Analysis Of James M. Mcpherson's A Band Of Brothers

In the article “A Band of Brothers” written by James M. McPherson the strength of soldiers is discussed. The purpose of this article is to explain why ordinary men were able to bear the brunt of some of the bloodiest battle that has ever been witnessed. The thesis of this article is Civil War soldiers wrote much about courage, bravery, and valor which all meant the same but ultimately came back to the soldiers showing honor for their town, state, and union.

In the first point that James M. McPherson makes, he explains the soldiers showing their self pride, community, and not disgracing their family. The men show pride in themselves because they didn’t want the people that knew them to think of them as cowards, “ personal honor is the one thing valued more than life itself by the majority of men” (McPherson Essay). If soldiers were to show any cowardice they would generally be rated out by

other men from their hometown because it reflected badly on them as well. McPherson describes about how men in the hospital were criticized because many men would use being sick or injured as an excuse to keep out of a battle that they knew about in advance. So generally the men who didn't want to show cowardice, but were injured would go and fight anyway, no matter what a doctor would say. The men wanted to keep the pride that their family wanted to show for having a soldier, “to see those sick fellows walk straight up to the shower of bullets, as if it were so much rain” (McPhersons Essay). Most of the en ended up signing up for another three years again before they were placed out of the troops that they were all ready in, they didn’t want to be seen as the men that went home while their friends stayed and fought. They wanted to stay and uphold their honor as well as fight for the man next to them. Especially when they’re known the men they were fighting with all of their lives. The strength of this first point is that McPherson does a great job of explaining how much the soldiers don’t want to be cowards and why, how the effect of having men from the same town worked in the armies favor of keeping men, and showing the bravery of the soldiers during the war. However, with these strengths came many weaknesses, he didn’t explain about the other causes of war other than the fight for control over the states, and he didn’t explain enough on the New York Draft and why it occurred
McPherson’s second point is on how the soldiers regiment, state, and nation played a role in keeping them in the army and reinlisting over and over again. All the good soldiers are worried on how their regiment is portrayed or seen by others because that reflects all of them, “None but soldiers can know how sensitive the men of a good regiment are of its reputation,...” (McPherson’s Essay). With the pride the units showed there came to be a rivalry to show up the units around them. There was a lot of degrading on men who would run at the sight of battle. There was an incident in December of 1862 in which hundreds of New York soldiers were getting threatened by Massachusetts soldiers of being shot if they ran away from the battle of Kingston. Many men wouldn’t stand for cowardice because it meant that not only were you letting the man next to you die but you were also shaming your family with being scared and showing it. For many of these men showing any sort of cowardice meant that you were weak because you didn’t have the stomach to fight for the men next to you and your country. The strength of this point is that McPherson clearly articulates the national, regiments and the state's flag, he did well with describing how the soldiers weren’t going to return home until they had de
McPherson third and final point is primary group cohesion. This was when you were fighting for the man next to you; doesn’t matter if you believe in what you're fighting for. It became a huge combat motivation and has been since WWII. The army took this into account and used it to his advantage and put men from hometowns and siblings in the same regiment in order to create an emotional bond for the soldiers to have a reason to fight it if not for what the war was about. The survival of the group in which soldiers were apart of depends on everyone doing their part during the war. If a soldier were to try and bail he would not only put himself at risk, but also those of his brothers tha were fighting around him. In turn with them being put in danger he would also run the risk of getting their brothers labeled as “cowards”. In the quote, “the intense loyalty stimulated by close identification with the group. The men are now fighting for each other and develop guilty feelings if they let each other down...This spirit of self sacrifice, so characteristics of the combat personality, is at the heart of good morale.” (McPherson), they are stating that the men fighting for the people around them are brave in that amongst themself because they are willing to die for someone they don’t know as well as others. These men are truly the bravest in the army. The strengths of this point are that McPherson clearly tells the importance of supporting the man next to you in battle, loyalty, how attached all of the men were to each other, which in turn had soldiers disregarding their own safety in order to protect their “brothers”. Finally the weaknesses of this point were that he didn’t elaborate more on how soldiers gave up their rivalry, doesn’t give accurate points of view on how the soldiers felt about the war itself, how many people actually fought in the war.
This article has 3 main weaknesses. McPherson fails to explain the other causes for the war, he over romanticizes the war and didn’t explain the New York City Draft Riots. McPherson fails to explain the other causes of war such as slavery, slaves were fighting for their freedom and equality in the US. this is why African Americans fought in the Civil War which is also another subject that McPherson didn’t explain. There was also the preserving of the Union. Lincoln wanted the union preserved while the southerners wanted it destroyed because the people in it wanted to take away their slave states and if they could their slaves. Along with that lincoln's election pushed the southerners over the edge because they now didn’t have the upper hand in the united state government. Mcpherson also over romanticized the war. He made the war out to be a glorious opportunity, one that would show their courage while it was actually a blood bath. This was the bloodiest war in American history. The final main weakness that mcpherson doesn’t mention is the new york city draft riot; “a mostly irish-immigrant protest against conscription in new york city that escalated into class and racial welfare” (fraser). It was the worst riot up to that time in history. The only thing that stopped the riot was the federal troops that showed up on July 15.
The strengths of this article are that McPherson shows the importance of national, regiments, and state flag, soldiers not wanting to show cowardice, and . When McPherson explains the importance of national, regiments, and state flags he does it explicitly. He tells us about how men in regiments became like brothers to one another. These men would die for one another so that the men around them weren’t dishonored by cowardice. “The pride and honor of an individual soldier were bound up with the pride and honor of his regiment, his state, and the nation for which he fought, symbolized by the regimental and national flags” (Pherson Essay), this is what the men lived by during their time in the army. To show their pride they did it through the flags that soldiers carried while marching into battle. If your sides flag fell it was your duty to grab and raise it again so that their enemy couldn’t get a hold of the flag and brag about having it. The regiments competed with each other to show who was the best in the army, when the other side got your flag it was the worst shame imaginable. The position of a flag bearer was highly sought after because it was a place of honor. This helps to explain part of the reason on why soldiers didn’t want to show cowardice. McPherson does a good job of describing this in his essay, by telling us that if they were to show cowardice they would get mocked by other soldiers and the soldiers from their hometown would write letters home to inform their families of their cowardice. In this they would shame their family and their state. When he explains how the soldiers would get treated and how others would act to them he does a good job of thoroughly describing all of the details.
The article contributes to understanding of the Civil War because it tells of how the poor white man felt when fighting a rich man’s war.

How the courage of the soldier was important to the whole regiment and the man fighting beside you. It explained why a soldier's honor was so important and . Though this article showed important strengths, but it didn’t show all of them. It didn’t explain why the African Americans fought, what other causes of the war there were, preservation of the union, how lincoln’s election affected the war, etc. The Civil War is very similar to the Revolutionary War in that they both occurred in the United States. They both also had major outcomes when the war ended; the Civil war freed slaves and the Revolutionary war gave us independence and the constitution. Though they had these two things in common the Civil war was fought in the south and the Revolutionary war on the east coast. Another major difference in these wars were the death tolls; the Civil war had around 620,000 American deaths and the Revolutionary war had around 26,500 American

deaths.