3/8/2020

The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville (The Civil War #1) by Shelby Foote

I have about 100 pages of this left, but my digital library loan expired and it was returned automatically. In the stress and chaos of leaving NYC and going to someplace more remote, I forgot to bring my paper copy. When our family quarantine is over I’ll pick it up again.

I picked it up again and finished it this time. Turns out, my dad has a copy. And, it turns out, my dad can talk at length about Foote’s battle descriptions and points made in this book, even though he read it over twenty years ago. I cannot keep up with his reading. 50% of the time I stumble on a topic or military point of interest, he has three (hefty) book recommendations.

Anyway, Foote. This book is meticulous. Foote is meticulous. He traveled to every battlefield and point of interest in the Civil War, and also made sure he was there at the same time of year and day, just to make sure he better understood the military tactics and conditions used. As someone interested in context and research, his life writing this book sounds like a dream.

He makes, consistently, the argument that the Civil War was fought because the North invaded the South. He says that if you asked Southern soldiers on the battlefield why they were there, they would point to the Northern soldiers and say because something along the lines of “they invaded our homes.” He argues intensely against slavery as the primary motive for the war.

Foote’s research alone makes him the expert on this topic, but his identity as a Southerner makes his opinions suspect. He does not take a stand of neutrality but instead firmly roots both his writing and his research in the identity of a Southern white man.

In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende

Look, I read fiction! It was fine. It’s definitely not memorable.