I literally just finished Battle Cry Of Freedom. Incredible book. Perhaps the best I've ever read. The story of the escaped slave, who joins the Union Army, encounters
his master and says, "Howdy Massa. Bottom rail on top, this time" is
such a lovely end. More coming. I'm working now.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
All of you posts regarding Battle Cry inspired me to order a used copy online the other day. Can't wait to get it (went to the library and the only copy was gone).
Who is the author? The only 'Battle Cry' I was aware of was a one volume take on the entire Civil War.
Sorry, just saw that TNC answered my question in the next post. That's the book I was thinking of, but I didn't know it was a story of an escaped slave. I know that's it is supposed to be pretty comprehensive.
I've been, like Andrew, consumed with all things Iran this past week (first wrote about the country 25 years ago) . . . but every now and then I check in with your site and as I jot down the names of all the books I should be reading I remember that, about 10 years ago, I got myself absolutely immersed in the period you've been talking about by reading two very different works of fiction: Russell Banks, Cloudsplitter (ostensible narrator: John Brown's son Owen - and in a very mid-19th c. style), followed by Stewart O'Nan's Prayer for the Dying (post-war, veteran, in a smallish town in Wisconsin. Diphtheria epidemic, then (this really happened, same day as the Chicago fire), a raging wildfire. Wrenching moral choices, informed by the devastation he'd already seen.
There was just something about reading those books in quick succession that made me feel immersed in the time. Both products not just of deep moral thought, but also of deliberate and intense research of the time.
You seem to be in a non-fiction mode at the moment, but they might be worth a look.
Now, sorry, back to Andrew and/or Twitter (I will never twitter, but I did finally set up an account so I could follow along. I had no idea before this past weekend that the service could be used for nontrivial purposes . . . but, well, yes it can. Fastest way to get news from Iran, by far, because there are a lot of savvy people there, and they post links. Apparently even in earlier revolutionary periods use of at-the-time-advanced technology has been standard: the telegraph, back in the day.)
Great quote, TNC. Thats the kind of stuff they feared our ancestors would get on if they had unfiltered access to the Bible: "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first" and all that jazz...
BTW, "they" and "our ancestors" could be taken to mean:
"They" = Master and "Our ancestors" = Slaves or
"They" = Holy Roman See and "Our ancestors" = commoners prior to Martin Luther.
Applies either way, I think.
Martin Luther said, I believe, it might be apocryphal, that a housewife with a bible in her hands was more powerful than the pope in Rome.
In the quest for broadened equality we owe as much to William Tyndale, Wycliff, Luther, and such as we do to more recent people. A venacular bible, it could be argued, was as important for breaking the monopoly of a priveleged elite as the institution of free public education.
John Ball and Gerrard Winstanley deserve mention as well -- it's interesting that Ball's sermon from the 14th century continued to resonate with the Diggers of the 17th
Quick question for those who've read the book. I'm pretty knowledgeable about the Civil War. Not what I'd call a Civil War buff (that fascination is WWI, for me), but I read some general overviews when younger and more recently read Shelby Foote's 3 volume history. I've also visited a number of the eastern theater battlefields.
Given that, is it worth my time to read McPherson's book? I've heard great things about it, but tended to think that I probably already knew most of what it told, so there were better things to read. But is it so good that, even knowing most of the details, his telling of the story is worth the time?
Doug,
It's worth your time. I've bought and read it twice.
The book covers "The Civil War Era" -- 1850 to '65 if I remember correctly. The top value is in the first third to half covering the '50s. There are plenty of fine books covering the war itelf, including Foote's, but far fewer that lay out the road to war with such narrative drive and clarity.
The quotation was also featured in Ken Burns' _Civil War_. You'd also probably like, if you haven't read it already, Tony Horowitz's _Confederates in the Attic_. Fantastic book too.
So true. Best book I ever read, too.