Please list errors of omission and commission.
Be nice.
Minimize rhetoric.
If you post he did something deliberately, I will ask for proof, be prepared to support it.
Please put the page number or a link to Google Books if possible.
The Civil War: A Narrative is a three volume, 2,968-page, 1.2 million-word narrative. The probability of finding errors seems high. Have fun.
Here's a post I made earlier this year:
Let's take a look at the Prologue of Foote's narrative:
If one reads Shelby Foote's narrative, and only Shelby Foote's narrative, what does one come away from it believing why the secessionists acted? Did they act just because they didn't like Lincoln, or does Foote identify any other reasons?
On Page 34, Foote claims Lincoln was opposed to any compromise measure, when in fact Lincoln opposed only measures that would allow the expansion of slavery and was willing to sign on to any other compromise measure. He uses Lincoln's letter against compromise on the expansion of slavery as if Lincoln was talking about any and all compromise proposals.
In speaking of Jefferson Davis' inaugural address on Page 40, Foote says Davis didn't mention slavery. While it's true Davis didn't use the word "slavery," he did say, "The declared purpose of the compact of the Union from which we have withdrawn was to 'establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;' and when, in the judgment of the sovereign States composing this Confederacy, it has been perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and ceased to answer the ends for which it was established, a peaceful appeal to the ballot box declared that, so far as they are concerned, the Government created by that compact should cease to exist." He also said, "With a Constitution differing only from that of our fathers in so far as it is explanatory of their well-known intent, freed from sectional conflicts, which have interfered with the pursuit of the general welfare ... " and "Actuated solely by the desire to preserve our own rights, and promote our own welfare, ... " These euphemisms referred to the sectional arguments and to the published secession documents that were familiar to all, and those all had identified issues surrounding the institution of slavery. So while not specifically using the word "slavery," Davis did indeed mention slavery, issues surrounding slavery, and the arguments over those issues in his inaugural. Davis also didn't use the word "tariff" in his inaugural, yet Foote says he spoke of the tariff. Why is it that Foote ignores the references to slavery because the word wasn't used, yet he highlights the tariff, even though that word wasn't used?
In his discussion of the confederate constitution on Page 42, Foote highlights as most important the use of "Almighty God." One has to read to the end of the paragraph in the other, less important changes to find that "persons" had been changed to "slaves."
On Page 31 he says R. E. Lee was a colonel when John Brown raided Harpers Ferry. Lee was a lieutenant colonel.
On page 43, Foote identifies the tariff only as a protectionist tariff protecting manufacturers from what Foote identifies as "largely superior products of England" without talking about how it was the primary means of revenue generation for the government, whose treasury was largely depleted at the time. He says, "Without the rod of a strong protective tariff, eastern manufacturers would lose their southern markets to the cheaper, largely superior products of England, and this was feared by the workers as well as the owners." This ignores the fact that when secession occurred, the tariff was at its lowest point in decades and was a revenue-only tariff, not a protective tariff, and had been for years without eastern manufacturers losing southern markets. In fact, southerners consumed very little in the way of imported goods.
On Page 44, Foote claims South Carolina had cut the Sumter garrison off from purchasing all food in local markets back in January, with this policy being continued by the confederacy when it took over. That is not correct. They didn't cut off local purchases until April.
On Page 50 he claims Lincoln judged before the firing on Fort Sumter that it would unite the North. There's no evidence of him making such a judgment.
On Page 63 he gives another dubious claim of a conversation, this one involving a colonel's uniform.
On Page 56, Foote repeats the claim that Lincoln outmaneuvered the highly experienced confederates and he claims Lincoln had used Fort Sumter as a tool to unite the North. He also claims Lincoln maneuvered the confederates into firing the first shot on Page 47.
On Page 51 He makes the highly dubious claim that Lincoln didn't want to be hampered by having Congress in session.
On Page 66 He makes the false claim that Lincoln had endorsed secession during the Mexican War. He claims people were held without charges long enough to grow pale in prison, when in fact prisoners were only imprisoned a short time without charges and were let go upon taking a loyalty oath.
On Page 65 he makes the claim about "a ragged Virginia private, pounced on by the Northerners in a retreat. 'What are you fighting for anyhow?' his captors asked, looking at him. They were genuinely puzzled, for he obviously owned no slaves and seemingly could have little interest in States Rights or even Independence. 'I'm fighting because you're down here,' he said." Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any documentation for this incident ever happening.
On Page 67 he writes, "Though Americans grew pale in prison cells without knowing the charges under which they had been snatched from their homes or places of employment, there were guilty men among the innocent, and a dungeon was as good a place as any for a patriot to serve his country through a time of strain." This supposedly was early July. At that point very few people had been arrested, and they knew why they had been arrested.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2...-and-arbitrary-arrests?rgn=main;view=fulltext