James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson was born in North Dakota and grew up in Minnesota, where he graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1958. 

In 1963, he received a Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University. 

From 1962 to 2004, he taught at Princeton University, where he currently holds the title of George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History Emeritus.  He has written seventeen books and edited another dozen, mostly on the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction.  His books have won several prizes, including the Pulitzer prize (1989) for Battle Cry of the Freedom; The Civil War Era, the Lincoln Prize (1989) for For Cause and Comrades; Why Men Fought in the Civil War, and a second Lincoln Prize (2009) for Tried By War; Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief.  In 2000, he was selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities to give the Jefferson Lecture at the Kennedy Center in Washington.  In 2007, he was awarded the first Pritzker Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.  He has served as president of the American Historical Association and the Society of American historians.