`` For Cause And Comrades `` By Kathryn Shively Meir Of...

Using firsthand accounts of people’s lives, such as letters and diaries, gives the reader the ability to experience the writer’s thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams. This tactic was used by two authors to use these firsthand accounts for differing outcomes. Author James McPherson provides a comprehensive analysis of the Civil War using over 25,000 letters and 250 private diaries in his book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. McPherson in his book answers to age-old questions; who was the common soldier and why did soldiers fight – what was their motivation? While McPherson answers these questions, another author uses diaries and letters of Civil War soldiers to understand the physical side of war. Author Kathryn†¦show more content†¦Other historians have used similar sources to analyze soldiers’ thoughts, emotions, and actions of Civil War soldiers. However, none has diagramed and picked apart the diaries and letters with the same questions as McPherson, such as why the men enlisted and fought in such a bloody war. Some historians believed that most of Civil War soldiers were unaware of why they were fighting. However, it has been found that in soldiers letters and diaries that soldiers did have a sense of the ideological ideas that caused the war. Troops on both sides of the war were very aware of the issues that were at stake, and it concerned them greatly. This was a civil war that would define the fate of a nation or even two. This war would shape American society and each person in it. 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 1850s when highly charged partisan and ideological debates consumed the American polity†. (pg 92) Men enlisted in the war for not only patriotic reasons but also ideological; these beliefs did not vanish after becoming a soldier. â€Å"The spread-eagle speeches they heard at recruiting rallies merely reinforced the ideas they had absorbed from the politica l culture in which they had grown up. And their army experiences reinforced these ideas even more powerfully.† (pg 92) Men not only heard the speeches but also read what was printed in