Confederates in the Attic

This is a great book, by Tony Horwitz. Tony is a war correspondent who took a year off and traveled the South finding out why Southerners have such an obsession with the Civil War. The best chapter is the interview with Shelby Foote. I didnt know Foote is not a historian, he is a novelist who was asked to write a narrative of the war (an easier read than most history books) and the result was a 20 yr effort that resulted in three volumes. Foote was interviewed by Tony in Memphis, and it turns out that Foote has his phone number listed in the phone book, and answers the phone himself. It rings all day. He answers, "Hello?" then he says "You're speaking to him..." since no one can believe they just called Foote's listed number and got him on the first ring! Tony asks him questions, but Foote answers as though these are the same old questions everyone asks him. So he tries to draw Foote out.

Foote sings a ditty about Abraham Lincoln:
Abraham Lincoln was a son of a bitch
His ass ran over with a seven year itch
His fist beat his dick like a blacksmith's hammer
While his asshole whistled the Star Spangled Banner.

Too funny! He said as a boy growing up in the South he memorized hundreds of terrible songs about Lincoln, but could only remember that one. He also said:
The battle flag (stars and bars) "stood for law, honor, love of country," but has now become a banner of shame and disgrace and hate."

Also, "I'm living to see another terrible thing, the South joining the party of Lincoln."

Also this, read carefully: "What has dismayed me so much is the behavior of blacks. They ar fulfilling every dire prophecy the KKK made. It's no longer safe to be on the streets in black neighborhoods. They are acting as if the utter lie about blacks being somewhere between ape and man were true."

Foote lives in Memphis, where the police pick up the dead bodies every morning, and school children get shot walking to school by errant bullets from drug dealers. I remember one instance, at a school event, shots rang out, and Major in the Memphis Police (a dad, dressed in street clothes) got out of his car with his police gun to investigate, when a uniformed police officer (new guy) arrives, tells him to "drop the gun" and then shoots the Major. ???? Police shooting each other? Memphis reminded me of Maputo the capitol city of Mozambique, great potential but corruption and violence holds it back.

Anyway, Foote also said that he goes to Shiloh every year, on the anniversary of the battle, arrives 5 am, so he can walk the battlefield as the sun rises, so he can see and experience the conditions that the soldiers had. he comes from the south, from Corinth, and starts at Shiloh church, ends at the national cemetary where Grant slept under a tree in a storm the first night of battle. Sherman found Grant under the tree, sherman nervous as usual, tells Grant we sure got a beating today. Grant says, stoically, "We'll whip 'em in the morning..." I dont know if Grant was confident, or exhausted, but his attitude convinced Sherman that all was not lost. and the union whipped them in the morning as Grant said. (Grant was not always that Stoic: after the first day of the Wilderness Campaign, he went in his tent, threw himself down on his cot, and weeped... Maybe he weeped for the killing, or maybe just relief that he fought Gen. Lee, his army stayed together, and he met the first test of Union commander, not getting whipped like a wet puppy by Bobby Lee.

I miss living in the South, esp the pine forests of Georgia. I should have enjoyed Athens GA more while I was there, but I was struggling with grad school, no money, wearing clothes I had left over from high school, and was convinced my goal of being an academician was impossible, doomed to failure. Perhaps I will go on my own Southern battle tour this summer, starting at Gettysburg, and driving south.

BTW- Gettysburg is a fantastic place, you can walk the whole city, it is compact, you can walk the battlefield. When i was there with noah, I stayed at the Holiday Inn on the main street, got up in morning, ran to the battlefield, ran Pickett's charge, and returned to motel. BTW, Pickett's Charge looks like half a mile when you stand where Lee observed the battlefield, it is up hill, but doesn't look like it. the hill increases in degrees as you get closer to the copse of trees Lee was aiming at. running it was longer than I expected, and harder: by the time I got to the copse of trees, I was out of breath (and I was a trim long distance runner then, about 10 years ago).