James McPherson

James M. McPherson is a renowned historian of the American Civil War. Raised in Minnesota, McPherson studied at Gustavus Adolphus College and then earned his PhD from Johns Hopkins University under another noted American historian, C. Vann Woodward. McPherson’s earliest scholarship focused on abolitionism and social reform in the Civil War era. In 1988, McPherson won the Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, a scholarly history of the Civil War which also gained a popular readership, selling over 600,000 copies. He has twice been a recipient of Gettysburg College’s Lincoln Prize for nonfiction works on the Civil War, first for For Cause and Comrades (1998) and later for Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (2009). McPherson has actively worked for the preservation of Civil War battlefields and historic sites. He began teaching at Princeton University in 1962, where he remains an Emeritus Professor of United States History. McPherson currently lives in New Jersey with  his wife Patricia.