McPherson's book on Abraham Lincoln is about his struggle as president to keep the union together. The book explained the different strategies, decisions, and speeches Lincoln used in order to keep the confederacy from seceding from the union. His timing on military strategy and national strategy helped the outcome of the revolution. McPherson also talks about the lives of African Americans after the Emancipation Proclamation was put into effect.
             The most believed reason for the Civil War was Lincoln's decision to abolish slavery and the emancipation. McPherson discusses how this outraged the south, where slavery was necessary for the everyday functions of their plantations. Lincoln immediately had to defend his decision and himself. "Thus the war was a struggle between two conflicting capitalist systems- one reactionary, based on slave labor, and fearful of change; the other progressive, competitive, innovative, and democratic" (P. 9). Mcpherson goes into depth about the generals Lincoln appointed, and the war tactics he had them oversee. Some of the generals had been quite inexperienced which led to many battle losses. Lincoln had spent a good amount of time studying war strategies for the use of putting down the confederate's.
             Some of these In-depth facts McPherson includes in his book are quite interesting. Others were a little too much. He had many examples which provided the reader with a wide variety of mental pictures that could help the reader understand Lincolns reasoning. For example, the uses of Lincolns Metaphors helped a great deal. McPherson includes many of these in his book to show how wise Lincoln was, and to show how he could relate things to one another in order to get his point across to his listeners. An example of
             this is his story about the shepherd, the sheep and the wolf. "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep tha...