The Walter Lynwood Fleming lectures in southern history

From Google Books: "In Battle Cry Of Freedom, James M. McPherson presented a fascinating, concise general history of the defining American conflict. With What They Fought For, he focuses his considerable talents on what motivated the individual soldier to fight. In an exceptional and highly original Civil War analysis, McPherson draws on the letters and diaries of nearly one thousand Union and Confederate soldiers, giving voice to the very men who risked their lives in the conflict. His conclusion that most of them felt a keen sense of patriotic and ideological commitment counters the prevailing belief that Civil War soldiers had little or no idea of what they were lighting for. In their letters home and their diaries -- neither of which were subject to censorship -- these men were able to comment, in writing, on a wide variety of issues connected with their war experience. Their insights show how deeply felt and strongly held their convictions were and reveal far more careful thought on the ideological issues of the war than has previously been thought to be true."

The first essay examines the aftermath of slavery in Haiti and the British Caribbean, and also looks briefly at early twentieth-century racial and economic relations in southern and eastern Africa; The second essay turns to how the issues and patterns prevalent in the Caribbean and Africa were duplicated in the postemancipation United States; The third essay examines a specific set of events during American Reconstruction, the strikes of rice workers along the Combahee River in South Carolina, to illustrate how many issues were resolved at the local level. The purpose of this book, then, was to examine crucial aspects of the forging of a new social order in the aftermath of slavery.--Excerpted from the Introduction pp. 1-3.