THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607080184
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BARRETT R. RICHARDSON
LENGTH: 90 lines
DRAWN WITH THE SWORD
Reflections on the American Civil War
JAMES M. McPHERSON
Oxford University Press. 258 pp. $25.
Who freed the slaves?
Why did the Confederacy lose?
Complex, insightful answers to these and other seemingly simplistic questions are provided by James M. McPherson in his reflections on the conflict that continues to haunt Americans, the Civil War.
McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, has added another jewel to his crown. Drawn With the Sword is a readable, thought-provoking collection of essays. McPherson, a Princeton University history professor, addresses issues and their implications rather than battles, and in so doing, illuminates ``the war that never goes away,'' for three audiences: Civil War buffs, general readers and professional historians.
In his brilliant final essay, McPherson criticizes Civil War buffs for their overriding interest in military campaigns and battle reenactments at the expense of the study of broader social and political questions. He also raps historians for churning out unreadable treatises on obscure facets of the conflict.
Interest in the Civil War seems to grow rather than diminish with the passage of time. No other period of U.S. history, including the Revolutionary War, commands such fascination at home and abroad. For example, visiting Russian historians have called Gettysburg ``the American Stalingrad.''
Although the implied comparison of the Confederacy with Nazi Germany, is debatable, ``few would gainsay the importance of the Civil War as a defining experience in American history equal to and perhaps even greater than the Revolution itself,'' McPherson writes.
Some observations made by McPherson:
* Antebellum Southern exceptionalism - In many respects the South, more than the North, resembled the majority of the world's societies, with their unfree or quasi-free, but not necessarily slave, labor forces:
``With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the Founding Fathers - a government of limited powers that protected the rights of property, including slave property.''
* The War of Southern Aggression - Who was the real aggressor in the war?
``To a good many Southerners the events of 1861-1865 have been known as `the War of Northern Aggression.' Never mind that the South took the initiative by seceding in defiance of an election of a president by a constitutional majority. Never mind that the Confederacy started the war by firing on the American flag.'' * Freeing the slaves - Did Lincoln really free the slaves or did, as some contemporary historians claim, the slaves free themselves by forcing emancipation on the Lincoln administration when they flooded into Union military camps?
Though conceding that Lincoln moved slowly at first, McPherson notes that the Union president pronounced slavery a moral evil and prosecuted the war that brought it to an end.
* Why the Confederacy lost - Although it is true that the North had overwhelming numbers and resources, the South had a good chance at winning the war and might have done just that if it had concentrated on defensive, guerrilla-type operations and eroded the North's will to fight.
Also, had Lincoln lost the election in 1864 and hoped-for European intervention on behalf of the South had materialized, the outcome might have been different. The South was further handicapped by Confederate President Jefferson Davis' weakness as a commander-in-chief and the tendency of other Southern leaders to pursue their own agendas.
Among other issues, McPherson addresses the long-neglected contribution of black soldiers to the Northern war effort, the evolution of the conflict from a limited to a total war, and the impact that the war had on the cause of liberty abroad.
There are separate essays on Generals Lee and Grant. Writes McPherson: ``Lee's victories prolonged the war until it destroyed slavery, the plantation economy, the wealth and infrastructure of the region, and virtually everything else the Confederacy stood for. That was the profound irony of Lee's military genius.'' Grant was not as colorful as Lee, and some regard him as an ``unheroic hero.'' McPherson examines the Union general through his own memoirs, written as he faced impending death from cancer, and finds answers to why the North won.
McPherson's analysis is penetrating and informative but likely to fuel more arguments by both historians and laity. Understandably, his conclusions will reinforce some readers' viewpoints but not convince history hard-liners to change their minds.
Most important, though, McPherson makes a convincing case for a narrative-synthesis approach to the writing of history. MEMO: Barrett R. Richardson is a retired staff editor who teaches
English part-time at Tidewater Community College. He lives in
Portsmouth. by CNB