NF The Late Shelby Foote

Non-Fiction
They also totally misinterpreted what Foote was trying to say, he said he was hoping the war could be avoided and slavery could be ended without blood.

Are you talking about the segment when Foote says something like 'the war happened because we didn't do what we're good at, which is compromise'? This seems to be one of the important complaints in the article. I'm sure that the interview segments that made it into the film were relatively short, and that the context would reveal what Foote really meant to say. What you're suggesting makes sense: "the war could be avoided and slavery could be ended without blood."

Roy B.
 
Are you talking about the segment when Foote says something like 'the war happened because we didn't do what we're good at, which is compromise'? This seems to be one of the important complaints in the article. I'm sure that the interview segments that made it into the film were relatively short, and that the context would reveal what Foote really meant to say. What you're suggesting makes sense: "the war could be avoided and slavery could be ended without blood."

Roy B.

That is something he said often during that time, in later years he seemed to switch from that view. The interesting thing is that recent journalists paint Foote as this racist southerner which he was anything but.
 
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That is something he said often during that time, in later years he seemed to switch from that view. The interesting thing is that recent journalists paint Foote as this racist southerner which he was anything but.

The change in historiography among the a new class of activists is to try to make it wrong to even present the struggles and life of the ordinary soldier in one half the war. The author is an easier target then many because he was southern and tried to present the average soldier in the South as no less of a human being then his northern counterpart.
 
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Just feel that I want to add that I think those who find the Ken Burns documentary lacking are doing the exact right thing in making another from what they see as the correct historical record. I like what another person posted on an earlier page in this thread that there are a lot more primary source documents available, and with the internet, available to a much wider group of scholars, researchers, and laymen than 30 years ago.

Still, I am a big fan of Shelby Foote, both as an oral historian and a writer, as well as the original Civil War documentary. And I might not watch a new one.
 
The interesting thing is that recent journalists paint Foote as this racist southerner which he was anything but.

I wonder whether Foote's accent is partly responsible for the criticisms he receives. I think I pointed this out earlier, but one quote from the Brockell article especially stands out to me: "Foote’s screen time is dripping with Lost Cause fables as thick as his accent."

I don't pretend to have suffered as much from prejudice as many minorities, but I have found that some people make assumptions about me because I'm a southern white man.

Roy B.
 
I wonder whether Foote's accent is partly responsible for the criticisms he receives. I think I pointed this out earlier, but one quote from the Brockell article especially stands out to me: "Foote’s screen time is dripping with Lost Cause fables as thick as his accent."

I don't pretend to have suffered as much from prejudice as many minorities, but I have found that some people make assumptions about me because I'm a southern white man.

Roy B.

I have no doubt , People tend to stereo type , Its the same with the English its become the Norm in Hollywood to portray us as bad guys or in the edited press as colonialist wrong doers who are to blame for all the worlds woes , It seems people have selective memory when it comes to history and while both Southern and English history is tainted that does not mean you can tar all people with the same brush 100s of years later.

They just need any old excuse.

If their is one thing Foote took from all his study of the ACW it was the fact that it could all have been avoided he always seems sad to me when he talks about it.
 
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They just need any old excuse.

If their is one thing Foote took from all his study of the ACW it was the fact that it could all have been avoided he always seems sad to me when he talks about it.

Nail on the head.

Could slavery have been ended without bloodshed? I don't know and quite frankly I'm loathe to bring it up here. Last thing I want this thread to turn into is the endless circle of finger pointing that seems to go nowhere.

I would say this to the author of the article: Shelby Foote spent a good part of his life reading about the Civil War. His narrative treats everyone with a human understanding that is sometimes lacking from the cold scholarly books that uses hindsight to treat decisions that were made in seconds.
 
The change in historiography among the a new class of activists is to try to make it wrong to even present the struggles and life of the ordinary soldier in one half the war. The author is an easier target then many because he was southern and tried to present the average soldier in the South as no less of a human being then his northern counterpart.
whooh! What would they do with Sam Watkins and his Co. Aytch?
 
I wonder whether Foote's accent is partly responsible for the criticisms he receives. I think I pointed this out earlier, but one quote from the Brockell article especially stands out to me: "Foote’s screen time is dripping with Lost Cause fables as thick as his accent."

I don't pretend to have suffered as much from prejudice as many minorities, but I have found that some people make assumptions about me because I'm a southern white man.

Roy B.

Reality is they do make assumptions and there’s nothing you can do about it. Try as you will they have you labeled not based on anything but skin color and accent. It’s almost well.....racist and it won’t get better anytime soon.

Foote has done more for civil war scholarship than just about any trained professor or historian out there. I put him right next to Bruce Catton. He just doesn’t check the right boxes according to some.

How many people started their life long obsession with the American civil war after watching the Burns film or reading Foote’s trilogy?
 
How many people started their life long obsession with the American civil war after watching the Burns film or reading Foote’s trilogy?

EDIT: I wasn't clear here, I was referring to the Burns series.

I wouldn't say that's where mine started but it certainly fanned it. Most people that I've ever talked to liked the series because it dealt with the military aspect of the era and that's what I liked about it too. For me, it's still fun to watch and remember when I was first learning about it. It's like putting in a movie from your childhood; it can be enjoyable because you enjoyed it.

I don't think it was trying to be a deep dive into every aspect of the war - it focused on a broad view of the military events and that's okay. There are plenty of works that zero in on this or that facet of the history. Not everything has to give a clear view of all perspectives and be an all-encompassing magnum opus; we're allowed to specialize, and we're allowed to have brief introductions to a subject.

If I'm buying "An Overview of How The Human Cornea Works" I wouldn't expect it to spend hundreds of pages on eyebrows and eyelashes even though the two are closely related. Similarly, if I want to read about Company B of the 16th Indiana (assuming there was such a thing, maybe there wasn't) I don't think I would post a negative review if it didn't go in-depth about how people from Vermont felt about that unit.
 
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I was seven years old and watched "Johnny Shiloh" so I was aware of it but it was Ken Burn's series that got me hooked. It premiered when I was 10. I was completely enthralled and started reading anything I could get my hands on Civil War wise. I actually got detention in fifth grade for sneak reading a Time Life civil war book on the Battle of Shiloh. I don't know what I was thinking, that book is the size of home plate.

Gettysburg premiered when I was 13, and I soon got into the Gettysburg Discussion Group after that. Forums weren't invented yet so the discussions happened via email.
 
I wouldn't say that's where mine started but it certainly fanned it.

Same here. I think it was probably the third set of books I read about the war, and it gave me a good overview of the whole thing, including many, many names and faces I knew nothing about prior to reading it. I have a great appreciation for Shelby Foote's work.
 
That seems to rankle his detractors on you tube whose argument seems to boil down to one shouldn't say nice things about certain people.

Watched this brief video. Wow, talk about taking things (words) out of context.

After watching the video it was also one of the few occasions where I looked at some posted comments on it. The first posted comment said "Shelby Footes words were completely taken out of context here to show your viewpoint. Shameful!" followed by "... [Foote's] opening remark on The Confedrates being remembered for valour was actually a comment about The Union showing just as much bravery...".
The video poster replied "Nothing Foote said was taken out of context..." and then goes on to quote the full statement:
"More credit for valor is given to Confederate soldiers: they're supposed to have had more elan and dash. Actually, I know of no braver men in either army than the Union troops at Fredericksburg, which was a serious (Union) defeat. To keep charging that wall at the foot of Marye's Heights after all the failures there'd been - and they were all failures - is a singular instance of valor." When you see the the full statement it is easily seen that just quoting in the video "More credit for valor is given to Confederate soldiers" and then going to a picture of Gen Jackson's statue is completely taking the words out of context.
 
I was seven years old and watched "Johnny Shiloh" so I was aware of it but it was Ken Burn's series that got me hooked. It premiered when I was 10. I was completely enthralled and started reading anything I could get my hands on Civil War wise. I actually got detention in fifth grade for sneak reading a Time Life civil war book on the Battle of Shiloh. I don't know what I was thinking, that book is the size of home plate.....
If you were my fifth grade student, I would have given you a candy coupon, not detention.
 
Watched this brief video. Wow, talk about taking things (words) out of context.

...to quote the full statement:
"More credit for valor is given to Confederate soldiers: they're supposed to have had more elan and dash. Actually, I know of no braver men in either army than the Union troops at Fredericksburg, which was a serious (Union) defeat. To keep charging that wall at the foot of Marye's Heights after all the failures there'd been - and they were all failures - is a singular instance of valor."

Gosh, I can just hear his voice, and remember so well his saying these words.
 
I don't pretend to have suffered as much from prejudice as many minorities, but I have found that some people make assumptions about me because I'm a southern white man.

The think about stereotypes is many of them are mostly right most of the time.

If I made an assumption about your views on the Civil War, country music, and the two main political parties based solely upon you being a white man with a Southern drawl I would not be right every time but I would be right far more often than not.

The biggest problem with stereotypes is the assumption that they must always be accurate. Foote certainly put his thoughts and opinions on record plenty of times so there's no need to assume because of his accent.

His narrative treats everyone with a human understanding that is sometimes lacking from the cold scholarly books that uses hindsight to treat decisions that were made in seconds.

Decisions are right or wrong. They should be understood based on the information that was available at the time, but still assessed with hindsight.

Foote has done more for civil war scholarship than just about any trained professor or historian out there.

If you're basing that on number of readers? Sure.
 
Decisions are right or wrong. They should be understood based on the information that was available at the time, but still assessed with hindsight.

I don't think you can define it as clearly as that. There is always a gray area and hindsight itself is flawed. We assume someone made a wrong decision because of terrible consequences that occurred. That makes it the wrong decision. Without ever taking into account that they may of just made the best out of a bad situation. Hence, where the idiom, "damned if you do, damned if you don't" comes into play.

I coached High School basketball for ten years and let me tell you, it usually isn't as clear cut as you described.
 
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