Taking on the history of the American Civil War is a daunting project, for, surely there has been no other civil war more written about than this epic struggle over slavery, as argued by the North, or freedom, as argued by the South. Shelby Foote's 3,000 page account of this four year conflict that nearly sundered the American experiment covers the politicians, the generals, the battles, the guns and the politics, so exhaustively that one wonders how Mr. Foote ever got this loving labor off the editor's desk and into print. Mr. Foote's thorough account leaves no stone unturned. Is it too long? Yes, but what it lacks in brevity it makes up for in the richness of detail and in the rhythm of the narrative which evokes images of a grandfather, sitting on his porch and, over late-night coffee, imparting the wisdom of his time. A shorter tale would leave out the fascinating insights into the men who claimed the names that history has preserved so well: Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee, Sherman and Jackson... All in all, a worthy testament to a gruesome war, a war that had been foolishly building since the founding of the United States, a war whose price was justice in the freeing of the slaves. And yet the cost echoes down to this day in an ever-expanding federal government which is, in part, the legacy of this great American schism.
This is Volume 1, from the opening shots at
Fort Sumter to
Perryville and the battle for Kentucky. (4/5 Stars)
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