For Cause And Comrades Pdf Download

BOOK REVIEWS For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. By James M. McPherson. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xviii, 237. $25.00.) In 1994, James M. McPherson published a slender volume entitled What They Fought For, 1861-1865, in which he concluded that political and ideological issues were important to Civil War soldiers. His new book not only reinforces that argument, it also delves deeper into soldier motivation by asking why men fought and how they maintained their will to combat. In a monumental research project, McPherson has sought answers to these questions in some 25,000 soldiers ' letters and 249 diaries. The fruits of his research have provided him with a sample group of 1 ,076 soldiers, 647 (60 percent) Federals and 429 (40 percent ) Confederates. Although his sample betrays a proportional imbalance of Confederate soldiers , who counted for only 29 percent of the three million men who fought in both armies, McPherson believes it is representative of the average Civil War soldier with respect to age, marital status, geographical distribution, and branch of service. On the other hand, he acknowledges that both African Americans and white-collar occupations are underrepresented in the Union sample and that nonslaveholders are underrepresented in the Confederate sample. Officers of both armies are vastly overrepresented. McPherson's conclusions run something like this. Distinguishing first between those impulses that prompted men to enlist and those factors that kept them in the ranks, he concludes that patriotic fervor, a sense of duty and honor, a spirit of adventure, and community and peer pressure explain initial enlistments . But by the second year of the war, as more men had seen the face of battle, new motivations were required to keep them on the battle line. The example of courageous officers inspired some men, but religious faith seems to have been more important, and honor, courage, and manhood—especially the felt need to display those attributes to one's comrades—more important still. On this last point, McPherson disagrees with Gerald Lindermann, who believes the war eroded the strength of such virtues. Ultimately, McPherson retains his view that political ideals mattered most. Duty and honor counted for much, he admits, but political ideology, patriotism, nationalism, and the cause of "liberty" (however defined) instilled both sides with virtue. Northern soldiers remained convinced throughoutthe war thatthey fought BOOK REVIEWS333 "to preserve the Union as a beacon of republican liberty throughout the world" (175). Liberty rather than slavery served to rally Confederate soldiers, McPherson maintains, while the abolition of slavery became a crucial component of Northern ideology. Indeed, McPherson goes so far as to say that by the last year ofthe war "most white soldiers" fought for "black liberty as well as Union" (128). McPherson's judgments appear to be based on firm ground. Yet he also introduces numerous qualifications and caveats in drawing his conclusions, and he would be the last person to present his book as the final word on combat motivation . For every answer, another question presents itself; for every question, a further dilemma arises. Here are some of the unresolved issues that occurred to this reviewer. Might McPherson have gained additional insights and broadened his sample by considering sources other than letters and diaries? He states his case for not using memoirs, reminiscences, and other postwar writings, yet he also acknowledges that such writings, when subjected to "critical standards" (11), can be useful. Moreover, in comparing the reactions and motivations of Civil War soldiers , he frequently relies, for the sake of comparison, on postwar statements about combat motivation made by veterans oftwentieth-century wars.Although McPherson states he is not interested in the motivation of skulkers who avoided combat, much could be learned from those men, if only for contrast. They have left an enormous amount of firsthand testimony, as have lots of nonskulkers, in the army's courts-martial records. Other concerns revolve around questions not asked. Did men who served in different theaters—-say the Trans-Mississippi as opposed to Virginia—or who hailed from different parts of their respective nations have different reasons for enlisting or fighting? Does age help to explain why a man fought, or...

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