by Shelby Foote
No one who has read or even scanned these books can fail to see my debt to them, as well as to the biographies cited earlier, two of which had concluding volumes that came out just as the need for them was sorest: Hudson Strode’s Jefferson Davis: Tragic Hero and Bruce Catton’s Grant Takes Command. Having had them, I cannot see how I could have managed without them, and the same applies to J. G. Randall’s Lincoln the President, completed after his death by Richard N. Current in Last Full Measure, and Jim Bishop’s Day Lincoln Was Shot. Clifford Dowdey’s Lee brought his subject into sharper focus, and T. Harry Williams filled a sizeable gap with his Hayes of the Twenty-third, as E.B. Long did many others with The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac. Nash K. Burger’s and John K. Bettersworth’s South of Appomattox helped get me down to the wire, and Kenneth M. Stampp, who was with me at the start in And the War Came, was also with me at the finish in The Era of Reconstruction, another old friend among the many I know only through their work.
To all these I am grateful, as I was and am to those mentioned in the end notes to the first two volumes of this iliad, most of whom continued their contribution through the third. Originally I intended to list my obligations in a complete bibliography here at the close of the whole, but even this chore has been spared me — along with a considerable added bulkiness for you — by Ralph G. Newman and E. B. Long, whose 1964 pamphlet, A Basic Civil War Library, first published in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, enumerates by category the 350-odd books I owe most to, old and new and in and out of print. Other such compilations are readily available, including a much fuller one in Long’s own Almanac, yet this one is to me the best in its inclusion of the works I mainly relied on, at any rate up to its date of issue. While I hope I have acknowledged my heaviest contemporary debts in this trio of notes, there are two I would like to stress in particular. One is to Bruce Catton, whose Centennial History of the Civil War was finished in time for its third volume, Never Call Retreat, to be available, together with his earlier Stillness at Appomattox, as a source and guide all through the writing of my own third volume. I was, as Stonewall Jackson said in another connection on his deathbed, “the infinite gainer” from having him thus meet his deadline even as I was failing to reach mine. My other chief debt is to the late Allan Nevins, whose close-packed Organized War to Victory, the last in his four-volume War for the Union, was similarly available during the past two years. Both gave me a wealth of useable material, but at least as valuable was their example of dedication and perseverance, double-barreled proof that such an undertaking could be carried to a finish. In that sense my debt to them is personal, though not as much so, nor as large, as the ones I owe my editor, Robert Loomis, and my wife, Gwyn Rainer Foote, both of whom bore with me all the way.
Perhaps in closing I might add that, although nowhere along the line have I had a “thesis” to argue or maintain — partly no doubt because I never saw one yet that could not be “proved,” at least to the satisfaction of the writer who advanced it — I did have one thing I wanted to do, and that was to restore a balance I found lacking in nearly all the histories composed within a hundred years of Sumter. In all too many of these works, long and short, foreign and domestic, the notion prevailed that the War was fought in Virginia, while elsewhere — in an admittedly large but also rather empty region known vaguely as “the West” — a sort of running skirmish wobbled back and forth, presumably as a way for its participants, faceless men with unfamiliar names, to pass the time while waiting for the issue to be settled in the East. I do not claim that the opposite is true, but I do claim that it is perhaps a little closer to the truth; that Vicksburg, for example, was as “decisive” as Gettysburg, if not more so, and that Donelson, with its introduction of Grant and Forrest onto the national scene, may have had more to do with the outcome than either of the others had, for all their greater panoply, numbers, and documentation. In any case, it was my hope to provide what I considered a more fitting balance, East and West, in the course of attempting my aforesaid purpose of re-creating that war and making it live again in the world around us.
So, anyhow, “Farwel my book and my devocion,” my rock and my companion through two decades. At the outset of this Gibbon span, plunk in what I hope will be the middle of my writing life, I was two years younger than Grant at Belmont, while at the end I was four months older than Lincoln at his assassination. By way of possible extenuation, in response to complaints that it took me five times longer to write the war than the participants took to fight it, I would point out that there were a good many more of them than there was of me. However that may be, the conflict is behind me now, as it is for you and it was a hundred-odd years ago for them.
—S.F.
COMPREHENSIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS
Volume One
I.
CHAPTER l. PROLOGUE—THE OPPONENTS
1. Secession: Davis and Lincoln
2. Sumter; Early Maneuvers
3. Statistics North and South
CHAPTER 2. FIRST BLOOD; NEW CONCEPTIONS
1. Manassas—Southern Triumph
2. Anderson, Frémont, McClellan
3. Scott’s Anaconda; the Navy
4. Diplomacy; the Buildup
CHAPTER 3. THE THING GETS UNDER WAY
1. The West: Grant, Fort Henry
2. Donelson—The Loss of Kentucky
3. Gloom; Manassas Evacuation
4. McC Moves to the Peninsula
II.
CHAPTER 4. WAR MEANS FIGHTING …
1. Pea Ridge; Glorieta; Island Ten
2. Halleck-Grant, Jston-Bgard: Shiloh
3. Farragut, Lovell: New Orleans
4. Halleck, Beauregard: Corinth
CHAPTER 5. FIGHTING MEANS KILLING
1. Davis Frets; Lincoln-McClellan
2. Valley Campaign; Seven Pines
3. Lee, McC: The Concentration
4. The Seven Days; Hezekiah
III.
CHAPTER 6. THE SUN SHINES SOUTH
1. Lincoln Reappraisal; Emancipation?
2. Grant, Farragut, Buell
3. Bragg, K. Smith, Breckinridge
4. Lee vs. Pope: Second Manassas
CHAPTER 7. TWO ADVANCES; TWO RETREATS
1. Invasion West: Richmond, Munfordville
2. Lee, McClellan: Sharpsburg
3. The Emancipation Proclamation
4. Corinth-Perryville: Bragg Retreats
CHAPTER 8. LAST, BEST HOPE OF EARTH
1. Lincoln’s Late-Fall Disappointments
2. Davis: Lookback and Outlook
3. Lincoln: December Message
Volume Two
I.
CHAPTER l. THE LONGEST JOURNEY
1. Davis, Westward and Return
2. Goldsboro; Fredericksburg
3. Prairie Grove; Galveston
4. Holly Springs; Walnut Hills
5. Murfreesboro: Bragg Retreats
CHAPTER 2. UNHAPPY NEW YEAR
1. Lincoln; Mud March; Hooker
2. Arkansas Post; Transmiss; Grant
3. Erlanger; Richmond Bread Riot
4. Rosecrans; Johnston; Streit
5. Vicksburg—Seven Failures
CHAPTER 3. DEATH OF A SOLDIER
1. Naval Repulse at Charleston
2. Lee, Hooker; Mosby; Kelly’s Ford
3. Suffolk: Longstreet Southside
4. Hooker, Stoneman: The Crossing
5. Chancellorsville; Jackson Dies
II.
CHAPTER 4. THE BELEAGUERED CITY
1. Grant’s Plan; the Run; Grierson
2. Eastward, Port Gibson to Jackson
3. Westward, Jackson to Vicksburg
4. Port Hudson; Banks vs. Gardner
5. Vicksburg Siege, Through June
CHAPTER 5. STARS IN THEIR COURSES
1. Lee, Davis; Invasion; Stuart
2. Gettysburg Opens; Meade Arrives
3. Gettysburg, July 2: Longstreet
4. Gettysburg, Thir
d Day: Pickett
5. Cavalry; Lee Plans Withdrawal
CHAPTER 6. UNVEXED TO THE SEA
1. Lee’s Retreat; Falling Waters
2. Milliken’s Bend; Helena Repulse
3. Vicksburg Falls; Jackson Reburnt
4. Lincoln Exults; N.Y. Draft Riot
5. Davis Declines Lee’s Resignation
III.
CHAPTER 7. RIOT AND RESURGENCE
1. Rosecrans; Tullahoma Campaign
2. Morgan Raid; Chattanooga Taken
3. Charleston Seige; Transmississippi
4. Chickamauga—First Day
5. Bragg’s Victory Unexploited
CHAPTER 8. THE CENTER GIVES
1. Sabine Pass; Shelby; Grant Hurt
2. Bristoe Station; Buckland Races
3. Grant Opens the Cracker Line
4. Davis, Bragg; Gettysburg Address
5. Missionary Ridge; Bragg Relieved
CHAPTER 9. SPRING CAME ON FOREVER
1. Mine Run; Meade Withdraws
2. Olustee; Kilpatrick Raid
3. Sherman, Meridian; Forrest
4. Lincoln-Davis, a Final Contrast
5. Grant Summoned to Washington
Volume Three
I.
CHAPTER 1. ANOTHER GRAND DESIGN
1. Grant in Washington—His Plan
2. Red River, Camden: Reevaluation
3. Paducah, Fort Pillow; Plymouth
4. Grant Poised; Joe Davis; Lee
CHAPTER 2. THE FORTY DAYS
1. Grant Crosses; the Wilderness
2. Spotsylvania—“All Summer”
3. New Market; Bermuda Hundred
4. North Anna; Cold Harbor; Early
CHAPTER 3. RED CLAY MINUET
1. Dalton to Pine Mountain
2. Brice’s; Lincoln; “Alabama”
3. Kennesaw to Chattahoochee
4. Hood Replaces Johnston
II.
CHAPTER 4. WAR Is CRUELTY …
1. Petersburg; Early I; Peace?
2. Hood vs. Sherman; Mobile Bay; Memphis Raid; Atlanta Falls
3. Crater; McClellan; Early II
4. Price Raid; “Florida”; Cushing; Forrest Raids Mid-Tenn.
5. Hood-Davis; Lincoln Reelected.
CHAPTER 5. You CANNOT REFINE IT
1. Petersburg Trenches; Weldon RR
2. March to Sea; Hood, Spring Hill
3. Franklin; Hood Invests Nashville
4. Thomas Attacks; Hood Retreats
5. Savannah Falls; Lincoln Exultant
III.
CHAPTER 6. A TIGHTENING NOOSE
1. Grant; Ft. Fisher; 13th Amendment
2. Confed Shifts; Lee Genl-in-Chief?
3. Blair Received; Hampton Roads
4. Hatcher’s Run; Columbia Burned
CHAPTER 7. VICTORY, AND DEFEAT
1. Sheridan, Early; Second Inaugural
2. Goldsboro; Sheridan; City Point
3. Five Forks—Richmond Evacuated
4. Lee, Grant Race for Appomattox
CHAPTER 8. LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT
1. Davis-Johnston; Sumter; Booth
2. Durham; Citronelle; Davis Taken
3. K. Smith; Naval; Fort Monroe
4. Postlude: Reconstruction, Davis
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM VINTAGE BOOKS
The Civil War: A Narrative
Volume I, Fort Sumter to Perryville
“A stunning book full of color, life, character and a new atmosphere of the Civil War, and at the same time a narrative of unflagging power. Eloquent proof that an historian should be a writer above all else.” —BURKE DAVIS
“This is historical writing at its best.… It can hardly be surpassed.” —Library Journal
“Anyone who wants to relive the Civil War, as thousands of Americans apparently do, will go through this volume with pleasure.… Years from now, Foote’s monumental narrative most likely will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of its kind.”
—New York Herald Tribune Book Review
“There is, of course, a majesty inherent in the subject. Some sense of that ineluctable fact, however reluctant its expression, is evident in every honest consideration of our history. But the credit for recovering such majesty to the attention of our skeptical and unheroic age will hereafter belong peculiarly to Mr. Foote.” —M. E. BRADFORD, The National Review
The Civil War: A Narrative
Volume II, Fredericksburg to Meridian
“Gettysburg … is described with such meticulous attention to action, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commanders that I understand, at last, what happened in that battle … Mr. Foote has an acute sense of the relative importance of events and a novelist’s skill in directing the reader’s attention to the men and the episodes that will influence the course of the whole war, without omitting items which are of momentary interest. His organization of facts could hardly be bettered.” —Atlantic
“Though the events of this middle year of the Civil War have been recounted hundreds of times, they have rarely been re-created with such vigor and such picturesque detail as in Mr. Foote’s ‘Civil War: A Narrative.’ ” —New York Times Book Review
“The lucidity of the battle narratives, the vigor of the prose, the strong feeling for the men from generals to privates who did the fighting are ail controlled by a constant sense of how it happened and what it was all about. Foote has the novelist’s feeling for character and situation, without losing the historian’s scrupulous regard for recorded fact. The Civil War is likely to stand unequaled.” —WALTER MILLS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHELBY FOOTE was born in Greenville, Mississippi, and attended school there until he entered the University of North Carolina. During World War II he served in the European theater as a captain of field artillery. He has written five novels: Tournament, Follow Me Down, Love in a Dry Season, Shiloh and Jordan County. He has been awarded three Guggenheim fellowships. He died in 2005.
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