The Motives of Soldiers in the Civil War from For Cause and Comrades by McPherson

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For Cause and Comrades is a book written by James McPherson, with the help of diaries and letters written by soldiers from the Confederate and Union forces, he is able to formally detail accounts on why men fought in the civil war. Consequently, McPherson is able to shed light on the mentality and motives that soldiers possessed that made them fight in the war. Although we will never truly know why soldiers fought in the civil war, this book most definitely gives readers evidence that soldiers had certain values and morals that gave them reason to fight.
McPherson’s primary goal in writing this book is to hit three main points: “Initial motivation, sustaining motivation and combat motivation” . Initial motivation “consists of reasons why men enlisted” the next point deals with “factors that kept them in the army and kept the army in existence over time” ; the last point “focuses on what nerved them to face extreme danger in battle” . All of these points are related, to an extent. They all come together to form the foundation of why men fought in the Civil War. McPherson then goes onto finding support for his three points which builds up upon his foundation which in turn, creates this book.
McPherson was able to retrieve personal letters and diaries from thousands of soldiers during the Civil War. As one can imagine, this took an immense amount of time, focus and dedication. McPherson was able to sift through the letters and diaries and found that “in general, letters were more valuable than diaries” because they were able to “build up the composite portrait of Civil War soldiers” that he hoped to expose in this book. On the other hand, diaries were more valuable in a sense that he was able to “understand the thoughts, emoti...

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...I have killed no one yet and God grant it may be so ordered I never may” . Consequently, the views expressed in chapter 3 lead me to position it as least convincing.
Overall I honestly enjoyed reading this book. The amount of evidence and truth that was provided in this book really makes it worth reading. It was like stepping into a time machine, which I believe was really beneficial to all of the ROTC cadets taking this class because it allowed us to comprehend what it was like for soldiers during the Civil War. Even though the U.S. Army is completely different than it was back during the Civil War, a lot of the motives, mentalities, and values that were expressed back then are still relevant in the Army of today. I would definitely recommend this book to all soldiers in today’s Army and to people who would like to find out information in regards to the Civil War.

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