Missing History: Omissions in James McPherson's Book The Battle Cry of Freedom

Missing History: Omissions in James McPherson's Book The Battle Cry of Freedom

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

James McPherson's book The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988) has been hailed as one of the best books ever written on the War Between the States. When the book was published in 1988, a Newsweek review declared the work would be "the standard for the next three decades." Newsday declared, "this book may not be superseded in our time." In 1989 the book won McPherson the Pulitzer Prize. Many colleges and universities continue to use the book as a textbook, and it is still sold in nearly all bookstores. In my opinion, The Battle Cry of Freedom is a superb book in many respects. I would include it on any student's "required reading list." However, McPherson omits many important facts about the issues and events that led to the Civil War and about the war itself. What follows is a list of some of those facts.

1. One of the first acts of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, was to send a peace delegation to Washington, D.C., in an effort to establish peaceful relations with the North. Abraham Lincoln would not even meet with the delegation.

2. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the seceded states if they didn't pay federal tariffs or if they didn't allow the federal government to occupy federal installations within their borders. Said Lincoln,

The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion. . . .

"Beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion." So there would be an invasion if it were necessary "for these objects," i.e., for the occupation of federal installations, which everyone knew was a reference to federal facilities in the seceded states, and for the collection of duties and imposts.

3. The state of South Carolina offered to pay compensation for Fort Sumter, and the Confederacy was prepared to do the same.

4. The Confederacy was prepared to pay compensation for all federal installations in the South.

5. The Confederacy announced in its provisional constitution that it was willing to enter into negotiations with the North in order to arrange for payment of the South's fair share of the national debt.

6. The Confederacy guaranteed the Northern states access to the Mississippi River. Jefferson Davis explained,

The legislation of the Confederate Congress furnishes the best evidence of the temper and spirit which prevailed in the organization of the Confederate government. . . .

By an act approved on February 26 [1861], all laws which forbade the employment in the coasting trade of vessels not enrolled or licensed, and all laws imposing discriminating duties on foreign vessels or goods imported in them, were repealed. These acts and all other indications manifest the well-known wish of the people of the Confederacy to preserve the peace and encourage the most unrestricted commerce with all nations, surely not least with their late associates, the Northern states. (Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, New York: De Capo Press, 1990, reprint of 1881 edition, pp. 210-211)

7. Three of the original thirteen states that ratified the Constitution specified in their ratification ordinances that the people of those states reserved the right to resume the powers of government, and they were admitted into the Union on the basis of those documents. The three states were New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia: