Shelby Foote

D

dig-it

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Dec 22, 2004
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Shelby Foote, 88 died Monday night in Memphis, Tenn. Noted Southern author and historian he wrote among other books the three volume set The Civil War a narrative. I have read these volumes at least ten times. My copies are in tatters. He made appearances as the narrator in Ken Burns series The Civil war.
R.I.P.
 
What a shame. I have the DVD set of The American Civil War and watch it regularly. He seemed like an erudite and charming gentleman.

maximus otter
 
A friend of mine, a VietNam veteran of the 101st Airmobile's battle in the IaDrang Valley, described Shelby Foote's description of the Battle of Gettysburg as the best single description of a battle that he had ever read. i find that a high compliment for an author.

One of my favorite quotations is from Shelby Foote's discussions in the Ken Burns PBS series, "The Civil War". It is this one:
Shelby Foote said:
And yet that's (the Civil War) what made us a nation. Before the war, people had a theoretical notion of having a country, but when the war was over, both sides knew they had a country. They'd been there. They had walked its hills and they had tramped its roads. They saw the country and they knew they had a country. And they knew the effort that they had expended and their dead friends had expended to preserve it. The war made their country an actuality.
Before the war, it was said, "The United States are..." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. After the war, it was always, "The United States is..." -as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is".
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