which threw the new situation in shadowy relief: the Conqueror, the Conquered, and the Negro. WEB DuBois wrote this memorable description of Sherman’s army on its March to the Sea: Confederates regarded the placing of weapons in black hands as itself a war crime, and a terrible one, justifying the most terrible retribution. But captured black Union troops were often massacred - and sometimes sold as property. 566.)ĭavis never carried out this threat. Jefferson Davis’ message to Congress on January 12, 1863, proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man.” Davis promised to turn over captured Union officers to state governments for punishment as “criminals engaged in inciting servile insurrection.” The punishment for this crime, of course, was death. Both sides of the terrible conflict insisted that the war was a war for freedom. ![]() What struck me most, on this rediscovery, is how brilliantly apt is McPherson’s title. The anniversary moved me to download the book in audio format and re-ingest it after the long lapse of time. James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is now, incredibly, 25 years old. Slavery was always, always there: the war’s fundamental cause, the war’s shaping reality. ![]() This refusal ended the negotiations, for (as Grant wrote), the United States “is bound to secure to all persons received into her armies the rights due as soldiers.”įrom time to time, we hear denials of the centrality of slavery to the Civil War. “egroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition.” Grant imposed only one condition: black soldiers must be exchanged on the same terms as whites. A presidential election was approaching, and anything that could be done for the benefit of the soldiers would redound to the benefit of the administration party. More than 100,000 men were held in camps on both sides, but more in the South than in the North. By the fall of 1864, word of the horrific conditions at Southern prisoner of war camps - especially Georgia’s Andersonville - had spread through the North. He proposed to Grant that the two armies resume the prisoner exchanges that had ceased in the first half of 1863.ĭespite his reputation as a ruthless practitioner of attrition warfare, Grant was amenable to Lee’s request. Lee needed every man he could get to defend the lines, and he didn’t have enough. Now, Lee’s force were besieged inside the Richmond-Petersburg fortifications. Yet that smaller Confederate total represented a higher proportion of Confederate strength, 46%. ![]() Union forces had suffered about 50,000 casualties the Confederates, about 32,000. In May and June of that year, Grant had chased Lee across Virginia in the murderous Overland Campaign. So though nobody is entirely objective, I think McPherson is the most reliable, knowledgeable, yet objective writer I’ve found yet.In October 1864, Robert E. And indeed, anyone who writes history is subjective, even if it is only by the facts they include (and which are emphasized) what sections or titles are named and which generals are given the most air time. Feelings are sometimes still surprisingly heated. One other thing: I find that in discussions about the Civil War (still referred to in much of the South as “the war between the states”), though it is long past, in some ways it isn’t over. It requires a high level of literacy, but with that caveat, it is a surprisingly accessible narrative, from a man who documents everything and knows what he’s talking about. This is unquestionably the most thorough and accurate volume about America’s last righteous war. It also makes it much more interesting to see whose fortunes rise, and whose fall (although these are, naturally, secondary to the issue of the war itself). It begins with the Mexican-American War because that is where much of the Civil War’s military leadership is forged. It won the Pulitzer, and although it is a large, serious piece of work, it is immensely readable. If you only choose to read one (challenging and sizable) resource on the American Civil War, this is the one.
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