James Munro McPherson is an American historian specializing in the American Civil War. He 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.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is a 1988 book on the American Civil War, written by James M. McPherson. It is the sixth volume of the Oxford History of the United States series. An abridged, illustrated version was published in 2003. The book won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History.