woodward and sheldon mayer were not happy with the title. van woodward and sheldon mayer and i were talking about this in my home one day in i think 1986. the euro to before the book came out. we batted around some ideas. and one of my favorite songs from the civil war era is battle cry of freedom which was written in 1862 and quickly became one of the favorite songs in the north. since both sides profess to be fighting for their own version of freedom -- professed to be fighting for their own version of freedom, i thought this expressed that. and my wife broke in and said it why not call it "battle cry of freedom." she deserves the credit. van woodward was not enamored because it was a yankee title. he grew up in arkansas and wanted it to be an evenhanded book, to tell the story without yankee bias, so he was skeptical until i pointed out to him that there was in fact a confederate version was slightly different words to the song. like many civil war songs that started in the north -- and that includes dixie -- it became popular in the sout