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Amazon.com Review
This beautifully written trilogy of books on the American Civil War is not only a piece of first-rate history, but also a marvelous work of literature. Shelby Foote brings a skilled novelist's narrative power to this great epic. Many know Foote for his prominent role as a commentator on Ken Burns's PBS series about the Civil War. These three books, however, are his legacy. His southern sympathies are apparent: the first volume opens by introducing Confederate President Jefferson Davis, rather than Abraham Lincoln. But they hardly get in the way of the great story Foote tells. This hefty three volume set should be on the bookshelf of any Civil War buff. --John Miller

From the Inside Flap
Foote's comprehensive history of the Civil War includes three compelling volumes: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, and Red River to Appomattox.

Customer Reviews

A Classic
I'm mostly writing this to pile on to the love-fest. As I write Foote's three volumes have 121/139 5-star reviews. Not bad.

I want to reiterate that the handful of complaints regarding lack of footnotes and a few incorrect facts are the worst sort of nit-picking.

The idea that this is a historical novel is ludicrous. This is solid history written with the skill of a fine novelist.

So who is this for? If you really want to know about the war, even make it a hobby, this is essential for you. You should read this first because it will give you the full scope in a consistent, coherent, and highly enjoyable fashion. This background will prove invaluable when you read other shorter books or books on narrower topics, like individual battles or persons.

Like many here, I also recommend Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States). This is a good book for the casual reader or second book after (or maybe before) Foote. It focuses heavily on social, economic, and political issues at the expense of military events making it a good compliment. It also tackles some of the debates that continue to exercise historians and is simply a great read.

Yes, Its from a Southern POV.
I have a love/hate relationship with Shelby Foote's work. Its magnificent, and a not-to-be-missed tour-de-force on the Civil War. I'm really, really glad however, that this isn't the only account of it I've read. (My ideas of what happened and why they happened would have been seriously skewed.) At the same time, its compelling narrative.

I've probably read 50-60 books on the Civil War, and this was probably one of the works that made me the saddest, since its so well written and so approachable and so biased.

If you want a better, equally approachable work, read Bruce Catton's three volumn work on the War:

The Coming Fury
Terrible Swift Sword
Never Call Retreat


He's every bit the Storyteller Foote is, and a far better Historian.

He also wrote a deliberately Union-centered book on the Civil War
called "This Hallowed Ground - The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War".

The American "Iliad"
Foote is a novelist first, and the skill of his narration bears this out. Although the reader knows (or should know) what is about to take place (after all, this is the most written about war in literature), the author presents the events as a first rate novelist presents his plot twists and turns - with such subtlety that the reader is somewhat surprised when he comes face to face with such events as the assassination of Lincoln. And one has to remind oneself that the presidents, politicians, generals, officers and men of both sides are not literary creations but real men; they come alive to the reader as the best constructed fictional character comes alive to the novel reader. Being born and raised in Louisiana, I came to the book with some built-in biases, particularly against some of the Union generals like Sherman and Sheridan while harboring almost deistic sentiments toward Lee, Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson. Foote shatters these biases. By using primary evidence such as personal letters, public speeches and contemporary observations these men shed their auras and become merely flesh and blood doing what they had to do given the exigencies of the war. I gained a begrudging respect for Sherman who always knew what war was about and knew best how to go about winning one. I was shown another side of Stonewall as a cruel, lemon sucking, self-appointed messenger of God who could sincerely give prayerful thanks for allowing him to slaughter the enemy. Sheridan I still do not like. Also gratifying was the attention that Foote gave to the Red River campaign and the exploits of General Richard Taylor, a part of the war that is often given scant attention or ignored all together by other historians.

That it took Foote "five times longer to write the war than the participants took to fight it" only matures his work, as age matures a first rate single malt Scotch whisky. During the time of Foote's labor, several historical events occurred that reflected the actions of the period of which he was writing, some one hundred years earlier: the assassination of a president; the beginning and end of another war; a continuation of the civil rights struggle so intimately associated with the Civil War and the assassination of its leader; and a period of uncertainty as manifested by Watergate. These re-occurrences surely had its impact on Foote (he makes parenthetical references to these contemporary events throughout the book) and tempered his efforts to write the definitive book on a definitive period of American history.

There has been much comment regarding Foote's seeming disregard for the principles of academic writing; i.e., the lack of footnotes or other forms of citation, and the lack of a comprehensive bibliography. He is compared unfavorably to other Civil War historians who lavish much time on such niceties with the result that Foote's extensive labor has been somewhat castigated. Come now! Are narrative histories by Herodotus, Livy, Thucydides and even Homer any less valuable because the emphasis is on narration rather than on a slavish adherence to the rules of academia? Foote, in his bibliographical notes, remarks in summation, "Farwel my book and my devocion', my rock and my companion through two decades," and it was with the same mixed feelings of reluctance and relief that I turned the last of almost three thousand pages of these three volumes, my own companion for countless mornings and evenings.