This Mighty Scourge : Perspectives on the Civil War

In this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson offers fresh interpretations and insights into many of the most enduring questions and debates about America''s greatest historical crisis - the Civil War. In a collection that includes several never before published essays, McPherson reflects on everything from Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief to what might have happened if the South had won.

The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the New York Times bestsellers Crossroads of Freedom and Tried by War, among many other award-winning books, James M. McPherson is America''s preeminent Civil War historian. In this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the 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 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. 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.