The Negro's Civil War

The Negro's Civil War - How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union.

In this classic study, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James M. McPherson deftly narrates the experience of blacks--former slaves and soldiers, preachers, visionaries, doctors, intellectuals, and common people--during the Civil War. Drawing on contemporary journalism, speeches, books, and letters, he presents an eclectic chronicle of their fears and hopes as well as their essential contributions to their own freedom. Through the words of these extraordinary participants, both Northern and Southern, McPherson captures African-American responses to emancipation, the shifting attitudes toward Lincoln and the life of black soldiers in the Union army. Above all, we are allowed to witness the dreams of a disenfranchised people eager to embrace the rights and the equality offered to them, finally, as citizens.

“McPherson shatters the belief that [blacks] were passive about their freedom. His evidence is telling and, what is more, it is absorbingly retold.” —The New York Times

“Tremendous research. . . . Deserves a place on the shelves of readers interested in all phases of the 1861-65 struggle.” –Houston Chronicle

About the author: James M. McPherson is best known for his classic work on the American Civil War, The Battle Cry of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. He is a professor in the Department of History at Princeton University.

• Author: James M. McPherson
• Published: Oct 2003
• paperback book
• size: 6 x 9
• pages: 400