For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War Summary
James M. McPherson

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

For Cause and Comrades is a quest by historian James McPherson to understand why the Civil War soldiers fought the Civil War and why they fought as intensely and for as long as they did. The Civil War is unusual not only in American history, but in world history as well for the unusual intensity and carnage of the war. Men were taking up arms against other men that they knew, and their country was relatively small. What explains this? McPherson read over 25,000 letters that Civil War soldiers wrote home in preparation for the book. These letters are his primary source of evidence.

McPherson argues that the initial impulse to fight the war was the simple "military rage" the follows early in the declaration of any war. Soldiers and citizens have to fire themselves up and get energized to fight and kill others. But in the Civil War, men... View more of the For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War Summary