Dr. McPherson's BattleCry of Freedom is very balanced. He bends over backwards to be fair. The facts don't suit you, so you attack him.
I heard again yesterday the Tennessee pep band playing a flourish based on that popular song of the ACW from which Dr. McPherson's book takes its name.
Walt
McPherson's book should be commended for its efforts at a one volume account of the Civil War. I still recommend it to people starting to read about the Civil War for the first time. McPherson nevertheless emphasizes the moral rather than political role slavery played in the cause of the war. You can regularly find him on C-Span comparing the 1860's and 1960's, with Lincoln as a Civil rights leader etc.
Of course just about everyone in the CW history field will lean pro North or pro South a bit. For example VaTech's Robertson seems pro South while UVa's Ghallagher leans pro north, yet neither are offensive to most people. For a professional historian (yes I know he's not the only one) he bends over backwards in his anti-South bias. He brags about it. Perhaps he's reacting to criticism from Neo-Confeds. Even so, he's gotten more liberal since Battle Cry came out a few years back. McPherson was originally trained as a Presidential historian. When he dabbled in the CW and it somehow boomed and he found he could make money in it (unlike professors whose expertise is 4th century French agriculture I suppose)he's become some sort of "expert". Now he's somehow the official Civil War Historian Laureate of the United States. He is a sub-par CW scholar amongst his peers. I mean, yes Battle Cry of Freedom is better than Di Lorenzo or those dumbass Kennedey books the Neo-confeds tout, but not that much better.
All that I've seen of it suggests a strong yankee bias combined with shoddy consideration of the facts. I am familiar with some of McPherson's other works in greater detail than that particular book and each has a strong tilt toward the North. It is also undeniable that McPherson is a political leftist with strong anti-southern political beliefs of his own. Therefore based on the bias in what I have seen of Battle Cry of Freedom as well as the known northern bias of McPherson's other books and his politics in general, I believe it is safe to call Battle Cry of Freedom a biased and unbalanced book.
He bends over backwards to be fair.
No, not really.