For Cause and Comrades

In this volume the author recreates the war and battle experience of the Civil War from the point of view of the soldiers themselves, drawing on over 25,000 letters written by more than 1000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate. He demonstrates that the men remained highly motivated and idealistic. James M. McPherson is acclaimed as one of the finest historians writing today and a preeminent commentator on the Civil War. Battle Cry of Freedom, his Pulitzer Prize-winning account of that conflict, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called `history writing of the highest order.' Now, McPherson has brilliantly recreated the war and battle experience of that war from the point of view of the soldiers themselves, drawing on at least 25,000 letters written by over 1000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, these men remained highly motivated and idealistic about the cause for which they fought, regardless of the obstacles and deprivation that they faced.