Readings

James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire (McGraw-Hill, 2000). (textbook)

Written by a leading Civil War historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, this text describes the social, economic, political, and ideological conflicts that led to a unique, tragic, and transitional event in American history. Ordeal by Fire seeks both to tell an important story and to explain the meaning of that story. It blends the most up-to-date scholarship with the author's own interpretations based on decades of teaching, research, and writing about this era.

This third edition incorporates recent scholarship and new perspectives on the social and economic history of the era, especially with respect to women, the homefront during the war, and the black experience during Reconstruction. In addition, the third edition also contains new material on the motivations of common soldiers and their understanding of what they were fighting for; the war in the trans-Mississippi West; intelligence and espionage operations; the assassination of Lincoln; the psychological impact of the war in the South and the origins of the Lost Cause mentality; and Ulysses S. Grant's presidency.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself, ed. David W. Blight (Bedford St. Martin's Press, 1993).

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave is a great story about the meaning of slavery and freedom in antebellum America. The most artistically crafted and widely read of all the American slave narratives, Douglass's first of three autobiographies is at once a work of imaginative literature, abolitionist argument, and historical analysis. This book was Douglass's quest to authenticate himself, to claim a free identity, and to issue his own unique indictment of slavery. It was also his effort to work through an anguished past representative of many African-American slaves, to "pour out," as he said, "his soul's complaint." Thus, from reading Douglass's Narrative, we can behold much more than the human made chattel. Behold how the slave became a man, how the field hand became a man with a mind, and how the fugitive slave became an abolitionist lecturer and the author of one of the greatest works of antislavery literature in the nineteenth century. But behold as well a deeply imagined story about the universal quest for real, self-conscious freedom.

David W. Blight is professor of history and black studies at Amherst College. His scholarly work is concentrated on nineteenth-century America, with a special interest in the Civil War and Reconstruction, African-American history, and American intellectual and cultural history. He has lectured widely on Frederick Douglass and served as a consultant to documentary films on African-American history, including the PBS television film Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History. His book, Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee is an award-winning intellectual biography of Douglass and a study of the meaning of the Civil War. He is the author of numerous essays on abolitionism and African-American intellectual history.

Sam R. Watkins, Co. Aytch: A Confederate's Memoir of the Civil War (MacMillan Publishing Co., 1997).

Early in May 1861, twenty-one-year-old Sam R. Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee, joined the First Tennessee Regiment, Company H, to fight for the Confederacy. Of the 120 original recruits in his company, Watkins was one of only seven to survive every one of its battles, from Shiloh to Nashville. Twenty years later, with a "house full of young 'rebels' clustering around my knees and bumping about my elbows," he wrote this remarkable account of "Co. Aytch"—its common foot soldiers, its commanders, its Yankee enemies, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate surrender on April 26, 1865.

Co. Aytch is the work of a natural storyteller who balances the horror of war with an irrepressible sense of humor and a sharp eye for the lighter side of battle. Among Civil War memoirs, it is considered a classic—a living testament to one man's enduring humanity, courage, and wisdom in the midst of death and destruction.

James M. McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861-1865 (Anchor Press, 1995).

In an exceptional and highly original analysis, James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, draws on the writings of nearly one thousand Union and Confederate soldiers to discover what motivated the individual soldier to fight in the defining American conflict. In their letters home and their diaries—neither of which were subject to censorship—these men were able to comment on a wide variety of issues connected to their war experiences. Their insights show how deeply felt and strongly held their convictions were and reveal far more careful thought on the ideological issues of the war than has previously been believed to be true.

What They Fought For gives voice to the very men who risked their lives in this struggle and places them in the great and terrible choir of a country divided against itself. The result is both impressive scholarly tour de force and a lively, highly accessible account of the sentiments of both Northern and Southern soldiers during the national trauma of the Civil War.

The Declaration of Independence (1776)

The Constitution of the United States of America (1787)

The Bill of Rights (1791)

Thomas Jefferson's "Firebell in the Night" Letter (1820)

Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Speech (July 4, 1852)

John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good" Speech (February 6, 1837)

Henry Clay Opposes the Mexican-American War (1847)

John L. O'Sullivan Promotes "Manifest Destiny" (1845)

John C. Calhoun's Speech on the Compromise of 1850 (March 4, 1850)

Daniel Webster, "Seventh of March Speech" (March 7, 1850)

Press Reaction to the Dred Scott Decision (1858)

William Henry Seward, "Higher Law" Speech (March 11, 1850)

Ostend Manifesto (October 18, 1854)

Abraham Lincoln on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (October 16, 1854)

Charles Sumner, "Crime Against Kansas" Speech (May 19-20, 1856)

Preston Brooks Defends His Assault on Charles Sumner (July 14, 1856)

Preston Brooks Appeals to His Constituents in the South Carolinian (July 18, 1856)

Press Reaction to Sumner's Beating (1856)

William Henry Seward, "Irrepressible Conflict" Speech (October 25, 1858)

James Henry Hammond, "Cotton is King" Speech (March 4, 1858)

John Brown's Final Address to the Court (November 2, 1859)

Editorials on John Brown's Raid (1859)

Republican National Platform of 1860

Democratic Platform of 1860 (Douglas Faction)

Democratic Platform of 1860 (Breckinridge Faction)

Constitutional Union Party Platform of 1860

Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)

Robert Toombs' Speech to the Georgia Legislature (November 13, 1860)

Alexander Stephens' Speech to the Georgia Legislature (November 14, 1860)

Alexander Stephens, "Cornerstone Speech" (March 21, 1861)

Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Speech (February 18, 1861)

Winfield Scott to George B. McClellan on the Anaconda Plan (1861)

Robert E. Lee Letter to Jefferson Davis (September 3, 1862)

Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863)

General George B. McClellan's General Order No. 163 on the Emancipation Proclamation (October 7, 1862)

Lord John Russell's Memorandum on British Intervention (October 13, 1862)

Resolution Passed by the General Assembly of Georgia Declaring the Late Act of Congress for the Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus Unconstitutional (March 19, 1864)

Georgia Governor Joe Brown's Correspondence with Jefferson Davis on the Conscription Act (April 22, April 29, May 9, 1862)

Governor Zebulon Vance's Message to the General Assembly of North Carolina (May 17, 1864)

Confederate Bill To Suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus (November 10, 1864)

Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (December 8, 1863)

Abraham Lincoln's Reconstruction Speech (April 11, 1865)

American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission Report (June 30, 1863)

Ulysses S. Grant's Plan for the Spring Offensive of 1864

William T. Sherman's Letter to the Mayor and City Council of Atlanta (September 12, 1864)

Democratic Party Platform of 1864

Republican Party Platform of 1864

Letter from Major General Patrick Cleburne to Lieutenant General Joseph Johnston (January 2, 1864)

Letter from Robert E. Lee to Andrew Hunter (January 11, 1865)

Black Codes of Mississippi (1865)

Thaddeus Stevens' Speech in the House of Representatives (December 18, 1865)

Thaddeus Stevens' Speech in Lancaster, PA (September 6, 1865)

The Reconstruction Amendments: Amendments XIII (1865), XIV (1868), and XV (1870)

First Reconstruction Act (1867)

Andrew Johnson's State of the Union Message (December 3, 1867)

Henry Grady, "The New South" Speech (December 22, 1886)

Frederick Douglass, "Address to the Louisville Convention" (1883)

Coursepack (available for purchase in the UPS bookstore)

James M. McPherson, "If the Lost Order Hadn't Been Lost: Robert E. Lee Humbles the Union, 1862" from Robert Cowley, ed., What If? (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1999), pp. 223-238.

William Freehling, "The Founding Fathers and Slavery," American Historical Review 77 (February 1972): 81-93.

Edward Pessen, "How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South?" American Historical Review 85 (December 1980): 1119-1149.

James M. McPherson, "Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question," from Drawn by the Sword (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 3-23.

Excerpts from Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1974), pp. 59-78, 86-94, 191-209.

Excerpt from Eugene Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), pp. 13-36.

Statistics from the U.S. Census of 1860 (http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/).

Table of U.S. Exports in 1859 from E. N. Elliott, Cotton is King and Proslavery Arguments (Augusta, GA: Pritchard, Abbott, & Loomis, 1860), p. 267.

Slaves and Slaveholders by State (1860) from Harold Woodman, ed., Slavery and the Southern Economy: Sources and Readings (San Francisco: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966), pp. 14-15.

"The Role of the Plain Folk," from Frank Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1949), pp. 133-149.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Yeomen and Planter Hegemony" from Paul Escott and David Goldfield, eds., Major Problems in the History of the American South: Volume I: The Old South (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1990), pp. 362-369.

Excerpt from Frederick Law Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom (New York: The Modern Library, 1984), pp. 84-109.

Eugene Genovese, "Paternalism and Slave Culture," from Paul Escott and David Goldfield, eds., Major Problems in the History of the American South: Volume I: The Old South (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1990), pp. 318-325.

Kenneth Stampp, "To Make Them Stand in Fear," from Allen Weinstein and Frank Otto Gatell, eds., American Negro Slavery: A Modern Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 51-62.

Drew Gilpin Faust, "Culture, Conflict, and Community: The Meaning of Power on an Ante-Bellum Plantation," Journal of Social History 14 (Fall 1980): 83-97.

William Lloyd Garrison, "No Union with Slaveholders," from George Frederickson, ed., William Lloyd Garrison (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), pp. 52-55.

David Walker's "Appeal" from Manning Marable and Leith Mullings, eds., Let Nobody Turn Us Around (Boulder: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000), pp. 23-34.

Excerpt from Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 27-57.

George Fitzhugh "Sociology for the South," from Eric McKitrick, ed., Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963), pp. 34-50.

Excerpt from George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! or Slaves without Masters (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 15-20.

Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech (June 16, 1858) from Michael Johnson, ed., Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Selected Writings and Speeches (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001), pp. 63-69.

Stephen Douglas on Dred Scott (July 9 and July 17, 1858) fromPaul Finkelman, ed., Dred Scott v. Sandford (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1997), pp. 195-201, 205-213.

William Geinapp, "Nativism and the Creation of a Republican Majority in the North before the Civil War," Journal of American History 72 (December 1985): 529-559.

Excerpt from Eric Foner in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 11-39.

Excerpts from J. E. Cairnes, The Slave Power; Its Career, Character and Probable Designs (London: MacMillan and Co., 1863), pp. 95-103, 140-148, 155-163, 166-167.

Excerpts from Carlton McCarthy, Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life (Richmond: Carlton McCarthy and Company, 1882), pp. 16-40.

George B. McClellan's July 7, 1862 Memorandum to President Lincoln from David and Jeanne Heidler, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), p. 2334.

Excerpt from Ulysses S. Grant, Memoirs and Selected Letters (New York: Library of America, 1990), pp. 237-247.

Horace Greeley's "The Prayer of the Twenty Millions" (August 19, 1862) and Lincoln's Response (August 22, 1862) from David and Jeanne Heidler, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), pp. 2426-2429.

Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Erastus Corning (June 12, 1863) from John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 8 (Harrogate, TN: Lincoln Memorial University, 1894), pp. 298-314.

Edwin Stanton to Brigadier General Saxton (August 25, 1862) from David and Jeanne Heidler, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), pp. 2390-2391.

Letter from a Black Soldier to Abraham Lincoln (September 28, 1863) from David and Jeanne Heidler, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), pp. 2391-2392.

"The Negro as a Soldier," from Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 189-206.

Charles Graham Halpine, "Sambo's Right to be Kilt" from Francis Miller, ed., The Photographic History of the Civil War (New York: Review of Reviews Co., 1912), pp. 176, 178.

Wade-Davis Bill (July 8, 1864) and Lincoln's Response (July 8, 1864) from David and Jeanne Heidler, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), p. 2371-2374.

Mark Neely, "Was the Civil War a Total War?" Civil War History 37, no. 1 (1991): 29-51.

James M. McPherson, "From Limited to Total War in America" from Stig Förster and Jörg Nagler, eds., On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861-1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 295-311.

Exchange of Letters between William T. Sherman and John Bell Hood, September 7, 1864-September 14, 1864 from John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat: The Autobiography of General J .B. Hood (New York: Konecky & Konecky, n.d.), pp. 229-236.

Sherman's Orders for the March through Georgia (November 9, 1864) from David and Jeanne Heidler, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Civil War (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), p. 2366.

Kate Stone, Brockenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868, ed. John Q. Anderson (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1955), pp. 169-207.

Excerpt from E. P. Alexander, The Military Memoirs of a Confederate: A Critical Narrative (New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1907), pp. 602-606.

J. H. Stringfellow to Jefferson Davis (February 8, 1865) from Ira Berlin, ed., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, Series II: The Black Military Experience 1861-1867 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 291-295.

John Childers' Testimony before the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States (1871) from Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, vol. 2 (New York: Citadel Press, 1964), pp. 576-579.

Memorial from the State Convention of Alabama Negroes (1874) ) from Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States, vol. 2 (New York: Citadel Press, 1964), pp. 600-604.

Copyrighted by Hugh Dubrulle, 2002
For questions, comments, or problems with this web site, please contact the webmaster.