The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters

“The Civil War accomplished a historic shift in American values in the direction of positive liberty. The change from all those ‘shall nots’ in the first ten amendments to the Constitution to the phrase ‘Congress shall have the power to enforce’ this provision in most of the post-Civil War amendments is indicative of that shift—especially the Thirteenth Amendment, which liberated four million slaves, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth, which guaranteed them equal civil and political rights.”

A key feature of McPherson’s text occurs when he highlights the Constitutional amendments that resulted from the Civil War and their impact on American politics and society. The primary point of Chapter 1 is that its relevance today lies in its transformation of the national character. Here, he points out that the transformation of the United States from a decentralized republic to a centralized polity is undergirded by the expansion of the powers of the federal government to intervene in the lives of its citizens, whereas the previous amendments set forth specific limits on federal power.

“Although most voters in Western and Southern states supported the war, as the months went by and no end appeared in sight, antiwar sentiment increased even though American arms experienced nothing but victory. The slavery issue compounded the controversy. Much antiwar opinion was fueled by the suspicion that the principal purpose of the conflict was to acquire more territory for slavery.”

This quote encapsulates the role of the Mexican-American War in propelling the sectional conflict over enslavement as well as the relationship between enslavement and expansionism. By going to war to expand the country’s borders without first resolving the conflict between the ideal of liberty and the practice of enslavement, the nation became divided on the issue of what to do with the ceded territories. Thus, the Mexican-American War played a prominent role in escalating tensions and ultimately led to the Civil War.

“The fears expressed by Jefferson Davis and others that California would tip the balance against the South in Congress proved baseless. The state could scarcely have given the South more aid and comfort in national politics if it had been a slave state.”

Here, McPherson outlines the irony of California’s admission as a free state, for the Democratic Party reigned and voted with the South on many issues. Additionally, the quote captures the anxiety of Southern enslavers, whose wealth and power were entirely dependent on an institution that contradicted the ideals written into the nation’s founding charter.

“Stout is uncomfortably aware that emancipation was an integral and essential part of the escalation to total war. Slaves were property owned by enemy civilians; their confiscation and emancipation and the ultimate abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment represented the destruction of the largest single category of Southern property.”

McPherson is critical of Stout’s equivocation regarding the moral stance of the North and the South in terms of war conduct. Stout claims that the Union engaged in an unjust war because they destroyed and confiscated Confederate private property. However, with this quote, McPherson conveys his disagreement with Stout’s condemnation of the North’s war tactics. Unlike Stout, he considers enslavement to be the greater ill, thereby justifying the North’s hard war strategy.

“Most clergymen as well as their parishioners in both North and South viewed the war as a holy cause. With little or no debt to St. Augustine, they came up with their own just-war theology. Unionists and Confederates alike believed that they stood at Armageddon and battled for the Lord.”

This quote introduces McPherson’s discussion of the moral absolutism that characterized both sides’ justification for their aims and conduct during the Civil War. He acknowledges the increasing religiosity prompted by the level of death and destruction that the Civil War brought. This quote hints at the ideas in Chapter 1, wherein McPherson notes the different interpretations between the North and the South regarding the convictions on which they fought. Here, however, it is not the nation’s founding documents or the founding fathers’ intentions that they have interpreted differently, but the Bible and the perceived will of God.

“The Civil War mobilized human and economic resources in the Confederacy and the Union on a scale unmatched by any other event in American history except perhaps World War II. For actual combat duty, the war of 1861-65 mustered a larger proportion of American manpower than that of 1941-45. And in another comparison with that global conflagration, the victorious power in the Civil War did all it could to devastate the enemy’s economy as well as the morale of its home-front population.”

In Chapter 4, McPherson conveys the Civil War’s scale of destruction and refutes Neely’s claim that the Civil War was characterized by remarkable restraint. To this end, he opens with a comparison to World War II, which also recalls the ideas of Chapter 3 and the total war thesis espoused by Stout and other historians of his time. Although McPherson does not align with either Neely’s or Stout’s characterizations of the Civil War, he does recognize that their perspectives are derived from their consideration of World War II. McPherson’s comparison demonstrates his participation from a place of familiarity with the scholarly discourse.

“But I think that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which defined freedom, citizenship, and equal rights, were even more nationalizing and transformative. Despite the war’s ‘harvest of death,’ three times more soldiers survived than died. Their veterans’ reunions well into the twentieth century commemorated the sacrifices of comrades who had given their lives in the war, to be sure, but they also celebrated the achievements of the living.”

McPherson rejects Schantz and Faust’s conclusion that the death toll and the institutions designed to cope with it are the greatest legacies of the Civil War. McPherson’s focus on the amendments and those who lived to see The Transformation of American National Identity conveys his judgment that the Civil War was a necessary and ultimately fruitful moment in American history, despite the high death rate.

“The Russell Corollary drove a stake through the heart of Confederate efforts to convince European governments of the blockade’s illegitimacy. But to the extent that the blockade was a practical as well as legal success, it ironically heightened the potential danger to the Union cause. Confederate diplomacy in 1862 switched its focus from discrediting the blockade to seeking diplomatic recognition of Confederate nationhood.”

McPherson’s analysis of the naval actions that prevented foreign intervention in the Civil War includes a discussion of the Confederacy’s strategies to compel Britain and France to intervene on their behalf. The Russell Corollary refers to the appendage to the Declaration of Paris that states that ships’ lack of attempt to get through a blockade is a sign of the blockade’s effectiveness. Because the Confederacy was unable to prove the illegitimacy of the blockade, it attempted to leverage the impact of the cotton famine on European economies as a means of obtaining support. In the Confederacy’s view, the recognition of Confederate nationhood would have been the first step in negotiating a treaty to end the blockade and the cotton famine.

“In the end the American Civil war proved an exception to the rule that civil wars tend to attract foreign intervention. Neither the United States nor foreign powers, especially Britain, considered it in their self-interest to provoke or undertake such intervention and acted rationally to prevent it.”

Throughout Chapter 5, McPherson discusses various actions of the Union and Confederate navies that ultimately led to nonintervention by European powers. This quote highlights the fact that all interested parties made decisions that would be most beneficial for the preservation of their own nations, and such maneuvering involved balancing military strategies and economic considerations with political aims and diplomatic relations.

“Farragut emerged as the Union navy’s foremost hero in the Civil War, and he was appointed as the nation’s first rear admiral in July 1862. But for the first year of the war, the most prominent and successful naval officer was Samuel Francis Du Pont, whose fleet won the most important Union victory in 1861 and who was subsequently named the third-ranking rear admiral in American history.”

In this passage, McPherson begins building his comparison of Du Pont and Farragut, which highlights the character traits and leadership qualities that relegated Du Pont to obscurity and propelled Farragut to acclaim. This quote illustrates that despite Du Pont’s legacy, he was initially recognized for his military prowess. However, his aversion to risk-taking was incompatible with the traits that Lincoln required of his military officers in order to defeat the Confederacy.

“In July 1866 Farragut became the first full admiral in American history, one day after Ulysses S. Grant became the first full general. In their epitaphs, it could be written that they were willing to take great risks and accept the responsibility if they failed, and reaped the rewards of success they achieved by their willingness to take those risks.”

McPherson underscores that risk-taking and accountability were admirable and necessary qualities of Lincoln’s highest military officials. McPherson opens and closes the chapter by highlighting that Farragut and Grant both possessed these qualities, in contrast to Du Pont and McClellan, whose initial acclaim was soon undermined by their risk-averse behavior and pessimistic attitudes.

“Which was the most important result of the Civil War: preservation of the Union or abolition of slavery? These two results become inextricably linked as the war went on, and by 1864 it became impossible to separate them: slavery could not have been abolished without Union victory, and preservation of the United States as one nation became dependent on the destruction of slavery.”

McPherson opens Chapter 7 with this question-and-answer format in order to ground his criticism of contemporary notions that abolition was the most important result of the Civil War, and he also challenges Gallagher’s notion that abolition was a mere by-product of the Union cause. By establishing that abolition was an intention from the start of the war, McPherson references his earlier discussions of the contradiction bequeathed by the founding fathers in professing the ideals of liberty and equality for all while practicing race-based enslavement.

“Proponents of the traditional interpretation that Lincoln had something to do with freeing the slaves, and that the Emancipation Proclamation was an important step in that process, are quite ready to acknowledge that the actions of slaves who came into Union lines forced the Lincoln administration to decide what to do about them.”

McPherson challenges the self-emancipation thesis that rose to prominence in the 1980s, which held that freedom was realized through enslaved people’s initiative rather than through the Emancipation Proclamation. In this passage, he makes a concession to acknowledge that enslaved people’s initiative was a notable part of the process of abolition, but he ultimately credits Lincoln with bringing about freedom for enslaved people, given that the Emancipation Proclamation transformed the Union army to a liberation army. The war effort therefore provided the basis for the passage and ratification of the 13th Amendment, which freed far more people than did individual escapes to Union lines.

“Lincoln came under intense pressure to retreat from the abolition of slavery as one of his publicly stated prior conditions for negotiations to end the war. He refused. To back away from the promise of freedom would be an egregious breach of faith, declared Lincoln.”

This quote refers to the impact that Black soldiers’ participation in the Union cause had on Lincoln’s commitment to abolition. As McPherson elaborates on in Chapter 9, their willingness to fight transformed emancipation from a national strategy to a national policy.

“Lincoln did not get the chance to continue the trajectory that had propelled him from the gradualist and colonizationist limitations of his antislavery convictions in earlier years toward the immediatist and egalitarian policies he was approaching by 1865.”

Before this statement, McPherson draws attention to the evolution of Lincoln’s views on enslavement and race, noting that by the end of Lincoln’s presidency, he publicly endorsed limited Black suffrage. It was precisely this suggestion of equal citizenship for Black people that prompted John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln. This quote suggests that had Lincoln not been assassinated, his perspective on race and advocacy for radical measures would have continued to evolve.

“Lincoln the politician was a master of misdirection, of appearing to appease conservatives while manipulating them toward acceptance of radical policies. Douglass and many other contemporaries failed to appreciate or even to understand Lincoln’s legerdemain. Many historians have similarly failed.”

In Chapter 8, McPherson rejects the judgments of those who have criticized Lincoln’s political and personal views on race and enslavement. To accomplish this, McPherson presents Lincoln as a pragmatic politician who used clever tactics to achieve progressive aims. This observation conveys McPherson’s admiration for Lincoln, and throughout the text, he makes it a point to acknowledge the reasons for Lincoln’s enduring legacy.

“The sixteenth president has been (so far) the only one whose presidency was wholly bounded by war. On the day Lincoln took office, the first document placed on his desk was a letter from Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter, informing him that the garrison there must be withdrawn or resupplied at the risk of war. Lincoln chose to take that risk.”

McPherson believes that Lincoln’s role as Commander in Chief is the major impetus for his enduring legacy in the historical record, so he devotes Chapter 9 to a detailed discussion of Lincoln’s war strategies. This quote also highlights the fact that Lincoln proved himself to be a risk-taker in terms of military strategy. As contrast, McPherson devotes Chapters 5 and 10 to a critical examination of the strategic failures of Du Pont and McClellan. Farragut and Grant’s approach to battle was more compatible with Lincoln’s approach, which proved beneficial in terms of Union victory.

“Freedom quite literally came from the barrel of a gun. The story of how this happened cannot be fully understood without at least some attention to military history.”

McPherson acknowledges the turn to social history from the 1960s forward but remains critical of the abandonment of military history, especially concerning Lincoln. This assertion sets the stage for McPherson’s discussion of Lincoln’s role as commander in chief, during which he provides insight into how Lincoln’s war strategies made freedom a reality and thus enabled the social-historical study of race to emerge.

“But the general heard loud and clear Lincoln’s counsel not to fight until he was ready. The problem was that he was perpetually almost but never quite ready to move. The enemy always outnumbered him, and his own army was always lacking something.”

This quote refers to a conversation between Lincoln and McClellan, in which Lincoln advised McClellan on the necessity of advancing promptly. However, Lincoln also deferred to McClellan’s authority on the decision to delay an advance in the aftermath of the disaster at Bull Run. These events demonstrate that McClellan’s military prowess was mostly confined to training soldiers to fight, and his success was hampered by his unwillingness to take the actual risk of fighting.

“They were suspicious of his politics and perhaps half believed rumors of his disloyalty, but the main reason for their conversion from supporters of McClellan to his most vocal critics was the general’s military inactivity.”

The suspicion and rumors mentioned here refer to the idea that McClellan’s military inactivity was rooted in his sympathy for Democrats and the Confederacy. It was therefore suspected that he refused to fight as a way to sabotage the Union’s efforts. The word “they” in the beginning of the passage refers to Republican senators Benjamin Wade and Zachariah Chandler, members of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War, who initially advocated for McClellan’s appointment as general in chief but later recommended his removal. The key point here is to acknowledge how McClellan’s respect as a military officer diminished as he exhibited undesirable qualities such as risk aversion and lack of accountability, for these traits were incompatible with the Lincoln administration’s needs during the war.

“Fate decreed that it fell to Lincoln, not Jefferson, to give substance and meaning to what Jefferson had called a self-evident truth. Ironically, it was the slaveholder who provided Lincoln with the opportunity to do so, for by taking their states out of the Union they set in train a progression of events that destroyed the very social and political order founded on slavery that they seceded to preserve.”

McPherson elaborates on the connection between Lincoln and Jefferson, specifically highlighting Lincoln’s sense of the contradiction between the nation’s founding ideal of equality and the institution of race-based enslavement. Jefferson, an enslaver himself, also acknowledged the contradiction, but he and the other founding fathers failed to resolve it. This quote emphasizes that the Civil War addressed the threat that such a contradiction made to the preservation of the Union.

“Just as the sacrifices of those who had fought for independence and nationhood in 1776 inspired Lincoln and the people he led, their sacrifices in the Civil War would leave a legacy of freedom and democracy in future generations.”

In this passage, McPherson draws a connection between the American Revolution and the Civil War, noting Lincoln’s deep sense of history and conviction that the Civil War would also have far-reaching implications for the future. The Civil War therefore functions as a continuation of the American experiment, of the establishment of an indivisible republic founded on principles of liberty, equality, justice, opportunity, and democracy.

“At heart, however, Johnson was a Democrat and a white supremacist, whom the Republicans had placed on the ticket in 1864 to broaden their appeal to War Democrats and border-state Unionists. Johnson’s nomination gave Republicans a short-term advantage in helping to win the election but at the cost of disastrous long-term consequences in winning the peace.”

This quote refers to Andrew Johnson, who became president by default after Lincoln’s assassination. McPherson acknowledges that the bipartisan political strategy to get Lincoln re-elected in 1864 backfired because Johnson did everything in his power to sabotage the Republican Party’s efforts to reconstruct the South upon the basis of equality, liberty, and justice for all, including the formerly enslaved. Johnson’s leniency toward the former Confederacy encouraged white Southerners’ obstinacy toward progressive reforms and enabled the violent white supremacist backlash that ensued during Reconstruction and beyond.