I've read a lot of books on the Civil War. So, I didn't know what to expect from this book, but recognized that James McPherson is probably the best historian on this period. The result was this book provides new insight on the war with interesting and highly readable chapters on Lincoln, Grant and Sherman, the war from the soldiers perspective, the war fought after the war on the "Lost Cause", the war from Europe's perspective, and certain battles and campaigns that McPherson considers to be crucial to the final result. A couple of chapters on whether the war was fought to end slavery or for states rights were especially interesting. I left those chapters with the opinion that it depends on your perspective - and developed a better understanding of what the war meant to our Southern brethren. As was mentioned at one time in the book, there was really no way to end this disagreement except through fighting it out. Another quite interesting chapter on the possibility of foreign intervention left me with the understanding of how close we came to French and English intervention in the Civil War, and how much this war impacted the world. The final chapter on Lincoln highlighting the sources on him, and the disagreements on who he was and even his quotes, was also very enlightening. Consequently, I highly recommend this book for any Civil War buff and even for the initiated in the field. If new to the field, I recommend that you read McPherson's book, "Battle Cry of Freedom", to provide a more detailed understanding of the Civil War.

There are literally tons of excellent Civil War books, ranging from McPherson's own "Battle Cry of Freedom," a Pulitzer Prize winner, to Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote and their multi-volume sets. If you want a more undiluted and contemporary to the time view, there may be nothing better than the 19th century "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," the four volumes of which are now available as re-prints (at least in used book stores) by Castle.

This digression is really a necessary back-drop for what McPherson has done here with "The Mighty Scourge." I can't think of a better distillation on the war, its causes and social currents before and after. McPherson does reintroduce some of his older material but the whole of the books hangs together very cohesively and persuasively. If you want to get into the details of each and every battle this book is not for you but if you want an authoritative and fully informed survey of what is most important about the subject, this is the book. When you know as much as he does about a subject, the decision of what to include and exclude to get the essence of the story across is high art. Princeton's McPherson has nailed it.

This book is pleasureable to read just for it's great writing style, besides the fascinating perspectives it brings to light. My prediction is that southern readers might not appreciate it as much and will see a north-biased theme, however, being raised in the south and having lived in the north (and now the west) I feel it's only fair that southerners should see their past exposed for the sham attempt made by their ancestors after the war to cover up the facts about the south being "pro-slavery" before and during the war. All that hypocrisy about fighting for honor ! As usually happens in life, your "beliefs" are aligned with the main source of your income. One fifth of the south pre-war population was reaping unprecedented profits from cotton, from slavery. Anyway this book covers many interesting areas and delivers a lot of new insight and for me was a great way to re-visit civil war history, after a few years of absence.

There are dozens of remarkable men and women who write intelligently and prolifically about the Civil War, and many of them have been mentored directly or indirectly inspired by James McPherson. His prose is lucid, graceful, and at times dryly humorous, and his insights frequently penetrating and always courageous.

This Mighty Scourge collects a handful of his essays, most of them previously published in one form or another. About half of the reprinted pieces are redone book reviews that originally appeared in the New York Review of Books, and half are published essays that appeared in journals or anthologies. Many of them will be more than familiar to followers of McPherson's work. For those less familiar, they serve as a good introduction to McPherson's take on the Civil War.

There are three new pieces in the collection: one on Lee's hopes for winning the peace at Gettysburg, one on the Vicksburg campaign, and a fascinating piece on Lincoln and presidential powers during wartime (especially timely today, I might add).

For my money, though, the most riveting essay in the book is "Long-Legged Yankee Lies: The Lost Cause Textbook Crusade." Shortly after Appomattox, followers of the Lost Cause, trying to salvage something from southern defeat, began to insist that the war was fought exclusively over constitutional issues, and that slavery had nothing to do with the struggle. With the formation of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) and United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), "educational" committees were established to watchdog textbooks used in primary and secondary schools as well as colleges and universities to make sure that "long-legged Yankee lies" weren't passed off as truth. Northern publishers who offended were lobbied to modify their texts, and public campaigns to expunge offending books (including Encyclopedia Britannica, for example) from libraries were launched.

Mildred Rutherford, historian general of the UDC, was a driving force in all this. In 1919, she published a list of instructions to teachers and librarians that advised them on which history books to keep and which to stay away from. Her recommendations included rejecting books that claimed the south fought to keep slaves, described slaveholders as cruel or unjust to slaves, glorified Lincoln or vilified Jefferson Davis, or neglected to tell of the "South's heroes and their deeds" (p. 102).

Extraordinary stuff. McPherson's tale of the textbook wars alone is worth the price of the book.

This book contains 16 different essays, each focused on a different topic related to the Civil War. Subjects covered include Jesse James, Harriet Tubman, the military strategies of Grant, Lee, Sherman and other generals and the effects of journalism on troop morale. Each essay is well written and has something interesting to say. But my favorite was the very first, "And The War Came", which provides an explanation of the causes of war that is as insightful, fair minded and knowledgeable as I have ever read.

McPherson correctly notes that the blame for the Civil War has to lie primarily with the South and their insistence that the "peculiar institution" of slavery be continued by any means necessary. Of course McPherson also recognizes that only a small minority of Northerners were actually dedicated abolitionists whose foremost concern was the liberation of black slaves. And when Lincoln was elected he did not immediately end slavery.

It's important to remember that the North and South had been in engaged in a bitter struggle over the admission of new states as either "slave states" or "free states" since the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The extreme determination of the South to expand the territorial boundaries of slavery is shown by their unsuccessful efforts to annex Cuba as a "slave state" in the 1850's and the efforts of Southern military adventurers to invade Nicaragua and northern Mexico in hopes of adding them as additional "slave states".

With the election of Lincoln the political tide seemed to be turning in favor of the "free state" Republicans. So pro-slavery Southerners, rather than to continue to engage in the democratic process, basically "picked up their marbles and went home", seceding from the United States.

Of course, the original and primary goal of Lincoln, and most people in the North, was not the immediate abolition of slavery but rather the preservation of the Union. In fact, as McPherson explains on page 129, if the South had been defeated prior to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 it would have been allowed to re-enter the Union and "slavery and the antebellum Southern social order would have remained largely intact."

Ultimately, it was a power struggle between the North and South over the direction of the country and thank goodness, for all our sakes, that the Yankees won. As a Southerner proud of the many positive aspects of life and culture here, I get feed up with these Confederate flag waving yahoos who still want to keep fighting the Civil War. The Civil War was fought over slavery and the South was on the wrong side of the issue. Get over it!

It's true that not all Northerners had the most altruistic of motives but they did manage to preserve the United States as a nation and we should all be happy about this fact. To me the most honorable people of all were the minority of abolitionists dedicated to ending the enslavement of African-Americans. Some abolitionists also lived in the South, including my own ancestors on my great-grandfather's side. These folks were from the Blue Ridge Mountains of north Georgia and western North Carolina, where far fewer people owned slaves and where the majority of people were opposed to Southern secession.

Much of what I have written I learned from this excellent book, which also contains a wealth of knowledge on many more intersting Civil War related themes. Kudos to the great scholar McPherson and recommended reading for all!

"This Mighty Scourge" (2007) is a short collection of sixteen essays by James McPherson that, as its subtitle indicates, offers a variety of perspectives on the American Civil War. The Civil War remains the seminal event in United States history, and McPherson is the leading history of the War now writing. With his simple writing style, erudition, willingness to explore and consider a variety of positions, and ability to convey the continued importance and significance of his chosen subject, McPherson has taught me a great deal about the Civil War. Although this book of essays can be read with benefit by those new to the study of the Civil War, it is better suited to the reader with a background in the conflict, as might be acquired from McPherson's own magisterial "Battle Cry of Freedom."

The essays are arranged in five sections which consider the causes of the Civil War, strategy, tactics, and politics, the commanders on both sides, the War as it lived on in memory in the United States, and, importantly, Lincoln.

The first section of the book, "Slavery and the Coming of War", consists of two essays, the first of which emphasizes the underlying importance of slavery as the cause of the Civil War (and summarizes much recent research on the matter), and the second of which examines two famous slaves who escaped to freedom, Harriet Tubman and Harriet Jacobs (the author of a book called "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl") together with John Brown. McPherson offers a thoughtful treatment of the controversy which still surrounds Brown.

The second section of the book, "The Lost Cause Revisited" includes six essays which examine a variety of Southern approaches to the Civil War, both during and after the conflict. I was most interested in the essay; "To Conquer a Peace" Lee's Goals in the Gettysburg Campaign" which assesses the various reasons which students of the Civil War have given for Lee's decision to invade the North, leading to the fateful battle of Gettysburg in early July, 1863. A broader essay, "Was the Best Defense a Good Offense" examines Southern strategy and tactics in prosecuting the Civil War and, as McPherson does when at his best, allows the reader to understand the complexity of the question. Other essays explore the impact of the battle of Antietam on the Confederacy's attempt to secure foreign recognition, and the manner in which "Lost Cause" advocates in the South tried to mould history to their own views in the textbooks used to teach the Civil War to high school and even college students.

In part III of the book, "Architects of Victory" McPherson focuses on the friendship between Grant and Sherman and the work of these two northen Generals in winning the War. The final essay in this section, "Unvexed to the Sea: Lincoln, Grant, and the Vicksburg Campaign" is an excellent short analysis of the pivotal campaign which, even today, does not get the attention it merits.

In "Home Front and the Battle-Front" McPherson offers three essays which examine the courage shown by Boston intellectuals in the war effort (He might have broadened his topic slightly to include Maine's Joshua Chamberlain.), the importance of newspapers to the life of the soldier on both sides of the line, and the various efforts at negotiating a peace which occurred between North and South during the conflict -- why they were initiated and why they ultimately failed.

The final section of the book consists of two essays on Lincoln whose presence is felt througout the study. McPherson suggests more than once that a key reason for the Union's success was that they had Lincoln and the Confederacy did not. The essay "To Remember that he had Lived" is a highlight of this book, and an outstanding short introduction to Lincoln's life and to the important historical sources on his life. The final essay in the book is a short summary of Lincoln's actions in suspending habeas corpus and taking a broad view of Presidential powers in prosecuting the Civil War. This subject has been explored many times, but McPherson offers a good overview.

Readers with an interest in the Civil War will learn from and be inspired to learn more from this volume. More important than any fact or controversy about the Civil War, McPherson will help the reader understand why the Civil War deserves study. He teaches how the Civil War matters.

Robin Friedman

I am from the west coast of the US and have lived in Japan for over 30 years. I read about the Civil War in elementary school through university, but it seemed very far away. I had no idea why Lincoln was considered equal to the Founding Fathers.

MacPherson has written a book that shows how the Civil War resonates, and has asked and answered questions about the war which I had wondered about. Some of these questions can even be heard today... for example, one hears Southerners talk about States Rights being the cause of the Civil War. Macpherson spells out that this does not mean that some states wanted to prohibit abortion or alcoholic drinks from the state. States Rights meant the right to have slaves. It is a kind of code.

Macpherson goes into other issues of the war... was the war necessary? Was it inevitable? How important was the issue of slavery, and why did the North think it worth a war to get rid of slavery?

After reading Macpherson's book, I wanted to read more about the Civil War. That is about the highest praise I can give a book.

The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue

I was very impressed with the way Union soldiers debated the issue of slavery in their letters (Slavery was not a controversy in the slave states, so no comparable debate took place among Confederate soldiers). Few Americans are also aware that Union soldiers' experience with confronting slavery in the South provided essential support for emancipation.

Instead of giving us a balanced study showing the foibles and positives of both sides, we are given this pro-Northern dribble. McPherson has a made career of distorting history to suit his social agenda, That puts him the same class as Howard Zinn and Eric Foner.

With 'This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War' James McPherson demonstrates once again why he is America's foremost Civil War historian. McPherson serves up sixteen essays for your delectation (most of which have been previously published elsewhere).

McPherson arranges his essays around several themes: What caused the war? What were the goals of each side? What strategies did the leaders pursue? And how is the war remembered?

McPherson's genius lies in his ability to synthesize perspectives of value to any reader, but especially the general reader with some knowledge of the war. Many of the essays analyze recent scholarship with McPherson's encyclopedic knowledge and understanding gained from years of study. This reader especially appreciates McPherson's even-handed dispassionate scholarship in a still field laced with emotional landmines despite the passage of nearly 150 years.

Despite all that has been written, McPherson remains remarkably able to bring fresh insight. One essay ('Long-Legged Yankee Lies: The Lost Cause Textbook Crusade') examines the extraordinary efforts by Confederate loyalists to distort the war's history and its teaching, especially in Southern schools. No doubt that gets the goat of the SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans) and the UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy), but they don't like him anyway.

An earlier essay ('And the War Came') establishes beyond cavil that the institution of slavery and the interests behind it were the cause of the war. In other essays McPherson examines the relative merits of Grant, Lee, and Sherman and whether the South was foreordained to lose the war due to the imbalance of resources.

I am not a Civil War historian, but I can't imagine that even the most learned professor would not benefit from McPherson's wonderfully distilled insights. I've read a number of McPherson's other works and rank this book at the top. McPherson's sparkling prose and easy clarity made reading 'This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War' a rare pleasure.

This is a fine series of essays and book reviews by the author of Battle Cry of Freedom, the best single volume on the Civil War. McPherson is a passonate and lively writer, full of interesting facts and angles on the War.

I would not, however, recommend this particular book for the Civil War neophyte, as it assumes a fair amount of prior knowledge. If your new to the subject, read Battle Cry of Freedom or any of a number of other comprehensive histories before moving on to this book.

Some of the topics:

Slavery as the the main cause of the War.
Harriet Tubman and John Brown.
Confederate war strategy-offense or defense?
Antietam as the death knell for British and French recognition of the Confederacy.
Lee's goals in Gettysberg campaign.
Jesse James' post-war motivations.
Southern censorship of history textbooks inconsistent with the "Lost Cause."
Grant and Sherman.
The North's transition from restraint to total war.
Copperhead newspapers.
Peace negotiations.
Herndon on Lincoln.
Lincoln's exercise of war powers.

The eternal tension between war powers and civil liberties is addressed in the last topic. After a military commission jailed Clement Vallandigham for "disloyal sentiments and opinions" at a crucial stage of the War, the Copperheads howled about free speech, trial by jury, and habeas corpus. Lincoln's famous response: "Must I shoot a simpleminded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch the hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?

Prof. McPherson is, in my opinion, the dean of Civil War historians, a well-earned complement. This collection of essays is up to his usual high standards. They are thoughtful, persuasively argued and well-written. Whether one is new to CW scholarship or has read hundreds of titles, this should not be missed.

This is about what we have come to expect from Dr. McPherson. It is evidently written to appeal to the greatest number with the intent of getting the greatest sales. The author is a highly overrated writer of 19th ceentury history

This book is a must for any dedicated student of the Civil War - McPherson goes into detail on issues that may have been overlooked by the average reader of the war - his ability to overcome the misguided opinion on the part of some that slavery was not the original issue underlying the decision by the South to secede and go to war helps to put to bed that long-held belief by some historical apologists

no one will be able to view Jesse James in quite the same light once they read what kind of a person he was, in reality - I sincerely believe this book will be as welcome an addition to every historians library as it is to mine

James M. McPherson's latest release is a book of Essays about various aspects of the Civil War, and it is wonderful. Not all of them have been written specifically for this publication, but those that have not have been udated. Diversity in the topics covered is very compelling, with my favorite being the chapter on Jesse James--and the havoc he and his brothers caused in Missouri during the War. The writing is supurb. The choice of subjects includes most everything you might want to read about--and the chapter lengths are not overwhelming. Best thing about a book of essays is that it does not have to be read in sequence. So it is a great gift for a very busy person--with limited time to read.

The historian James McPherson is an accomplished author and a hard-eyed student of his subjects. This volume, containing a series of some works already previously published and some that had not yet appeared in print, leaves one asking for more. The issue? The "chapters" are quite brief, and the insights and wisdom of the author only cover so much territory. Chapters run to maybe 10-15 pages each, for the most part. And that can only give one a taste that leaves one desiring yet more.

At that, this is still an interesting volume. McPherson does not rant; he raises thoughtful points and encourages readers to think about the issues that he raises. Key questions that various segments of the book address (page ix): "Why did the war come? What were the war aims of each side? What strategies did they employ to achieve their aims? Did the war's outcome justify the immense sacrifice of life? What impact did the experience of war have on the people who lived through it? How did later generations remember and commemorate that experience?"

Let's consider a handful of the essays. Chapter 4: "Was the best defense a good offense?" explores the variety of views on the Confederacy's strategy. Should it be a defensive policy only, given the need for Union forces to occupy a vast territory? A Fabian strategy was advocated by some (such as Joe Johnston). Others, like Robert E. Lee, favored a more offensive strategy (perhaps best described, in terms of this chapter, as an "offensive defensive" strategy). This chapter examines the internal debate lucidly. Chapter 5 is intriguingly entitled "The Saratoga that Wasn't: The Impact of Antietam Abroad." The South wanted recognition by other countries, in order to receive active foreign support and nurture their revolution. They came tantalizingly close on a handful of occasions, as they scored impressive victories over Union forces. However, Antietam, which some had looked forward to as a potential Saratoga--when foreign governments began to proffer aid to the rebels in the Revolutionary War. But Lee's forces did not prevail and, with the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, any real hope for European intervention on behalf of the South dissipated.

There is consideration elsewhere of "The Lost Cause" notion. McPherson handles this well. He also considers the relationship between Generals Grant and Sherman, the Vicksburg Campaign, and so on.

All in all, a most literate work, but one that leaves this reader a bit dissatisfied, wanting more than the format can provide. Nonetheless, an insightful volume.

I get lost in some history books but this was so well written and moved along so quickly that it was a total pleasure to read. I enjoyed his discussion of each controversy, and gained insight into this awful war.
I especially enjoyed the chapter on why the war was fought, and the chapter on the campaign by Sons of Confederate Veterans to re-write history. The Confederates fought bravely--no one can take that away from them--but isn't that enough to be honored forever? Why not accept "our cause was wrong, but we still have much to be proud of". That's how I think of my own beloved Confederate ancestors. True pride and honor can't be built on revisionist history. It's better if we realize our humaness and that every person and civilization is in error about something.
He takes on the glorification of Jesse James too...Excellent.

I borrowed this book from a local library and like it so much after that I just ordered a copy for myself.

Mr. McPherson's book is an excellent re-examination of a wide range of historical subjects and materials relating to the Civil War. While many of the ideas are not entirely new, Mr. McPherson has breathed new life into them by presenting a very readable, very sane, and common sense evaluation of how recent revisionist history has warped our perceptions of the "true" historical record of the war.

As a Northern Civil War buff stuck in the south, who is regularly subjected to the neo-Confederate rantings of my new found southern bretheren (whether I want to hear them or not), I am glad that I can read something which affirms that my previous assumptions and perceptions of the War of Southern Rebellion are not as far off the mark (a bunch of damned Yankee lies) as I have recently been almost forced to believe.

Pulitzer Prize-wining historian and author James McPherson has compiled a wonderful collection of chapters on "This Mighty Scourge" - the American Civil War.

Most of these have been previously published elsewhere, but McPherson updates them to encompass the latest historiography on a war that killed some 620,000 Americans on both sides.

McPherson discusses the issue of slavery as one of the root causes of the war, authoritatively debunking post-war myths that the Confederates were not fighting to retain that hideous institution. He goes on to examine new works on why the Confederacy lost the war and then discusses Lincoln, Grant and Sherman as the architects of the long and hard-fought Union victory. Next he looks at the Home and Battle fronts, including the important role of the press in uplifting and undermining morale on both sides. Finally, he concludes with several chapters on Abraham Lincoln as President and Command and Chief.

This is not only good history, it is important history. McPherson shatters a multitude of myths that have arisen since the war, the most important of these being that the South did not fight the war for slavery's sake. The author shows conclusively, quoting the President and Vice President of the Confederacy early in the war, that slavery was indeed one of the root causes of the most destructive war in American history.

If you read one book on the American Civil War this year - read this one!

Reading this book allowed me to put together many of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle used to justify slavery in the land of freedom. The short topics and subject matter provide a lot of enjoyable and informative reading.

Professor McPherson is our best living historian of the Civil War period.
His informed insights, as presented in these varied and well-written essays, will be helpful to all but the firmly closed-minded.

Truth does win out. Lincoln was a wise politician and Grant a very good general. The South lost, and we are a better country for that signal fact.

This Mighty Scourge by James M. McPherson is a collection of sixteen essays written by America's preeminent Civil War historian. Quite simply, if McPherson takes the time to write something, any person with more than a passing interest in that period of history should take the time to read them. Of the sixteen there was not one in the collection that was not only well researched but also quite interesting and well written.

McPherson's best trait is best summed up in comments in the Washington Post in its review of his Drawn with a Sword. "McPherson is uniformly interesting and, to the general reader's eternal relief, both lucid and uncondescending." A Professor Emeritus from Princeton, McPherson's best known work and likely his best historical narrative work, is Battle Cry of Freedom. It is not an overstatement to say that it is the finest work on the Civil War, a topic that along with Lincoln has had no shortage of research or publications. Interestingly, in the book's penultimate essay, McPherson writes about the challenges faced by historians in deciding what Lincoln said, did not say, or even might have said. It is also in this essay that he refers to David Herbert Donald's relatively recent biography, "Lincoln", as majestic. I would agree with his assessment, as have many, and put that book along side the professor's own works on even a limited shelf of works on this period.

While I had had read many of these essays in a previous and somewhat different form in the New York Review of Books, they are still well worth a second read. It is telling that the NYRB almost always uses the services of McPherson to review any new titles of the Civil War period. He is a treasure as both an historian and, to no small degree, as a writer. A marvelous combination.

Dr. McPherson is the best Civil War historian we have in America, and his latest book This Mighty Scourge only solidifies his place as the best. The book is a series of essays and reflections on the Civil War, focusing on things like the Lost Cause Myth to Newspapers during the Civil War. McPherson's strength is his ability to write in a very simple and clear way. Anyone who is interested in the Civil War Era should pick this book up. It is a quick read that will enlighten even the most serious student of American History.

I though this book was very well written and interesting.

Having been raised and educated in the South I found the group of essays titled "The lost Cause Revisted" to be very interesting and illuminating. All of the old Confederate explanations and excuses for the war are examined and pretty much exposed for what they are; dumb reasons for ever thinking they could win a war against the North and misguided judgement of world view of slavery.

A very good book. I recommend it.

McPherson is a highly respected authority on the Civil War. This book seems to me almost his signature wrap up on his distinguished career. It is a book of wisdom, as opposed to just intelligence. Many of the essays are old and appeared in various periodicals. That doesn't lose any of his continuity and coheremce of presentation.

What I most like about the book is his generosity of spirit. He gets inside so many of his subjects, especially Grant and Sherman. He brings the War down from abstract policy to the dilemmas of action and everyday engangement. I don't think I learnt anything new but I got new slants on some many issues.

It's worth reading the book for just the one superb chapter about the Brahmins -- aristocrats from New England, the Harvard brigade and the other Northen elites, who not only served in the War but served magnificently and courageously because they were part of a spirit of noblesse oblige. Guts, honor, bravery....... No comment on the Dick Cheney draft deferments and Jim Webb's honor, but........

A fine book. Truly fine.

This slim volume of essays packs a real punch. Each is a small gem---well written, thoughtful and civil(even when debunking competing views), and honest(he looks back and revises some views based on recent scholarship). Some of the topics: Grant was great because he had "common sense" a la Harry Truman; the war for the South was about keeping slavery not the later, more palatable view of "we fought for states rights"; many men died, often in attacks that all knew would end in death because the notions of honor and duty were powerful and very real motivations. A welcome addition to an already impressive body of work.