Reddit reviews Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

The British government and was ambivalent/sympathetic towards the confederacy, but lots of British people, particularly in the middle and lower classes, were strongly in favor of the Union. Britain was the home of the abolitionist movement, and liberal (19th century liberal) British people had no doubt about which side to take.

As for who wrote the history, the dominant narrative about the civil war up into the mid-20th century was the lost cause idea, that the confederates were the good guys and it's sad that they lost. Supporters of the Lost Cause idea, including ex-confederate leaders directly after the war, minimized the importance of slavery to try and justify the Confederacy's existence. It's only the in the last 60 years that this has changed, since historians restored slavery to its proper place in the story.

The most popular book on the war is The Battle Cry of Freedom, which gives a long history of the period before the war and is usually considered pretty balanced. 1864: Lincoln at the gates of History is good, but more detailed. The Lincoln-Douglas debates give some interesting context, and there's an audiobook with people performing the speeches that's good. Also, Frederick Douglass' autobiography is an interesting way to learn about slavery. This is already long enough, but if you want more suggestions I have lots...

I commend you for a flawless delivery of the textbook argument against the proposition that the Civil War was a war about slavery. You only need to add the argument that secession was constitutionally legal and you would have the full argument of Confederate apologists.

First, the New York draft riots were the result of a number of factors including: the government's inegalitarian draft policies and the horrible and bloody losses suffered to that point by the Union armies under the buffoonery of generals like George McClellan.

Second, all things in history are not black and white. However the existence of a large amount of moral or ethical ambiguity does not preclude the existence absolute good and absolute evil. The fact that we are able to recognize that many things contain both points to the existence of absolutes of some kind. You would be hesitant to make such a statement regarding Hitler or Charles Manson. "Yeah, Hitler did some terrible things but he wasn't all bad." No, Hitler, his ideas about race and the methods he used were pure, absolute evil.

Third, the primary weakness of this argument is the assumption that the desire to limit slavery to its existing states and territories implies a tacit acceptance of the institution's continued existence, that the only path to abolition was through criminalization (most likely through a constitutional amendment). This assumption ignores both practical considerations and historical evidence.

Limiting slavery to its existing territories was the preferred tactic by less radical abolitionists. Chattel slavery was unsustainable if it could not grow simply because slaves produced more children than could be put to work in the existing plantations and farms. The proponents of slavery sought to extend its reach primarily as an outlet for the increasing population of black slaves. When they were stopped from annexing Kansas they looked to places like Cental America and Cuba for more slave territory. William Walker of Tennessee actually temporarily conquered Nicaragua for just that purpose. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)]

Lincoln, and the Republican party were abolitionists, just not revolutionary madmen like John Brown. Their policy agenda was to limit slavery and thereby allow it to slowly wither and die. [http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=27&subjectID=3] His public statements that his desire to save the Union trumped his desire to end slavery support this. Also, it is fallacious to assume that preserving the union and ending slavery were mutually exclusive goals or that one could not be of greater immediate importance to Lincoln.

As for Lincoln's speeches, in 1858 he said this to the Republican convention, ""A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."

This argument is fleshed out in great detail and without excellent narrative skill by historian James McPherson in Battle Cry of Freedom. [http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Cry-Freedom-Civil-War/dp/0345359429]

James McPherson authored the best single-volume work on the U.S. Civil War, his Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom.

He's got many others on specific aspects of the Civil War including great works on the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg, which he's visited and explored countless times.

Battle Cry of Freedom By James McPherson is a fantastic read on the civil war era. I had to read it for a class but it was actually very interesting and I enjoyed reading it.

It may cover a span of time too small and too in depth for you but I would highly recommend it.

i just read an interesting section in this book which showed that support for secession was high in counties where the slave population was high, and low where it was low, especially west virginia and parts of tennessee and kentucky.