military

this is a very fun, well-written history of the military aspects of the civil war. i give it a HUGE thumb's up. however, african-americans, the people who the war was fought over, don't get any focus at all. one might say that is because foote concentrated on the military aspects of the war instead of the slavery aspects. if that is the case, then it should be noted that 178,000 african-american union soldiers made up over 15 % of the union whole, while blacks made up less than 1 % of the northern populace; 38,000 union african-american soldiers died during the civil war; 600,000 (out of 4,000,000 enslaved in 1860) slaves voted for emancipation with their feet during the war by fleeing their "owners," which changed the way the union fought the war; and 29,500 african-americans served in the union navy, or 1/4 of the union whole, of which 2,800 died.

shelby foote's civil war trilogy is awesome, but it doesn't tell the whole story. it seems even to WILLFULLY IGNORE the whole story. for readers looking for interesting undiscussed military facts about america's bloodiest war, turn to authors james mcpherson, william freehling, and noah andre trudeau. trudeau has written a much overlooked book on african-americans who served in union ranks, "like men of war."

again, foote's books are great reading! i really had a blast with them. but, sadly, i would like them to have been written in the modern day so they'd include ALL of the pertinent information.

Why don't they teach American History in public schools? The Civil War was mentioned in the text books of my day, the mid-20th century, but is scarcely referred to today.
To fill this void, those who want to truly be educated must do independent reading. Having just completed the first volume of Shelby Foote's trilogy (Ft. Sumter to Perryville) I have become an avid Civil War history buff. In the past month I drove to Virginia in order to visit the Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville, and Wilderness battlefields. I anticipate I will visit others in the future.
I also discovered that the National Park Service has listings of Union and Confederate soldiers. I have been able to identify 35 Union and 8 Confederate soldiers related to me, and the regiments in which they served.
The detailed accounts of the campaigns and pitched battles in this book surpass anything else I have read about the Civil War. Shelby Foote's narratives bring the war to life.
The most surprising element I found in the book was the account of political infighting among the general officers on both sides.
The only criticism I have of the writing is that the reader sometimes finds he has been reading about the activities of a particular individual for two or three pages in which the person is always referred to as "he" and it is sometimes necessary to backtrack and see who "he" is.

If this is what our literature has come to, it's little wonder our young people don't read more.

A sample of Foote's convoluted writing, from volume 3:

"By assigning Gordon's division to Breckinridge, who coupled it with his own, he gave the former Vice President a post befitting his dignity and put thirty-five-year-old Robert Rodes - a native of Lynchburg, which he had just helped to save from Hunter's firebrands, and a graduate and one-time professor at V.M.I., whose scorched ruins he viewed sadly, and no doubt angrily as well, after marching his veterans past that other V.M.I. professor's grave - in charge of the remaining corps, composed of his own and Dodson Ramseur's divisions; Ramseur, a North Carolinian, promoted to major general the day after his twenty-seventh birthday early this month, was the youngest West Pointer to achieve that rank in Lee's army."
("Civil War," vol 3, pp 446-447)

One is led to consider the possibility that Mr. Foote was paid by the word!

I doubt not that Foote's knowledge of the war far exceeds mine, and can neither dispute nor disagree with his accounting of battle facts, even though his pro-Confederacy (or are they anti-Union?) sympathies are evident.

All in all, Southall's "Lee's Lieutenants" is better structured and better composed, a much easier and more enjoyable read. At least, that's the way it seems to me.