James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson
McPherson in June 2011
Born	(1936-10-11) October 11, 1936 (age 80) Valley City, North Dakota, U.S.
Occupation	Professor Emeritus
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Gustavus Adolphus College Johns Hopkins University
Notable works	Battle Cry of Freedom (1989), For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997)
Notable awards	Pulitzer Prize Lincoln Prize Pritzker Military Library Literature Award
Spouse	Patricia McPherson

James M. "Jim" McPherson (born October 11, 1936) is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica.

Born in Valley City, North Dakota, McPherson graduated from St. Peter High School, and he received his Bachelor of Arts at Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota) in 1958 (from which he graduated magna cum laude), and his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1963 where he studied under C. Vann Woodward.

McPherson's works include The Struggle for Equality, awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1965. In 1988, he published his Pulitzer-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom. And in 1998 another book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, received the Lincoln Prize. In 2002, he published both a scholarly book, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862, and a history of the American Civil War for children, Fields of Fury.