James M. McPherson

McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003.

McPherson studied at Gustavus Adolphus College and Johns Hopkins University. The recorded working language is English. Residence is recorded at Princeton. Employment is recorded with Princeton University. Works named in the authority record are Battle Cry of Freedom. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship, Lincoln Prize, Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and Pulitzer Prize for History.

• Name — James M. McPherson • Birth Name — James Munro McPherson • Born — 11 October 1936 • Birthplace — Valley City, North Dakota, U.S. • Occupation — Historian • Main Interests — American Civil War • Alma Mater — * Gustavus Adolphus College (BA) • Johns Hopkins University (PhD) • Notableworks — * Battle Cry of Freedom (1988) • For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997) • Workplaces — Princeton University • Spouse — Patricia McPherson • Children — 1 • Awards — * Pulitzer Prize • Lincoln Prize • Pritzker Military Library Literature Award

Born in Valley City, North Dakota, McPherson graduated from St. Peter High School in St. Peter, Minnesota, and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1958 from Gustavus Adolphus College, also in St. Peter, from which he graduated magna cum laude. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1963, where he studied under C. Vann Woodward.

• Illustration — McPherson speaking at the American Historical Association annual meeting in January 2014 McPherson joined the faculty of Princeton in 1962. His works include The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction, awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1965. In 1988, he published his Pulitzer-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. His 1990 book, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution argues that the emancipation of slaves amounts to a second American Revolution. McPherson's 1998 book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, received the Lincoln Prize. In 2002, he published both a scholarly book, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862, and a history of the American Civil War for children, Fields of Fury. In 2007, McPherson published This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War, a series of essays about the American Civil War. One essay describes the huge difficulty of negotiation when regime change is a war aim on either side of a conflict. "For at least the past two centuries, nations have usually found it harder to end a war than to start one. Americans learned that bitter lesson in Vietnam, and apparently having forgotten it, we're forced to learn it all over again in Iraq." One of McPherson's examples is the American Civil War, in which both the Union and the Confederacy sought regime change. It took four years to end the war. There are all kinds of myths that a people has about itself, some positive, some negative, some healthy and some not healthy. I think that one job of the historian is to try to cut through some of those myths and get closer to some kind of reality. So that people can face their current situation realistically, rather than mythically. I guess that's my sense of what a historian ought to do. Among McPherson's other books are The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union (1965), The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (1975), and Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (1996).

McPherson is known for his outspokenness on contemporary issues and for his activism, such as his work on behalf of the preservation of Civil War battlefields. As president in 1993–1994 of Protect Historic America, he lobbied against the construction of a Disney theme park near Manassas battlefield. He has also served on the boards of the Civil War Trust as well as the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, a predecessor to the Civil War Trust. From 1990 to 1993, he sat on the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission. Along with several other historians, McPherson signed a May 2009 petition asking U.S. President Barack Obama not to lay a wreath at the Confederate Monument Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The petition stated: President Obama himself never addressed the issue. Instead, he sent a wreath not only to the Confederate Memorial but also instituted a new tradition of sending a presidential wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. He also won the praise of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

McPherson is married and has one child.

• Year — Film — Role — Notes • 1994 — Civil War Journal — Himself • 2003 — National Geographic: Beyond the Movie - The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King — Himself • 2011 — The Conspirator: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Lincoln — Himself • 2015 — The Gettysburg Address — Himself