Shelby Foote (1916-2005) was a journalist, writer, and historian best known for his three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative, published between 1958 and 1974. His writings about the war and the South generally tilted in the direction of the Lost Cause, which means he’s as far out of favor with historians today as he can be. And yet his scholarship and depth of research were impressive.
Foote also wrote six novels, one of which was entitled Shiloh, published in 1952. As the title indicates, it was about the Battle of Shiloh, fought April 6-7, 1862, in southern Tennessee very close to the Mississippi border. It was something of a seesaw battle, in that the Confederates under Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard clearly won the first day, only to see their victory turned into defeat the second day by the Union forces under Ulysses Grant and Don Carlos Buell. There were some 24,000 casualties, the total of both sides, and Shiloh has the dubious distinction of being one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.
Some Wednesday Readings
Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves – book review by Tim Talbott at Emerging Civil War.
‘I am very uneasy to know if my husband is alive or dead’: Memorial highlights Irish in US civil war – Sen O’Riordan at Irish Examiner.
Don’t Burn Down the Ivory Towers – Joshua Katz at The Free Press.
The Return of the Progressive Atrocity – Susie Linfield at Quillette.
MeToo unless you’re a Jew – Nicole Lampert at UnHerd.
C.S. Lewis: A Sonnet -- Malcolm Guite.
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