The Civil War/ American Homer: A Narrative (Modern Library)

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It allows us to convince ourselves that the dishonorable were in some way honorable; it reassures our sense of selves as inculpable white Americans; it allows us a psychological pass for the sins of our forefathers. The reality is, the Civil War has been hotly debated for 160 years and will be for another 160 years. Although previously known as a novelist, Foote is most famous for this non-fictional narrative history. Unfortunately, it seems as if “The Civil War” will not hold up against historical scrutiny as well as “Reconstruction” likely will.

The Civil War/ American Homer: A Narrative (Modern Library)

By 1981, he had given up on Two Gates altogether, though he told interviewers for years afterward that he continued to work on it. Foote worked for several weeks on an outline and decided that his plan couldn't be done to Cerf's specifications.The Civil War memory historian David Blight notes that although reconciliation is a “noble and essential human impulse” after a convulsive Civil War, reunion came at a devastating cost, as civil and political freedom for Black Americans became “sacrificial offerings on the altar of reunion.

Shelby Foote’s Flawed Understanding of Slavery and the Civil War Shelby Foote’s Flawed Understanding of Slavery and the Civil War

In this “Lost Cause of the Confederacy” narrative, White Southerners didn’t sacrifice their sons to preserve the “ cornerstone” of slavery; they were the victims of a Northern aggressor, fighting nobly for dignity and states’ rights.And while the right side won the war, there were plenty of scoundrels who made it happen and do not deserve the lofty place history has given them. Relatively few copies of volume 13 were printed, increasing the after-market value of that particular volume and the set as a whole. In what would become a refrain among groups ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, his proclamation resonates: “What began as a bitter dispute over union and states’ rights. In the late 1980s, Ken Burns had assembled a group of consultants to interview for his Civil War documentary.

The Civil War: A Narrative Series by Shelby Foote - Goodreads The Civil War: A Narrative Series by Shelby Foote - Goodreads

The attempt to splice together real and pseudo histories of the war is perhaps best encapsulated by the narrator’s thesis: “What began as a bitter dispute between union and states’ rights ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. In 2013, the Sons of Confederate Veterans used Foote's presentation of Nathan Bedford Forrest as a "humane slave holder" to protest against the removal of his statue in Memphis. Foote was raised in his father's and maternal grandmother's Episcopal faith, though he attended synagogue each Saturday with his mother until the age of eleven. The Confederate general is introduced as “the courtly, unknowable aristocrat who disapproved of secession and slavery, yet went on to defend them both at the head of one of the greatest armies of all time. Among many other omissions, the documentary generally ignores the work of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project (FSSP), a group of highly regarded historians based out of the University of Maryland.In fact, no unit in the history of human military conflict has ever done what the First Minnesota did. Foote had a picture of Forrest hanging on his wall, and believed that "he's an enormously attractive, outgoing man once you get to know him and once you get to know more facts". I'm talking about, I am personally more like Nat Turner than James Baldwin is, even though they are both Negroes. As we’ve seen in “Reconstruction,” historical reality, no matter how painful and violent and vivid, can be effectively and evocatively portrayed though documentary film.