Chapter 1, This War is a Crusade Summary and Analysis

McPherson opens with the question of why 13,000 Confederate soldiers gave their lives at Gettysburg. It seems like a mystery that people would fight so hard for what appears to be the cause of slavery and what was almost assuredly a lost battle. This question led McPherson to the book. McPherson's great-great-grandfather has emigrated from England in 1857; he too chose to fight, but with the Union. Why did he do so? Letters from soldiers may shed some light on the question, for today it is hard to conceive of Americans fighting as fanatically for a cause as men did in the Civil War. The commitment is hard to explain with other factors; most men were not draftees; they were not paid well, and so on.

According to the letters, almost all men...