Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction

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Knopf, 1982 - Reconstruction - 694 pages
The Civil War is the central event in the American historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 preserved this creation from destruction and determined, in large measure, what sort of nation it would be. The war settled two fundamental issues for the United States: whether it was to be a nation with a sovereign national government, or a dissoluble confederation of sovereign states; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men are created with an equal right to liberty, was to continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world. The Constitution of 1789 had left these issues unresolved. By 1861 there was no way around them; one way or another, a solution had to be found. - Preface.

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Contents

OneAmerican Modernization 18001860
5
MAPS
7
TABLES
14
Copyright

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About the author (1982)

James M. McPherson is the author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, which won a Pulitzer Prize in history, and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, a Lincoln Prize winner. He is the George Henry Davis Professor of American History at Princeton University in New Jersey, where he also lives. His newest book, entitled Abraham Lincoln, celebrates the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth with a short, but detailed look at this president's life.

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