Cause Comrades, Signed (3 results)

Hard Cover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition/1st Printing. SIGNED by author on a bookplate affixed to front end page (signature only). $25.00 price present on DJ flap. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Signed by Author.

Cloth. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. The author draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides of the War Between the States. This book lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. The letters, astonishingly, are uncensored by military authorities and uniquely frank in their criticism. Included are an appendix, a list of abbreviations, endnotes, and an index. This copy is clean, solid, and appears to be unread. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, flat signed on a bookplate on the FFEP. Price is not clipped. Signed by Author(s).

Trade Paperback. Condition: Good. First Printing [Stated]. xviii, 237, [1] pages. Table 1. Geographical Distribution of Confederate Soldiers. Table 2. Geographical Distribution of White Union Soldiers. Table 3. Occupation of Confederate Soldiers. Table 4. Occupation of White Union Soldiers. A Note on Sources. Abbreviations in Notes. Notes. Index. Some page discoloration noted. Inscribed by the author on the half title page. Inscription reads: For Laura, Merry Christmas from James McPherson. This book was the winner of the 1998 Lincoln Prize. The author shows that the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they went to war: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. James M. "Jim" McPherson (born October 11, 1936) is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003. McPherson's works include The Struggle for Equality, awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1965. His 1990 book, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution argues that the emancipation of slaves amounts to a second American Revolution. McPherson's 1998 book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, received the Lincoln Prize. For Cause and Comrades tells the story of the American Civil War's soldiers through their own uncensored point of view. Derived from a Kirkus review: A grunt's-eye account of the Civil War. Drawing on some 25,000 letters and 250 diaries from 1,000 Yankee and Rebel soldiers, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian McPherson examines what it was that kept these men engaged in a horribly bloody, and often mismanaged, conflict. Pondering the suicidal assault at Gettysburg that history remembers as Pickett's Charge, McPherson asks at the outset: Why did these soldiers "go forward despite the high odds against coming out safely"? Why, despite frequent opportunities, did they not all cut and run for home, North and South alike? Comparing his findings to data from other wars, especially Vietnam and WW II, McPherson concludes that the seemingly quaint concepts of duty and personal honor motivated the fighters far more effectively than did ideas of patriotism, states' rights, or abolitionism, although those concepts were certainly powerful; and, he notes, "the motivating power of soldiers' ideals of manhood and honor seemed to increase rather than decrease during the last terrible year of the war." Brave though these men were, their letters and diaries, filled with expressions of the loneliness and terror of combat, make for sobering reading. Many of the young writers (the median age of the combatants was about 24) did not outlive the war, and it is touching to read their hopeful words, even at strange turns, as when a Confederate officer urges his wife to buy another slave, remarking that, if the South loses, the money spent would be worthless anyway, while if the South wins, the slave's value would certainly increase. McPherson touches on many points of interest, not least of them a thoughtful exploration of combat stress and the madness wrought by unrelenting battle. McPherson's newest addition to a long roster of books is valuable not only for Civil War aficionados but for students of military history generally.