Battle Cry of Freedom 2

I believe the primary reason for McPherson’s amazing success in painting an accurate picture of the Civil War in the minds of his readers is his thorough research of as many sources as was possible (McPherson refers to additional scholarship completed since the completion of Battle Cry of Freedom in his Afterword (page 864). For example, McPherson cites 9 different sources for his conclusions on page 242 (Chapter 8) alone. How does one obtain a truly accurate understanding of what happened when only a small piece is examined? It reminds me of the story of the blind men who come upon an elephant. Each blind man examines a different part of the elephant and each, accordingly, reaches a different conclusion as to what an elephant looks like. McPherson skillfully avoids this pitfall, which is why, in my humble opinion, he succeeds so well! Students would be well-advised to learn two things from this: 1st, that it takes the examination of many different points of view to reach accuracy in conclusion; and 2nd, the types of sources matter, too. In other words, both the quantity of different viewpoints and the quality of those varied viewpoints will determine whether or not a conclusion reached will have lasting validity.