Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release
January 17, 2000 

Award-winning Civil War Historian Discusses America's "Revolutionary
Struggle" in a Lawrence University Convocation


     APPLETON, WIS. -- James McPherson, widely recognized as the
country's pre-eminent Civil War historian and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author,
discusses America's enduring fascination with the U.S. Civil War
Tuesday, Jan. 25 in a Lawrence University convocation.
     McPherson presents the address "Drawn with the Sword:  Reflections
on the American Civil War" Tuesday at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence
Memorial Chapel.  He also will conduct a question-and-answer session at
2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge in the Lawrence Memorial Union.  Both events
are free and open to the public.
     In his address, which is based on his 1996 collection of essays of
the same name, McPherson will share his view of the Civil War as a
revolutionary struggle of epic dimensions and discuss the relevance of
the Civil War today, including unresolved problems of race relations and
the role of the national government in promoting social change and
justice.
     McPherson, 63, has written a dozen books related to the war between
the states, including the 900-page national best seller "Battle Cry of
Freedom: The Civil War Era," which earned the 1989 Pulitzer Prize in
history.  His first book, "The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and
the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction," was awarded the 1965
Anisfield-Wolf Award in Race Relations.  
     One of his most recent works, "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men
Fought in the Civil War," received 1998's Lincoln Prize, which is
awarded annually for the finest scholarly English work on Abraham
Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or a subject relating to their
era.  
     Much of the research he conducted for "For Cause and Comrades"
centered on Union and Confederate soldiers' personal letters and diaries
housed in state historical societies.  By his own estimation, McPherson
read nearly 25,000 individual letters from 600 Union and 400 Confederate
soldiers in preparation for the book.  He is currently working on a
project that centers on the battle of Antietam.
     The National Endowment for the Humanities recently announced it had
selected McPherson to deliver its annual address March 27 at the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C.  The address is widely recognized as one of
the highest honors in scholarly circles and is generally conferred at
the pinnacle of one's career.
      Born in Valley City, N.D., McPherson grew up in southern Minnesota
in the small farming community of St. Peter.  He has been a member of
the history department faculty at Princeton University since 1962 and
was appointed the George Henry Davis Professor of American History there
in 1991.  The recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967,
he earned his bachelor's degree from Gustavus Adolphus College and his
Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University.