CherryHooper

What They Fought For as written by James McPherson is a small yet concise volume founded on a fascinating thesis about soldiers coming from the South and the North fighting to relatively large extent for beliefs, and not entirely as brothers with different troops, for manhood ideals, for notions of duty and honor and many other reasons. It is important to realize how the author used many diaries and letters as written by the soldiers as his database. These were both from Confederate ranks and the union. The author makes an observation in the informative essay outline that the soldiers were motivated by various things, but ideology stood out in that not many soldiers had an idea of what they fought for. It is a concise piece of writing that is worth reading and provides important facts about what the soldiers fought for.

This book presents the author’s study about the union and confederate soldiers in the times of the Civil War as an evaluation of the beliefs they held, which were the reason for fighting the war. There is a continuous debate concerning the Civil War and its beginnings and the reason why the soldiers engaged in the fight. The author shows the reader words that came directly from those taking part in the war. There is a very enlightening and educational view of the Civil War soldiers’ ideology. This is seen through the first chapter on the Confederate soldiers’ correspondence and for the Union soldiers in chapter 2. The final chapter highlights the perceptions of both groups about slavery. Even though the book is short, there is depth of content about the subject under study.

The conscientious defense by the author of the American Civil War progressive character is very much evident. Through this approach, McPherson could be seen taking a rather different way. While the Civil War has been belittled in terms of significance by different writers, the author takes the magnitude in it and analyses it from the horse’s mouth. McPherson’s book What They Fought For is a confirmation that the Civil War was actually based on something and that a majority of those who took part in the war knew very well about the issue. This book is written in the words of the author to dismiss the “usual impression that the soldiers in the Civil war did not have the idea of the reason they were engaged.”

This book raises sharp blows conceptions that prevail about the Civil War. It is in the norm of the modern society to believe that masses have never taken part consciously in the social changes realized in the past and that they can never understand ideas that transform the universe. Intellectual motivations in this writing are considered by McPherson as the triggers for the Civil War soldiers. In the introductory part of the book, the author says that the writing has been shaped out of research for a bigger book supposedly “why they fought” where one of the objectives to get attention was ideology. Additionally, ideology has come up to be of great significance than it was initially conceived by the author.

The material used by the author was culled from letters, which were about 25,000 and many other diaries from the Union Soldiers. The general motives of the Northern and Southern soldiers have been well analyzed while the attitudes held towards slavery are addressed in the last chapter. As a way of introducing the work, McPherson takes the general perception that a big number of the soldiers coming from both sides were largely aware of the matters at stake and eagerly wanted to know concerning them. The author states that they were the most cultured and knowledgeable armies ever in the history of the world. This was due to the fact that a number exceeding 80% for the Confederate soldiers and the white Union soldiers accounting for more than 90% had the ability to write and read as well. Moreover, a good number of the soldiers volunteered in the war and they were mostly 24 years of age. This implied that many of them took part in the 1860 United States election, which was the most momentous and heated of all times in America.

McPherson has done an excellent work in giving detailed information during the time. Based on the diaries’ quotes provided, newspapers were largely read in both political and armies. Various units according to McPherson founded debating societies, which took into account multifaceted social queries. One of these social organizations amidst convalescing soldiers argued that the struggle of the time would maintain and establish a republican type of regime more than what was experienced in the Revolutionary War. The first American Revolution legacy was actually owned by both sides. Even though it could appear ludicrous this day, the Confederate apologists showed the chattel slavery preservation as the defense of the biggest democratic principles of the republic of the United States.

The soldiers from the south continued to make reference in their diaries and letters to the 1776 conventions. These diaries and letters have formed a big part of the information provided in this book. They mainly addressed issues of freedom and liberty and social justice. McPherson uses the word “subjugated” to make reference to the fate considered worse even more than death that would affect the southern whites in the event that the Confederacy did not succeed in the war. That fate was also defined through “Enslavement.” The patriotism of the Union soldiers at its bets was coupled with a democratic content of revolution. The reality therein was not “countrywide” although global and embracing all, contrary to the striving for wealth, territory and privileges with which we connect contemporary-day bourgeois patriotism. The soldiers who were more advanced on political matters as quoted by McPherson were animated through big principles and not just the defense of a specific entity on geographical terms. Majority of the Union soldiers voiced with exceeding passion their conviction on the United States’ preservation as the pillar of freedom and liberty to people from all walks of life.

The use of primary sources and the simplicity nature of this piece of work by McPherson give it strength. The fight during the Civil War is tackled in a different and wider perception. The value of the content in the book cannot be exhausted. The reader can easily identify with the events of the time and get a picture of how the severity of the war could have been. The Civil War has been an important historical subject that has attracted many writers and perceptions from different schools of thought. Well, McPherson helps clarify contentious issues revolving around it. The book unveils important aspects of the war directly from the participants. Consequently, it gives it an upper hand over other sources covering the same subject.

The content found in this book is a resourceful antidote to this narrow and past perception. It brings to memory a past time when many people in America fought with many of them dying just because of big ideals. The Civil War led to northern capitalism victory. That system currently has taken its route as was the case of slavery realized in the South in 1860. An emerging crop of employees and young individuals will take the struggle upon themselves today against the out-fashioned capitalist order based on bigger ideals and principles. They may do even worse than to examine the example set in about determination and self-sacrifice by those who fought in the 1861-1865 American Revolution for a second time. McPherson has done excellent work in writing this informative and again educational book for anyone seeking to know basic facts about the Civil War.