Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988) is a non-fiction narrative history written by the American historian James M. McPherson. Its scope covers the period from 1846, the start of the Mexican-American War, to 1865, the end of the US Civil War. While focusing on the Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom also explores the political, social, economic, and cultural history of the era. Key themes include The Central Role of Enslavement in the Pre-War American Economy and Regional Conflict, The Civil War as a Total and Modern War, and The Legacy of the Civil War in American Society.

It is the sixth installment in the Oxford History of the United States series, which has been continuously published since 1982 and, as of this writing, spans across general North American and United States history from around the year 1000 CE to the presidential election of 2000, with additional volumes specifically on the history of US foreign relations. In 1989, McPherson won the Pulitzer Prize for History for Battle Cry of Freedom.

This guide uses the original 1988 hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death and racism.

Summary

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era actually begins with another war, the Mexican-American War. The US won the war, resulting in the annexation of former Mexican territories from Texas to California. The conquest of vast amounts of territory exacerbated a controversy that had been with the United States since even before its founding, the issue of Black enslavement. The question of how the newly annexed territories would be divided into new states, and whether those states would be free states or “slave states” dominated US politics over the course of the next two decades.

In the Northern United States, where industry and commerce were the main drivers of the economy, enslavement had been outlawed. By contrast, the Southern United States remained heavily rural and agricultural; enslavement was used to provide forced labor for the profitable but work-intensive crops the South’s economy depended on, namely cotton, sugar, and tobacco.

Enslavement also caused deeper social and cultural cracks to appear, dividing the North and South. The North became more democratic and egalitarian, namely in the rise of women’s status, while the South was a more hierarchical and traditional society. Public attitudes likewise hardened: The South viewed the North as a place where white workers were demeaned and lost their liberty to an industrial system where they had to work for a wage, genuinely believing their own propaganda that enslaved persons were well taken care of in the South. The North saw the South as a barbaric and impoverished region that dragged down the entire United States, with abolitionists, activists, and politicians advocating for the national abolition of enslavement. Southern politicians constantly feared that the North would use the acquisition of new states to shift the power in Congress in favor of the free states.

These tensions between the North and the South eventually erupted into violence. The outspoken abolitionist senator Charles Sumner was badly beaten with a cane by a Southern senator on the floor of the US Congress, something cheered on by the Southern public. Settlers in Kansas and eastern Missouri fought and killed each other to determine if Kansas’ future would be as a pro-enslavement state or a free state. Then, in 1860, voters elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Lincoln represented a new political party with anti-enslavement views, the Republicans. Lincoln’s election proved to be the last straw. Starting with the state of South Carolina, most of the South seceded and formed a new nation-state, the Confederacy. Lincoln chose to go to war to save the Union of the United States.

Both sides anticipated a quick victory. It did not happen—instead, the war became more ferocious and bloody as traditional tactics failed. Both sides had generals—most notably, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman for the Union, and Robert E. Lee for the Confederacy—who adapted total war tactics, which led to heated battles with high casualties. Such tactics sought the complete obliteration of enemy armies and the devastation of civilian lands to starve the enemy of resources. Both sides suffered victories and setbacks that shaped the course of the war, like the famous Battle of Gettysburg that started as a desperate Confederate bid to bring the war to the North but ended with a failure that doomed the Confederacy.

In the long run, the Confederacy never achieved the kind of decisive victories that would have given them the kind of recognition from European powers they likely needed to have any chance of winning the war. As the war progressed, Lincoln and many Republicans came to believe that the war would only truly end with the emancipation of all African-Americans.

The Civil War finally ended when Grant captured the Confederate capital of Richmond. Lee’s army, which was at that point broken and demoralized, tried to link up with the Confederate leaders who had fled to Danville, Virginia. Lee was outnumbered and surrounded by Grant’s forces. In the end, Lee had to surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, bringing an end to the Confederacy. The South was left devastated, and the United States developed a much stronger identity as a singular nation.