[Illbay]

Let me tranlate billbearese for y'all: "Historical hack" = "non-revisionist historian."

Honestly, anyone who criticizes McPherson on the basis of "hack" is just brain-dead. Battle Cry of Freedom is simply chock-full of historical fact, as well as a variety of historical opinion, all extensively and EXHAUSTIVELY documented. That book packs more punch in a single volume than many a multi-volume set on the war.

It's a treasure and a must-read for any serious student of U.S. history.

[billbears]

Oh so we're translating are we? Illbayese, Mcpherson = 'the greatest historian since Josephus'. Josephus had Christ, and Mcpherson has lincoln. The fact is that McPherson takes his historical 'fact' from partial quotes of a consummate politician, lincoln. Ignore the statistics, the papers of the day, speeches from lincoln's detractors, statements from non-biased foreign papers and officials, anything that takes away from 'the lincoln'.

It's a treasure and a must-read for any serious student of U.S. history.

It's something alright I'll give you that. It's a fanciful revision to condone lincoln's actions. Heck, even McPherson himself calls lincoln a 'benevolent dictator'. Yeah, it's chockful of something