2,538 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
[The present constitutional crisis over slavery] embraces the fearful issue whether the Union shall stand, and slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and political causes, be removed by gradual voluntary effort, and with compensation; or whether the Union shall be dissolved and civil war ensue . . . — William H. Seward, speech to the US Senate, 1850
Their vices are vices aped from white men, or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion — and laziness . . . Promiscuity.
To read this, get behind our Paywall
James%20M.%20McPhersonand%238217%3Bs%20Battle%20Cry%20of%20Freedom%0APart%202%0A
Share
Enjoyed this article?
Be the first to leave a tip in the jar!
* * *
Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate at least $10/month or $120/year.
- Donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Everyone else will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days. Naturally, we do not grant permission to other websites to repost paywall content before 30 days have passed.
- Paywall member comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
- Paywall members have the option of editing their comments.
- Paywall members get an Badge badge on their comments.
- Paywall members can “like” comments.
- Paywall members can “commission” a yearly article from Counter-Currents. Just send a question that you’d like to have discussed to [email protected]. (Obviously, the topics must be suitable to Counter-Currents and its broader project, as well as the interests and expertise of our writers.)
To get full access to all content behind the paywall, please visit our redesigned Paywall page.
Related
-
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
-
The Significant and Decisive Influence that Leads to Wars
-
Get to Know Your Friendly Neighborhood Habsburg
-
A Family with the Wrong Members in Control: Orwell’s England
-
Crusading for Christ and Country: The Life and Work of Lieutenant Colonel “Jack” Mohr
-
Nowej Prawicy przeciw Starej Prawicy: Wprowadzenie
-
Katharine the Great: The State of British Education
-
Thank You, O. J. Simpson
1 comment
I’m glad that Mark Gullick read the McPherson book and gave us this luxuriant two-part review. Personally I found McPherson tooth-grindingly awful, but maybe that’s just me. Or maybe it isn’t.
I haven’t looked at it (or listened to it) in over ten years, but I recall that I found it full of biases and errors, and rooted in a vantage point that is basically that of the self-justifying, carpetbagging Reconstructionist. There is not an awful lot of difference between the supposedly moderate-and-balanced professor James McPherson and the bred-in-the-bone Bolshevik one, Eric Foner.
McPherson is laughably wrong in many areas: he continually confuses Emancipationists with Abolitionists, for example. (The first group wanted to work toward freeing the negro slaves, the second was mainly interested in murdering the Southern aristocrats.) On another score, he mixes up anti-Catholicism with anti-immigrant Nativism, the first of which burnt itself out in the 1830s and 40s after its leading Protestant divines grew tired of concocting Maria Monk-style convent porn and moved on to crusading against the Southern aristos. (The great mouthpiece of 1840s-50s “Nativism” was actually a first-generation Jew named Lewis C. Levin, who tried out careers in teaching; lawyering; speechifying against gambling dens and intoxicating spirits; newspaper publishing; rioting; politicking [three terms in Congress]; and finally convention-disrupting; before being declared insane and dying in a Philadelphia madhouse in 1860. Significantly McPherson does not even mention this colorful and pivotal antebellum character.)
I said it was “Reconstructionist.” Actually McPherson’s point of view is not much advanced beyond the screeching Unionism you’d find in an 1860s issue of Harper’s Weekly. When presenting the so-called “Fort Pillow Massacre” of 1864, he gives us the same sensationalized, fabricated version that initially appeared in Radical Republican papers, before it was refuted by factual testimony.
Maybe the most annoying thing about the book for me is its branding. “The Battle Cry of Freedom” is one of the most emptyheaded and meaningless songs ever to come out of that war. Unsurprisingly it wasn’t sung much during the war and was mainly unearthed afterwards for G.A.R. rallies. Its bizarre lyrics defy explanation: “Rally ’round the flag, boys”? “Down with the traitor, up with the star”? (Uhh, the flag with the single star is the flag of what you call the traitor!) And what, exactly, is this “battle cry of freedom”? Yip, yip, yipayy? Give us a hint, please. And whose freedom is being celebrated? Not the secessionist Southerners, surely.
If he wanted to present this as an unbiased history of the conflict, it would have made sense for McPherson to pick a title that was not a mindless slogan for the Yankee side. But he didn’t, because he didn’t care.
Then we have the cover painting(s). There have been several, as the book has gone through its various editions: one with a lot of smoke and Antietam, others with elaborately costumed Blues and Grays fighting at close quarters. They all show imaginary set-piece notions of what the war was about. But most of the war was not like that, any more than it was about freeing the poor negro slaves. Much of the war in its latter stages was more like The Wild Wild West (the 1960s TV comedy-drama) with an infinity of secret weapons designed and often implemented to great effect, usually by Southern scientists and inventors. Much, perhaps most, of the war took place on the water: in the open sea, in the ports, and in the rivers. Any scenes from such locations would have given a far more accurate idea of what the War Between the States looked like. But electric torpedoes and commerce raiders and blockade runners wouldn’t have matched the cartoon picture of the Civil War that most people carry about in their heads.
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but generally speaking, you can. Case in point.
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.