For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War

by James M. McPherson

General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War?

It is to this question-- why did they fight --that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my
death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country."

McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war.

Battle Cry of Freedom , McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times , called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.

Genres: History, Civil War, American History, American Civil War, Nonfiction, War, Military Fiction

237 pages, Paperback

First published April 3, 1997

About the author

James M. McPherson, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University, 1963; B.A., Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota), 1958) is an American Civil War historian, and the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book. He was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica.

Reviews

[Dan Lutts · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You couldn’t get American soldiers today to make an attack like that.”
--General John A. Wickham, looking at Bloody Lane in the Antietam battlefield on the 1980s

Civil War historians use primary sources, which consist of books and reminiscences written by some of the three million Confederate and Union soldiers after the war. In For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, preeminent Civil War historian James M. McPherson takes a different approach. What the veterans wrote after the war, he thinks, might not be reliable because the veterans had years to develop their own narratives after so many years. Instead, he uses contemporary diaries and letters written during the war to loved ones at home by the soldiers themselves.

McPherson, though, recognizes that the diaries and letters are not a representative sampling because many reflect more the views of the writers, who mostly belonged to the upper class, because many in the lower class couldn’t write. Some families also destroyed their diaries and letters. McPherson uses a representative sampling of those that still exist. The diary entries and letters make up about 2/3rds of the book. Poignantly, McPherson mentions whether the diary or letter writer was killed or not.

McPherson focuses on why soldiers on both sides fought and were so willing to die and performed feats that no modern-day soldier would think of doing. Just one example: during the Battle of the Crater, Confederate soldiers would stand on top of the parapet and fire their rifles down at the Union soldiers and then throw their empty rifles at them, hoping to stick them with the bayonets attached to the rifles. Then another rifle would be passed up to them and they would continue the routine. Whenever a Confederate was shot, another would take his place.

Many of the motives were similar on both sides, which included fighting for a cause, patriotism and love of country, duty, honor, liberty; and freedom.

For Cause & Comrades is a must-read book for anyone who is interested in what motivated men on both sides to fight for their respective countries. By the way, in 1998, For Cause & Comrades won the Lincoln Prize for the best non-fiction historical work of the year on the American Civil War. After reading the book, it’s easy to see why it did.

[Jay Schutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is the full measure of devotion and in how many ways can it be defined? Those questions and more are answered in this book.
In reading the usual Civil War books, which are about tactics and winners and losers, this book goes deep to explore the many reasons why men and women gave their lives for their countries.
Drawing from letters and diaries of nearly 1,000 Northern and Southern soldiers from all walks of life, this book tells those stories in the soldiers own words. It can be somewhat repetitious due to the nature of the book, but no matter whose side you were on, the combatants were still human beings with feelings and ideals for why they fought.
A good book to read before starting the "blood and guts" books on the Civil War or any war for that matter. An educational read.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duty, Honor, And Devotion

Although Professor James McPherson wrote this study of the motivation of the Civil War soldier, it is not a great exaggeration to say that in this book the soldiers speak for themselves. Professor McPherson has read and analyzed a prodigious amount of source material written by Civil War combatants, Union and Confederacy, officer and enlisted soldier. For this book, he has taken a sample of the letters home and the diaries of 1076 soldiers, 647 Union and 429 Confederate to analyze their candid, uncensored reflections of why they fought. Professor McPherson also draws on many modern studies of combat psychology and utilizes their findings in discussing the Civil War soldiers.

Professor McPherson's sample is not statistically random and it may be skewed in some ways. For example, the sample does not include illiterate soldiers or black soldiers. It tends to be tilted in the direction of those individuals who did most of the fighting and who were committed to their respective causes. Professor McPherson recognizes that many of the combatants were unwilling participants, particularly as the draft was instituted in both armies and that both armies included many shirkers. These individuals are not represented in his sample of letters. But still, these letters, written in the activity of soldiering and not intended for publication, are revealing of their authors' thoughts and feelings in a way impossible to replicate in other writings.

The letters reveal much about the motivation of the combatants and about life in Civil War America. Professor McPherson finds that many of the soldiers in the Civil War had a firm idea of why they were fighting. On both sides soldiers fought for the preservation of liberty and the duty they perceived they owed to their country. Patriotism, in a word. Southern soldiers fought to achieve their independence and to avoid what they viewed as "subjugation" and "slavery". Northern soldiers fought to preserve the Union and, increasingly as the War progressed, to end slavery. Soldiers in both the Union and the Confederacy drew sustenance from religious convictions. They were motivated deeply by the camaraderie that developed with their fellows, particularly in their own units. In the Civil War in particular, soldiers fought side-by-side with others from their own state and community. They developed a strong bond with each other, based on the terrors of war and the privations of the camps, and fought in solidarity with each other.

The letters in the book speak well for themselves with Professor McPherson's organization and commentary. It is moving to read about how many Americans were driven by high ideals in enlisting and fighting in this, the most deadly and formative of the wars of the United States.

There is a sense of poignancy throughout the book. For the Civil War generation, concepts of duty, honor, family, manhood, and patriotism were not viewed with the skepticism that became common following WW I and that remains prevalent with many people today. It was a romantic generation, in part, but one with commitments and ideals. I think there is much contemporary Americans may learn by the devotion shown by the American Civil War soldiers and by the ideals of liberty, duty, and courage for which they fought.

Robin Friedman

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

James McPherson is a fine historian. Many of his works on the Civil War are impressive. This ranks among his more interesting works—and makes a contribution in its own right.

The book is an effort to find the answer to a fundamental question (Page 5): “What enabled [Civil War soldiers:] to overcome that most basic of human instincts—self-preservation?” More basically (Page 5): “Why did Civil War soldiers do it?” The book, then, focuses on a fundamental question about those fighting in combat: Why do they fight when death is a very real possibility? What impels them to face that possibility and still fight on? McPherson uses the words of troops themselves, based on their writings (letters, memoirs, journals or diaries. The author reports reading 25,000 personal letters and 249 diaries.

Among answers supplied by these primary sources—a concern for honor or to display manhood and courage; discipline; religion; fear of being branded as a coward; bonds with fellow troops (e.g., those in a particular regiment would feel loyalty one toward another); patriotism and nationalism and, especially for the south, love of state; for some northern troops, a desire to end slavery; and so on.

This is a fascinating book, well worth reading. It uses the words of the soldiers themselves—North and South—to help us understand why troops would stand and fight and risk death and injury. In short, recommended highly for those interested in the motivations of soldiers in wartime.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

What motivates men to fight in a war? This is a question that has engaged writers for millennia, in no small part because of the dangers involved in warfare. We as humans have an instinct for self-preservation that is at odds with going into a situation in which a large group of people are attempting to kill us. Such an instinct would seem impossible to overcome, yet generations of humans have done so at least since the dawn of civilization. Why did they do so?

The challenge of answering it is further complicated by the silence of the most of people who have fought. The limited number of literate people and the inevitable loss of accounts over time has meant that it is a question that is virtually impossible to answer before the modern era. Even for a conflict such as the American Civil War, James McPherson’s ability to benefit from the widespread literacy of the participants was constrained by the limits of the authors’ ability to express themselves, and the survival of letters, diaries, and other sources over the succeeding decades. Nevertheless, by drawing upon these works, he provides his readers with an answer to that question as regards the men who fought in the bloodiest conflict in the nation’s history.

These motivations were particularly important given the nature of the war and the recruiting of men to fight in it. As McPherson points out, the traditional means of motivating soldiers to fight – training, discipline, and leadership – were lacking in many respects from the ranks of volunteers who swelled the armies that were formed in 1861. These volunteers usually resisted the imposition of these means, and at the start were thrown into combat before there was time to introduce them. This gave their personal motivations added significance, especially in the early stages of the conflict, when duty and manhood compelled hundreds of thousands of men to enlist. These initial volunteers formed the core of both the Union and Confederate forces for most of the conflict, which most of them expected to be a short affair. Events soon disabused them of these views, as youthful enthusiasm was dispelled by the horrifying experience of combat. The soldiers who survived in it quickly lost their initial zeal, which was replaced by new impulses of comradeship and a desire for vengeance.

While this arc of participation is perhaps a universal experience for men serving in war, McPherson also explores the ideological motivations specific to the conflict. Here he highlights how the common language of “liberty” was used in contrasting ways to explain for what they were fighting. For many of those serving in the Union forces, their cause was that of fighting, as Abraham Lincoln explained it, to preserve a nation conceived in liberty from an effort to tear it apart. By contrast, Confederates saw the cause of liberty as one of resistance against a tyrannical administration that they feared was challenging their region’s way of life. The irony that such language was used to defend a way of life dependent upon the enslavement of millions of people was lost on them, yet at first many on the Union side were uninterested in pointing out this hypocrisy. With the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in the aftermath of the battle of Antietam, however, the contradiction became more central to the cause, especially as many Union soldiers realized that ending slavery was integral to ending the war itself and returning home to the lives they had left behind.

Not the least of McPherson’s achievements with this book is his success is sorting the cacophony of views expressed in his sources to discern the commonalities that defined their perspectives. From them he identifies not just the motivations that led them to serve, but the source of their mental endurance through the long years of warfare. His respect for the men is evident on every page, and is reflected in particular in his decision to quote from their materials without correcting the grammatical and spelling errors to which they were prone. While it can make for difficult reading in a few places, it nonetheless embodies his determination to let the men’s voices be heard for themselves, so that we might better appreciate why so many voluntarily prioritized service over survival.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

By studying tens of thousands of representative letters and diaries written by combatants in the American Civil War author McPherson has attempted to understand what motivated Unionists and Confederates to go to war, to stay at war and to participate in battle. What, in other words, did they think they were doing?

The most notable overall impression I obtained from this was that the primary initial motivation of those devoted to the North was to preserve the Union while that of the Southerners was to maintain their liberties and property, most notably their right to own slaves. However, as the war progressed so did the motivations of the Northerners. As they witnessed the slave system, actually met and sometimes fought with blacks, they increasingly saw their fight as one to destroy the institution. Freeing the slaves became seen as a good though few fought for racial equality.

In addition to discussing various motivational factors--such as religion, honor, duty, revenge etc.--McPherson also compares and contrasts the attitudes of American soldiers in the Civil War to those held in subsequent conflicts, demonstrating its relative popularity despite its exceptional brutality.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

McPherson has written another great book on the American Civil War, a keen interest of mine. If you are interested in the war only in passing and want to read only one nonfiction book on the topic, read his heavy duty Pulitzer winner, Battle Cry of Freedom. However, if like me you have read it and been thirsty for more, and had other writers sometimes come up lacking, this is a wonderful choice. For me, though I have read books about this battle or that one, they are not as compelling as getting down to the question of what made a soldier not only sign on for this war, but stay there.

Initially, most states recruited for a finite time period; in the north, 9 months was standard. Some soldiers kept track daily and were ready to go home when their time was up, even in the midst of battle. Commanders despaired when an appreciable number of soldiers woke up one day and said their time was up, regardless of circumstances.

Some chose to stay; others went home for a visit for a couple of weeks, and then signed up again. These were the best fighters, the ones upon whom McPherson says, and I agree after seeing the evidence, the outcome of the war largely depended. McPherson points out that toward the end of the war, one of these veterans (such as Sherman took to Atlanta) would be worth ten of a conscripted or paid soldier, and if I recall, Sherman said the same in his memoir.

The first 6 chapters talk about the bonds that tie many to the armed services: patriotism; in the north, knowledge that this second American revolution would determine the staying power of the first, and in the south, the equally fervent, primarily among plantation owners, belief that the national government lacked the authority to tell southern states "what to do". Naturally, many southern young men felt the immediacy of invasion; they signed on in many cases to protect their homes.

He distinguishes the fervor with which various states embraced the coming conflict. Texans and South Carolinians were the most fiercely united in favor of secession, in contrast to North Carolina, which was tepid, and as many know, Virginia, once it had lost the western half of the state to the Union (thus creating the state of West Virginia), was likewise virulently pro-secession. This distinction is notable, with 84 percent of soldiers from South Carolina stating patriotic motives for enlisting vs. 46 percent of those from North Carolina.

The bond of comradeship and sense that one must not desert one's brother soldiers was also examined. Unlike other wars in which US soldiers (and cavalry) took part, units were raised locally. Sometimes, brothers joined the same unit together. McPherson goes on to document cases where promotions were declined because it would mean transferring to a unit of strangers.

There is the usual concern about manhood and honor, and he also mentions class, which made me want to stand up and cheer. After all, though every man must do his "duty", a wealthy man could avoid service even after conscription by paying $300 to avoid it, or to pay someone else to fight in his stead. Lots of wealthy plantation owners paid someone to do their fighting, then stepped the delicate white flowers in their family onto the family yacht and weathered the war in European waters. Northerners didn't need to flee, but many did more or less the same thing.

Just when I was starting to think, "ho hum", I got to chapter 7. This is where this writer rolls up his sleeves and says a thing or two that made me sit up and pay attention.

After setting up the dominoes other historians have stood up--on a shaky table, it appears--he knocks them down with such grace and elegance that one who loves historical analysis can only react with awe. Other historians have presupposed that the common foot soldier did not really know what he was doing, he says, and he quotes them before he knocks them on their quasi-scholarly butts. They went because the women told them to. They went because they didn't want to work on the farm. Once they were there, they became unthinking parts of two respective and opposing machines. McPherson says that's a lie, and he goes on to prove it. He tells us:

"Research in the letters and diaries of Civil War soldiers will soon lead the attentive historian to a
contrary conclusion...men in blue and gray were intensely aware of the issues at stake and passionately concerned about them. How could it be otherwise? This was, after all, a Civil War. Its outcome would determine the fate of the nation--or of two nations, if the Confederacy won. It would shape the future of American society and of every person in that society. Civil War soldiers lived in the world's most politicized and democratic country in the mid-nineteenth century. They had come of age in the 1850's when highly charged partisan and ideological debates consumed the American polity." (106)

He goes on to say that soldiers largely enlisted "to shoot as they had voted". (ibid.)

He painstakingly documents, by quoting solely from letters sent home and diaries of those who fought, the high literacy level of soldiers and their attachment to newspapers.

"Newspapers were the most sought-after reading material in camp--after letters from home. Major metropolitan newspapers were often available only a day or two after publication, while hometown papers came weekly when the mail service functioned normally". (107)

He goes on to document the fact that commanding officers often subscribed to a handful of different newspapers and passed them around the camp, in addition to individual soldiers who either subscribed or purchased an individual copy for a dime, particularly during lulls between battles. In 1864,

"Two years later a lieutenant in the 4th Virginia reported that the "boys" spent much of their time in winter quarters reading the papers. We "make comments on the news and express our opinions quite freely about the blood and thunder in the Richmond papers, smoke again and go to bed"...

"Some European officers who attached themselves to Civil War armies expressed astonishment at this phenomenon". He quotes Gustave Paul Cluseret, a French army officer who served for two decades, then wrangled a brigade under General John C. Fremont in 1862. Looking back on this experience shortly afterward, he wrote that "If the American volunteers accomplished prodigies of patience, energy, and devotion it is because they fought with knowledge of the cause." (108)

Some of the regiments or brigades even had debating societies during winter.

He quotes one of my heroes, Ulysses S. Grant as having noted that "our armies were composed of men who were able to read, men who knew what they were fighting for." (109)

He also says that Confederate soldiers were similarly well informed.

In the latter years of the war, Confederate desertion increased when soldiers found their units transferred to fight in other states when their own seemed at risk. This was documented by Arkansas soldiers leaving when Sherman invaded Georgia and they were sent to try to rescue Atlanta, and desertions were especially abundant in Tennessee in 1863. An officer remarked that "the army has no confidence in Bragg and thought he was giving up their homes without proper attempt to defend them."

General John Bell Hood's "quixotic" decision to attack Tennessee in November 1864 was because he wanted to lift morale; desertions there had been unprecedented. Instead,he was forced to retreat, and so his goal remained unmet.

He also points to the fact that language at the time was more sentimental and less cynical than it is today; thus, letters that current soldiers might mock, using words such as "valor", "glory", and "honor", meant a great deal to the soldiers of that time period, and were used naturally and normally. And, he points out, they did not know at the time that they would be published; these were personal writings, meant for friends and family, or even private diaries. He pounds this home by again and again quoting soldiers who wrote using such language in conjunction with offering their lives for their country, and he almost exclusively uses the writings of soldiers who were subsequently killed in battle.

He defends the sampling provided as fully representative, stating that both Confederate and Union soldiers' writings had been examined in numbers just over 400, and in both cases, the percentage of soldiers citing such motives as stated above were in the sixty-plus percentile. (p.116)


Once more, we can virtually hear the rustle as McPherson sits up a bit straighter to tackle the question of Northern motivation. If Confederates had so rich a goal as to fight for their homeland, what kept Northern soldiers marching till their feet bled, sleeping in the rain with no shelter, wading through mud, often returning after one or more injuries with which they could have manfully chosen to be discharged?

In the beginning, it is about keeping the Union intact. He goes on to extensively document this.

Then we get to the meaty issue of the Emancipation Proclamation. In the beginning, this was a divisive issue; many Northern soldiers were angry, and felt they had been sent on a fool's errand. Most said they had signed on to save the Union rather than to fight “a n****’s war” (sorry, can’t use that word, even for accuracy in a quotation).

Over the course of time, their viewpoint changes markedly as Union soldiers made their way further south. Several wrote home and said that slavery was a “blight” that “withered all it touched”. This was not always an abolitionist viewpoint ; in many cases, it was an ”observation as well from the antebellum free-labor ideology, and the fact that outside towns and cities, according to a colonel who wrote home to his wife in Indiana, “the people are a century behind the free states.” (p. 133)

Northern armies who invaded the South were agents of Emancipation simply by arriving, McPherson states. “It is all a humbug about Slaves liking to stay with their masters…Men and women & children run off whenever they can get a chance”. (p. 133, quoting an Ohio farmer’s son).

Gradually the practical aspects of emancipation became manifest. The Proclamation made it possible to declare slaves who ran to the Union lines “contraband” and hide them from their masters, and soldiers not only enjoyed the demoralizing and frustrating effect this had on their masters, they also began to see how removing slaves from the Southern labor force could cause a sooner and surer Union victory. As is true throughout the book, he quotes extensively from letters sent home to back up the bloom of pragmatic enlightenment on this issue among Northern soldiers.

However, there was no one more motivated for Union victory than the Black people of the South, and as they shouldered the burden not only of menial labor but also of taking bullets alongside their liberators, many Northern soldiers came to appreciate the importance of Emancipation as a moral issue as well.
“After black troops had captured a portion of the Confederate line at Petersburg on June 15, 1864, a sergeant in the 20th Indiana expressed surprise at ‘how civily our boys treated them. They used to make fun of, and ill treat every negro, soldier or slave, that we passed.’” (ibid.)

By 1864, Union soldiers who opposed freeing slaves were a distinct minority.

I rarely write a book review this long, particularly when it is only for the use of others as opposed to some sort of academic credit, which I no longer need, but the fact is that I looked forward greatly to reading this book, took my time with it, and as you can see, was much impressed. There is no greater Civil War historian than James McPherson, and we are fortunate to have his meticulous research to clarify such a critical time in American history.

[Relstuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's over 150 years since the American Civil War ended and it's still a contentious subject. Dozens of new books about it are written every year and I feel sure thousands have been written about it. One of the things people didn't agree on when it was being fought was why it was being fought. Unsurprisingly, this question continues to be discussed today.

This book from Oxford University Press looks at why men fought the war. It goes beyond the typical sources of books and looks at diaries and thousands of letters to answer the question as to why people were willing to lay down their lives in the war. The author points out that the American Civil War is different than many others in that so many people were literate (over 80% on both sides) and there was no censorship on their letters. Additionally, these letters are usually written to family or friends without the idea that the content will be read by others or intended for a broad audience unlike those that wrote a memoir.

The interesting conclusion is that people on both sides thought they were fighting to uphold the legacy of their greatest generation, the Revolutionary War generation that founded the country. The Union soldiers were fighting to preserve the union built by that generation against traitors that fired on the flag and the Southern soldiers thought they were following in the greatest generation's footsteps by supporting their right to separate and defend themselves from invasion. These ideas made up about two-thirds of the reasons listed by men writing home during the war on both sides - in sum, patriotism. The author also talks about other reasons people talked about: not wanting to be a coward, to prove one was a man, answering your nation/state's call of duty. Slavery was a significant subject to some but in both North and South, especially in the first 18 months of the war this was very much a minor subgroup.

Of motivations: "Duty and honor were indeed powerful motivating forces. They had to be, for some other traditional reasons that have caused men to fight in organized armies have little relevance to the Civil War. Religious fanaticism and ethnic hatreds played almost no role. Discipline was notoriously lax in most Civil War regiments. Training was minimal by modern standards. The coercive power of the state was flaccid.... Yet the Union and Confederate Army mobilized three million men."

One historian noted that in the first 18 months of the war maybe one in ten Union soldiers thought they were fighting for the abolition of slavery. Review of Union letters home during this time shows abolitionist sentiments were very rare - to the point that one in ten could well be an exaggeration. However, this changed over the course of the war with the Emancipation proclamation driving fierce arguments among Union soldiers. One regiment voted on whether they supported it and about 50% voted in support, a quarter against it, and the rest abstaining.

"Convictions of duty, honor, patriotism, and ideology functioned as the principal sustaining motivations of Civil War soldiers, the impulses of courage, self-respect, and group cohesion were the main sources of combat motivation."

If you are serious about looking at something solid and scholarly about why the Brother War was fought this is an excellent resource.

[Cameron Rhoads · Rating 5 out of 5]

9.13 hours on Audible. Loved hearing actual letters from men who fought in the conflict and their reasons for doing so.

[John Lathers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciated the scholarly effort that went into this piece by a reknowned historian. The piece, in a way, humanizes the soldiers of both sides, drawing on their personal letters and journals. I was actually directed to the book by someone seeking to counter the argument that preserving slavery was a key motivation of the civil war. However, the book really doesn't do much in that direction. While the author does explore how young men were often driven to enlist for reasons of honor, in pursuit of a thirst for adventure, or to avoid a draft, ideology and/or the cause of preserving slavery and the superiority of white southerners played a central role for Confederate troops, especially among leaders. The author points out the irony of soldiers claiming to fight for liberty against the tyrannical Yankees seeking to free the slaves. The work is carefully researched and the primary sources were selected to be as representative as possible. When the sampling was not necessarily representative, the author works to be as transparent as possible, providing invaluable context. If I have one criticism, it is that I think the version of the book I had some distractingly frequent editing issues where punctuation was misplaced (beyond the direct quotes from soldiers diaries which the author purposely preserves), but this is at worst a minor annoyance. I highly recommend for those with an interest in the history and details of the Civil War.

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically McPherson takes on the arguments made by Wiley and Linderman, saying that ideology was an important sustaining mechanism to the troops, espcially the best warriors to wear blue and gray. While I applaud McPherson's argument and willingness to take on two authors whom he praised before writing this book, I also contend that the truth probably lies in a blending of all their work. McPherson suggests this by agreeing with Wiley and Linderman on some of their points, but like any historian he thinks he has found the smoking gun. Keep in mind that McPherson's generation of historians is noted for its fondness for ideological arguments. They have shown the importance of ideas and debate in history, but sometimes they over play their hand, which is what McPherson nearly does here.



Personally I think the men fought hard because once you start killing, you'll keep killing to validate your earliest acts of violence.

[Sylvia McIvers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did people fight in the War of Northern Aggression?
Why did people fight in the War of Southern Secession?

Why did they sign up, where did they find the courage for their first battle, why did they stay after they realized that death is real and messy? Did people really fight 'to end slavery'? How could slave-owners claim to be fighting for liberty? What did the folks back home - wives, parents, kids - think about the main bread-earner risking his life for Mr Lincoln's War?

Is "well, everyone else was doin' it" a good reason to sign up? Apparently it is.

Each chapter addresses another question. At least half the book is direct quotations from diaries & letters home. It was fascinating to read (and to notice the variants in spelling), especially since both sides of the war were represented and contrasted with each other.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why do soldiers fight in wars? A timeless question, perhaps, because it depends on each war, and even what time in the war, but McPherson gives a compelling case for the reasons both sides fought in the US Civil War. Based on the author's reading of many letters from soldiers, he gives us the many reasons soldiers fought, while including the caveats given the evidence base. McPherson points out that the Civil War is unique because soldiers could write letters uncensored (and a mostly literate army is rare before the modern era).

I found this to be a great read, as it covered the valorous reasons, the basic reasons, and the rather unpleasant reasons that soldiers fought in that war, and I would heartily recommend the volume to anyone interested in Civil War history.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This monograph tackles one of the enduring questions surrounding the war; why did they fight? The author posits that there were nearly as many reasons as there were soldiers. While I didn't learn all that much from this book, I did find it very well written and the narrative was interspersed with many quotations from soldiers themselves. Overall, a very good effort.

[Lydia Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read. Most of the source material is taken from individual correspondences of civil war soldiers, which gives the entire read a very personal and intimate feeling. This book attempts to answer the question of WHY men decided to fight. Factors like religion and patriotism are detailed from many views, with tables and studies supplementing the author’s thesis.

[Jeremiah Gumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

In-depth analysis of the motivations for Civil War soldiers. Heavy and helpful use of primary sources.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought In The Civil War, by James M. McPherson

In this book, noted Civil War historian James McPherson provides a work that demonstrates the potential of statistical analysis in history and the combination of social and military history when handled skillfully by someone with a full respect for the texts and the people who wrote them. This particular volume seeks to use the voluminous letter writing and unpublished diaries of Civil War soldiers on both sides to present a statistical answer as to why men fought in the Civil War—whey they joined up in the first place, and why they continued to fight despite the risk of death by disease or bullets, in the face of letters from home from people who were not able to understand the horrors of the war they faced. Not only is this book very well argued from a narrative and statistical perspective, with the author including useful cross-tabs, unlike some attempts at similar studies [1] that have much less command of the statistical approaches necessary to enrich history, but the historian also manages to write with gorgeous prose about the difficulties in understanding soldiers of that time from our own cynical age [2].

In comparison to many of his other writings, this is a work that is more fragmented and less narrative [3] than his most famous and well-recognized works. Nevertheless, this work is a masterpiece of its own type, a work that depends for its power both on a familiarity with a wide group of tens of thousands of letters and unprinted manuscript diaries from Civil War veterans who the author refers to by rank and unit in the text, unless they are particularly well-known to the target demographic of readers, and comments about at greater length in the extensive endnotes that follow this book, which even with its statistical appendices included is short of 200 pages. It contains twelve chapters that deal with several overlapping sets of concerns that appear frequently in the private writings of soldiers, such as the feeling that the war was a crusade, that both sides fought in earnest, that they were anxious to fight at first, that they desired to preserve their honor and manhood by not flinching in fear or running from battle, that religion was important to their bravery, that they and their fellow members of their units were a band of brothers, that they were willing to lay down their lives on the altar of their country, that they fought for the cause of liberty, that slavery was a major element of why they fought, that they felt or expected the support of the home front, that they fought to avenge losses suffered, and that they shared with their comrades a devotion to the same holy cause.

This book has many strengths. It is forthright and honest about its sampling techniques and approach, it is generous in its quotation and sound in its discussion of the writings of the soldiers in the sample selected, and it is part of a larger conversation with other books about the thoughts and motivations of the common soldier in the Civil War. Although quite a few of the people who wrote these letters were officers, by and large this is not elite history but is a history of the people, by the people, for the people. The author expresses his regrets that more letters from black soldiers were not able to be found, but given that the book is about the writings of soldiers, and given that the vast majority of black soldiers, and at least some portion of the poorer farmers on both sides in general, were not particularly literate, the author uses the sources available as best as possible. Another aspects of this book that serves to tie it together despite its thematic organization is the fact that the author uses skillful transitions to tie one chapter to the next, which makes the book flow very well. This is an accomplished work by a master historian about that most difficult of questions—what motivated Civil War soldiers to fight and, if necessary, die, even if such conditions are not likely to be present in contemporary society.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[2] See, for example, the following quotes:

“Why not? That is probably the wrong question. The right question is: Why did Civil War soldiers do it? It was not because their lives were somehow less precious to them than ours to us. Nor was it because they lived in a more violent culture that took fighting and dying for granted more than we do. And it was not because they were professional soldiers or coerced conscripts; most Union and Confederate soldiers were neither long-term regulars nor draftees, but wartime volunteers from civilian life whose values remained rooted in the homes and communities from which they sprang to arms and to which they longed to return. They did not fight for money. The pay was poor and unreliable; the large enlistment bounties received by some Union soldiers late in the war were exceptional; most volunteers and their families made economic sacrifices when they enlisted. What prompted them to give up several of the best years of their lives—indeed, to give up life itself in this war that killed almost as many American soldiers as all the rest of the wars this country has fought combined? What enabled them to overcome that most basic of human instincts—self-preservation (5)?”

“Glorious cause. Lives sacrificed on the country’s altar. Hearts bleeding for the country’s welfare. Some modern readers of these letters may feel they are drowning in bathos. In this post-Freudian age these phrases strike many as mawkish posturing, romantic sentimentalism, hollow platitudes. We do not speak or write like that anymore. Most people have not done so since World War I which, as Ernest Hemingway and Paul Fussell have noted, made such words as glory, honor, courage, sacrifice, valor, and sacred vaguely embarrassing if not mock-heroic. We would justly mock them if we heard them today. But these words were written in the 1860s, not today. They were written not for public consumption but in private letters to families and friends. These soldiers, at some level at least, meant what they said about sacrificing their lives for their country.

Our cynicism about the genuineness of such sentiments is more our problem than theirs, a temporal/cultural barrier we must transcend if we are to understand why they fought. Theirs was an age of romanticism in literature, music, art, and philosophy. It was a sentimental age when strong men were not afraid to cry (or weep, as they would say), a time when Harriet Beecher Stowe’s great novel and Stephen Foster’s songs could stir genuine emotions. What seems like bathos or platitudes to us were real pathos and convictions to them. Perhaps readers will take another look at the expressions by soldiers quoted two paragraphs above when they learn that all four of them were subsequently killed in action. They were not posturing for public show. They were not looking back from years later through a haze of memory and myth about the Civil War. They were writing during the immediacy of their experiences to explain and justify their beliefs to family members and friends who shared—or in some cases questioned—those beliefs. And how smugly can we sneer at their expressions of a willingness to die for those beliefs when we know they did precisely that (100)?”

[3] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as I wanted it to be, but it still adds insight in different ways. I had imagined that the book would be made with direct quotations taking up half or more of the book, but the letters are relegated to being supporting evidence for the author, though their use is generous.

By looking exclusively at soldiers' letters, McPherson is able to identify experiences that are shared across most American wars, experiences specific to the Civil War, and also those that differentiate the Unionists from the Confederates. He makes a point in the book to emphasize the importance of ideals and ideology, pushing back against the more generally accepted opinion that ideology lasts a short while and falls off, leaving only a desire for survival.

Unlike 20th century wars, letters written by Civil War soldiers were not censored, allowing more honesty than would be the case later. Soldiers wrote about losing faith in the war, troop movements, and contemplated desertion.

Civil War soldiers described feeling far more stressed waiting to attack or enduring enemy fire than actually attacking. From this it made me wonder if that doesn't explain some of the horror of World War I, with all of it's long artillery duels and trench war. There's something about attacking that feels like a release, and acts as a narcotic of sorts, with fear being subsumed into an adrenaline-filled aggression.

Also different to World War I, soldiers at the front had more patriotism than those on the homefront. Soldiers took to rebuking and shaming wives and mothers that wanted them to come home and they also expressed hostility to civilians lacking belief in the war.

Confederates liked to emphasize their potential slavery under the North, which I knew, but I don't think I ever realized how clearly this seemed a projection or deflection of blame for their enslavement of blacks. Most of us know the justifications used to defend slavery, but reading their letters made me wonder if in the back of their mind somewhere, they knew better. Either way, it's clearly defensive. Though, as McPherson points out, Union soldiers wrote of slavery more, largely because they disagreed amongst themselves on it, what to make of the E.P., and so forth.

It's also worth mentioning that the fraternization between sides has been very much romanticized. Though enemies share a respect for each other they don't have for civilians, calls for vengeance show up often and massacres happened the longer the war went on. For some reason Texans seemed to be the most focused on revenge, and Union troops often reserved hatred for what they considered the aristocratic Southerners, especially after they saw the living conditions in much of the South.

[Carly Krewitsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting! I learned a lot about the Civil War. Three future presidents fought in the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, and Rutherford B. Hayes. Grant and McKinley fought on the same side and in the same regiment. The men who fought in the Civil War were more religious men than the men who fought in other wars. Some of the men were quite racist in their descriptions of slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation was announced during the Civil War, and it led many men fighting on the Union side (some of whom were lifelong Democrats) to become Republicans and supporters of President Abraham Lincoln. This outraged some of these mens' family and friends. This book was composed mostly of soldiers' diaries and letters to family and friends. Some of the men were not as educated as others and so their spelling is not as good as others.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A definite must read for those who wish to learn about the Civil War and the men who fought in its battles. Why did they fight? Love of country, civic duty, pride, patriotism, glory, hatred, fear of shame and eternal adulation are only a few of the reasons for serving. Based on the actual letters and experiences of Union and Confederate soldiers, this book is the most profound and personal description of the Civil War that I have ever read.

[Jaimie Teekell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really great for when you get into arguments with someone about having read skewed sources about why the Civil War was fought. Primary sources, yo! (I forgot to add this book to GR until now, after getting into said argument.)

[Anna Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did intentionally and only read this book for a class, but I did find it interesting in some parts. Some things made me sad, but was still quite interesting. I found the content to be really repetitive and sometimes dragging on and on.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had never occurred to me before, but there is more first-hand information about why men fought in the Civil War than there is for any other conflict. Many more soldiers were literate than ever before, and in later wars the letters home were censored. McPherson combed through thousands of letters and diaries, and turned up some surprising insights.

Both Yankees and Rebels, for instance, thought they were fighting to uphold the values of the American Revolution. Many northerners thought secession would destroy the country their grandparents fought and died for, and many southerners, without irony, were fighting against subjugation and oppression. Surprisingly few on either side, at least at the beginning of the war, talked much about slavery. And in fact, after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, there was a wave of desertions from the Union army of men who disagreed with freeing the slaves. Other northern soldiers, who saw slavery firsthand as they fought through the southern states, came around to the abolitionist viewpoint over time. And the government of the Confederacy voted, toward the end, to free slaves who would join the army and fight.

The most common motivations seemed to be duty and honor, two things modern men seldom speak of. Their integrity, their reputation, was literally worth dying for. I kept thinking of Marty McFly, from Back to the Future, getting himself in all kinds of pickles in response to "What are you, chicken?" And that's how we think of those old Victorian values today, as kind of quaint and mockable.

One of the most valuable books I have ever read is Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, about his research on moral foundations theory. He talks about the five (or six) foundational values which drive our ideas of right and wrong, and how reliance on or rejection of one or more of them impacts our politics. Liberals, for instance, rely almost exclusively on the first two; libertarians on the sixth; and conservatives on a mix of all. And because we don't share the same moral foundations, we misunderstand the motivations of people we disagree with. Here's the list:

The Five Foundations
Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm.
Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating.
Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal.
Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion.
Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation.
And a possible sixth foundation, Liberty: absence of coercion by a dominating power or person; opposite of oppression.

I think we are actually witnessing a dramatic rise of ingroup loyalty as a motivating force in our politics, as we break apart into red and blue tribes, and the fact that loyalty to Cause and Comrades drove the butchery of the last Civil War should terrify all of us.

[Abe Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

for class🥱

[Missmath144 · Rating 5 out of 5]

McPherson wrote a shorter version of this called WHAT THEY FOUGHT FOR. I liked that so much that I read this later, longer version. It is an excellent explanation of why men fought in the Civil War. He covers northern and southern motivations and differentiates between reasons to enlist and motivations for going into battle. McPherson is also clear about the statistics, letting the reader know which groups are over- or under-represented in his sampling and how that might effect the outcomes.
Initially some of the politicians of the South had slavery in mind when they seceded, but most southerners did not own slaves and were not fighting about slavery. They had heard so much fake news that they believed that Lincoln was a despot who would destroy the South with his political stances. They were fighting for their countries (i.e. their states). They felt they were fighting for their very freedom. Most of all they were fighting for their honor. They did not want their children to be ashamed that they hadn't fought.
Lincoln wanted Lee to head the Northern army, and Lee would have liked to. However, when Virginia seceded, he was honor-bound to fight for the South.
Few northern soldiers were fighting for abolition, nor did Lincoln intend to have abolition when he was elected. Some northern soldiers wrote that if they thought the war was about freeing slaves, they wouldn't be fighting.
The main purpose for northerners to fight was to hold the Union together. Not only did they not want the nation to fall apart state by state; they also believed that European countries (from which most of them came) would never try a similar democratic experiment if they saw that we failed here with our new form of government.
However, towards the end of the war, many northern soldiers, as well as Lincoln, changed their minds about slavery and considered abolition one of their goals.
The South harbored a hatred for the North long after the war was over, mainly because their lands and homes were destroyed during the war (the war being fought mostly in the South), and also because of the harsh Reconstruction era.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The moment I saw this book at a university booksale I knew I wanted it, because in the second story of that same library I’d researched my senior seminar paper to earn my BA in history. For Cause and Comrades dives into the letters of Union and Confederate combatants to explore what led them to fight and what kept them fighting after things grew miserable. (I’d done the same with Civil War songbooks to explore how they expressed motives and the experience of war.) James McPherson is best known for his Battle Cry of Freedom, a Pulitzer prizewinning history of the Civil War, and is generally regarded as the most preeminent of ACW scholars. Between the topic and the author, I knew to brace for a good read and was not disappointed.

McPherson writes at the beginning that he chose to focus on letters, not memoirs, because memoirs were often written decades after the events themselves, where memories could become pliable and made to fit feel-good narratives. While letters could also be performative – as men tried to reassure themselves and their wives and family at home that their boy was OK on the front – McPherson found them to be surprisingly raw and honest much of the time.

It’s worth noting, as McPherson does, that men of the 19th century lived in a much different culture than we did: it was more idealistic and romantic, and ideas like duty, valour, and honor had meaning that our cynical modern age frequent dismiss as sentiment. This is important to keep in mind, especially as it informs how Union and Confederate soldiers were fighting for “Cause”. The Union in 1861 was not even a century old; soldiers who fought for its preservation, or to help establish their own Confederacy, could have had grandparents who remembered a time before its existence. This made it especially precious to soldiers who believed the American experiment was still quite young and in need of protection – but at the same time, less important to Confederate soldiers for whom it was a political abstraction and not their “country”, proper. Many of the soldiers’ letters here testify to not believing in secession, but nonetheless defending it because Lincoln was invading their home. (General Robert E. Lee also fell into this camp, and it’s expressed in the film The Blue and the Gray when a Southern journalist who despises slavery and secession both winds up taking up arms at the end when the Yankee army is burning their way through his home county.)

McPherson’s shared letters and comments do not shy away from the fact that “cause” for both Union and Confederate soldiers was complex. Most Union soldiers were not fighting to exterminate slavery: at the beginning of the war, only 3-10% of letters (varying on region) expressed that thought, and in early 1863 many Union soldiers expressed bitterness that Lincoln was trying to turn it into a war to free blacks – though they used less polite terms. One of the more disturbing things I learned from David Williams’ A People’s History of the Civil War is that racism was not only pervasive across the entire United States, but even present with some abolitionists – and that’s evinced here. As the war progressed, though, and as Union soldiers waded further into the South and saw how slavery stagnated the economy and dehumanized both whites and blacks — and as they realized every runaway slave meant sapping the Confederate war effort – the number of Union soldiers writing against slavery increased.

On the Southern side, there were soldiers fighting for the institution of slavery, although far less than a modern reader would expect. This owes in large part to the fact that most southerners were not slave-holders, though many non-slaveholders did fight to defend slavery purely for the disruption widespread emancipation would cause. These letters concern both the practical economic effects, as well as social fears, particularly being “lowered” to the level of a slave. A poor tenant farmer or struggling freeholder might not ever have any status in society, but at least he wasn’t a “Negro”. Far more pervasive was the conviction that Southerners were fighting for “Their country” – be that Virginia or Texas, or the South in general. The fervor that Southerners had for their states was sometimes a cause for desertion: after Arkansas fell to Yankee armies, Arkansans fighting in Tennessee wondered why they were still in this thing for. (Nevermind Franklin’s adage about hanging together or hanging separately.)

On that note, McPherson notes that soldiers in units formed tight bonds with one another that often sustained them even when they’d stopped believing in causes. Part of this may be tied to the culture of the era, in which honor was taken far more seriously than now, but I don’t think it’s all of the story. Soldiers in the Civil War refused promotions to different units and continued fighting after their first term was up for the same reason soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq continued to “re-up” even if they hated the wars and the land and the people they were fighting in and for – because their brothers were there, and they would not desert them. Considering that volunteer regiments tended to be highly localized, this makes sense – but men also formed strong bonds with strangers. When regiments were shattered by massive battles, though, a soldier who found all of his friends dead might be so overwhelmed he didn’t see any purpose in holding on.

Despite its size, this is a book rich with insight. It doesn’t skew toward anyone’s preferred narrative of the war, because the variety of quoted letters is enough to give any tidy stories pause for thought. McPherson is present as an editor and narrator, but if his thumb was heavier in some aspects or another I didn’t notice. A book like this – and other works like The Life of Billy Yank, or the Life of Johnny Reb – are valuable because they allow us to break through the staid paintings of narrative and see the subjects come alive and speak for themselves.

[Josh Liller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty interesting book about Civil War soldiers and why they fought. McPherson's thesis is that because they lived in a politically-active pre-cynicism era and were mostly volunteers (rather than regulars or conscripts), the soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were highly motivated by patriotism, duty/honor, and political ideology throughout the war.

I have read enough about the Civil War that I didn't find anything in the book especially surprising, but it is good to see soldiers' motivations in their own words. I found the differences between the officers (who tended to be better educated and more often upper class, especially in the South) and enlisted men interesting and demonstrative of the subtle complexities of the war.

McPherson is an excellent writer and this is a short book (under 200 pages, excluding appendixes and such) so this is well worth reading for anyone who is interested in the Civil War.

[Janet Kovarik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work presents a side of soldiering that is provocative and prompts a new outlook about Johnny Reb and Billy Yank. When they weren't shooting at each other across the field of battle, they were conversing with each across the picket lines. They swapped personal stories and trades goods such as coffee and tobacco. More than just sharing food and sundry went on as well. Rebs listened to the Yank musicians as they played familiar melodies, and Yanks listened, hooting and cat-calling, while the Rebs taunted them by playing Dixie. During lulls between battles, men from each side often put aside their differences and got up a game of baseball to help pass the time. James McPherson provides compelling detail and a captivating picture of the "men who were the soliders" of the Civil War.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book that probably could've been condensed to a pamphlet and not bored me. McPherson's book essentially amounts to seven or so claims followed by a tiring repetition of quotes from soldiers as evidence. Much of this book belongs in footnotes. Minimal analysis. The book functions almost as a giant appendix rather than a well-argued easy-to-read thesis or narrative. Perhaps, I'll concede, it just isn't my style. Hopefully, his Pulitzer-Prize winning "Battle Cry of Freedom" doesn't present itself as a monotonous barrage as this work does.

[Joseph Belser · Rating 4 out of 5]

McPherson argues that ideals and duty were at the heart of why soldiers fought in the Civil War. It amazes me to see that the definitions of concepts such as “democracy” and “liberty” vary so much between Union and Confederate soldiers. It’s as if they were from different planets.