Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (173 page)

James M. McPherson
Princeton, April 23, 2003

6
. See Jeffrey Rogers Hummel,
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War
(Chicago, 1996); Thomas J. DiLorenzo,
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
(New York, 2002); M. E. Bradford,
Remembering Who We Are: Observations of a Southern Conservative
(Athens, Ga., 1985) and
The Reactionary Imperative: Essays Literary and Political
(Peru, Ill., 1990).

Abbreviated Titles

Bibliographical Note

This guide to books about the Civil War and its causes includes only a fraction of the studies cited in the footnotes, which in turn constitute but a portion of the sources consulted in the research for this book. And that research merely sampled the huge qorpus of literature on the Civil War era, which totals more than 50,000 books and pamphlets on the war years alone—not to mention a boundless number of articles, doctoral dissertations, and manuscript collections. Indeed, there are said to be more works in English on Abraham Lincoln than on any other persons except Jesus of Nazareth and William Shakespeare.

The best introduction to this era can be found in two multi-volume studies, published a half-century apart, which have become classics in American historiography: James Ford Rhodes,
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Restoration of Home Rule at the South
, 7 vols. (New York, 1892–1906); and Allan Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union
, 4 vols., and
The War for the Union
, 4 vols. (New York, 1947–71). These magisterial volumes present a strong nationalist interpretation of the crisis of the Union, as do nearly all biographies of Lincoln, of which the fullest are John G. Nicolay and John Hay,
Abraham Lincoln: A History
, 10 vols. (New York, 1890), by the wartime president's private secretaries; and James G. Randall,
Lincoln the President
, 4 vols. (New York, 1945–55; Vol. IV completed by Richard N. Current), a scholarly
tour de force
marred only by Randall's attempt to squeeze Lincoln into a conservative mold that he did not quite fit. For an ov-ercorrection of that viewpoint, consult the most readable one-volume biography, Stephen B. Gates,
With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln
(New York, 1977). Reflecting a southern viewpoint toward this divisive era is Hudson Strode's biography
Jefferson Davis
, 3 vols. (New York, 1955–64). The papers of these two leading actors in the ordeal of American and Confederate nationalism have been published in Roy P. Easier, ed.,
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
, 9 vols. (New Brunswick, 1953–55) an
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
—
Supplement
, 1832–1865 (New Brunswick, 1974); and Dunbar Rowland, ed.,
Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches
, 10 vols. (Jackson, Miss., 1923). Rowland's edition has been superseded for the years through 1855 by Haskell M. Monroe, Jr., James T. Mclntosh, Lynda L. Crist, and Mary S. Dix, eds.,
The Papers of Jefferson Davis
, 5 vols. to date (Baton Rouge, 1971–85). Mark E. Neely, Jr.,
The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia
(New York, 1982) contains an extraordinary amount of useful information about the sectional conflict and war; as does David C. Roller and Robert W. Twy-man, eds.,
The Encyclopedia of Southern History
(Baton Rouge, 1979). Two other reference works, while focusing mainly on military events and personnel, also include some political developments of the antebellum as well as war years: Mark M. Boatner III,
The Civil War Dictionary
(New York, 1959); and Patricia L. Faust, ed.,
Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War
(New York, 1986).

A study of antebellum economic developments that has achieved the status of a classic well worth reading is George Rogers Taylor,
The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860
(New York, 1951). A more recent study by the dean of American economic historians, Thomas C. Cochran,
Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in America
(New York, 1981), also focuses on the antebellum era. The rise of the "American System of Manufactures" is chronicled in Nathan Rosenberg, ed.,
The American System of Manufactures
(Edinburgh, 1969); and Otto Mayr and Robert C. Post, eds.,
Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures
(Washington, 1981). Paul Wallace Gates,
The Farmers' Age: Agriculture 1815–1860
(New York, 1962), chronicles changes in agriculture during this era; while Gavin Wright,
The Political Economy of the Cotton South
(New York, 1978), and Harold D. Woodman,
King Cotton and His Retainers
(Lexington, 1968), analyze the production and marketing of the South's leading crop. Daniel J. Boorstin,
The Americans: The National Experience
(New York, 1965), provides fascinating vignettes on how Americans in all walks of life interacted with each other and with their environment.

The most succinct and sensible study of education during this era is Carl F. Kaestle,
Pillars of the Republic: Common Schooling and American Society, 1780–1860
(New York, 1983), which synthesizes a large body of scholarship in a readable, informative fashion. On immigration and nativism, three classic studies are still the best places to begin: Marcus Lee Hansen,
The Atlantic Migration 1607–1860
(Cambridge, Mass., 1940); Oscar Handlin,
Boston's Immigrants 1790-1880: A Study in Acculturation
(rev. ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1959); and Ray Allen Billing-ton,
The Protestant Crusade 1800–1860
(New York, 1938). The image of Irish-Americans is analyzed in Dale T. Knobel,
Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America
(Middletown, Conn., 1986). For the antebellum temperance movement, see Ian R. Tyrell,
Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America 1800–1860
(Westport, Conn., 1979); and Jed Dannenbaum,
Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reform in Cincinnati from the Wash-ingtonian Revival to the WCTU
(Urbana, 1984). Perhaps the best introductions to the large literature on the abolitionist movement are James Brewer Stewart,
Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery
(New York, 1976); and Ronald G. Walters,
The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after
1830 (Baltimore, 1976).

The impact of the antebellum economic transformation on the American working class has been the subject of numerous excellent studies in recent years, including: Thomas Dublin,
Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826—1860
(New York, 1979); Jonathan Prude,
The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts, 1810–1860
(Cambridge, 1983); Sean Wilentz,
Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850
(New York, 1984); and Steven J. Ross, Workers
on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890
(New York, 1985). Changes in the roles of women and the family during this era have also generated a rich and growing body of literature, including: Nancy F. Cott,
The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England
, 1780–1835 (New Haven, 1977); Carl N. Degler,
At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present
(New York, 1980); Mary P. Ryan,
Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York
, 1790–1865 (Cambridge, Mass., 1981); Catherine Clinton,
The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South
(New York, 1982); and Ellen Carol DuBois,
Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent
Women's
Movement in America
1848–1869 (Ithaca, 1978).

The "Second Party System" of Jacksonian Democrats and Clay Whigs that formed around economic issues associated with banking, the transportation revolution, and industrialization in the 1830s is analyzed in Richard P. McCormick,
The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era
(Chapel Hill, 1966); Arthur M. Schles-inger, Jr.,
The Age of Jackson
(Boston, 1945); Jean Baker,
Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
(Ithaca, 1983); Daniel Walker Howe,
The Political Culture of the American Whigs
(Chicago, 1979); John Ashworth,
"Agrarians
&
Aristocrats": Party Political Ideology in the United States
, 1837–1846 (London, 1983); Bray Hammond,
Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War
(Princeton, 1957); James Roger Sharp,
The Jacksonians versus the Banks: Politics in the States after the Panic of
1837 (New York, 1970); and William G. Shade,
Banks or No Banks: The
Money Issue
in Western Politics
, 1832–1865 (Detroit, 1972). The strongest advocates of an "ethnocultural" interpretation of northern politics are: Lee Benson,
The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case
(Princeton, 1961); and Ronald P. Formisano,
The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan
, 1827–1861 (Princeton, 1971). The shape of the relationship between economy, society, and political culture in the South, with particular emphasis on non-slaveholding whites, is outlined by: J. Mills Thornton III,
Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800–1860
(Baton Rouge, 1978); Steven Hahn,
The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890
(New York, 1983); Marc W. Kruman,
Parties and Politics in North Carolina 1836–1865
(Baton Rouge, 1983); Harry L. Watson,
Jacksonian Politics and Community Conflict: The Emergence of the Second American Party System in Cumberland County, North Carolina
(Baton Rouge, 1981); Paul D. Escort,
Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850–1900
(Chapel Hill, 1985); and J. William Harris,
Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society: White Liberty and Black Slavery in Augusta's Hinterlands
(Middletown, Conn., 1986).