The Civil War Journey Continues

This week, we continued to examine public history through the perspective of the Civil War. The class continued its reading of Tony Horwitz's "Confederates in the Attic," viewed a Ken Burns interview, and looked at some mobile history.

We pick up on Horwitz journey through Southern memory with him at the Foote of the Master. Shelby Foote, God rest his soul, may have been the greatest of the Civil War historians. His books travel from obscure battles, to the major conflicts that draw millions into the war. Horwitz discovers that this Civil War celebrity is incredibly easy to get in touch with and is able to schedule a meeting. At this meeting, Horwitz asks him a barrage of questions, all of which Foote is able to answer in a snarky way that resembles an angry grandfather. Horwitz asks him why the Civil War is such an enduring memory and Foote responds with, "If you look at American history as the life span of a man, the Civil War represents the great trauma of our adolescence. It's the sort of experience we never forget" (146).  On that same page, Foote relays that the reason why we never forget this experience is because as humans, we tend to remember the battles that we lost.

Under Foote's urging, Horwitz then goes to Shiloh on the early morning of the anniversary of the battle. His plan is to follow the battle through the course of the day and experience the power that such an endeavor could have. While he is there, he runs across a large cast of characters who show up at Shiloh for their own reasons and for their own quests for satisfaction. Horwitz observes that most Southerns view the Shiloh battlefield as a memorial to Yankee conquest and victory (171). This happens because the post-War South couldn't fund monuments on the scale and number as the Northern victor could. General Grant even said that Shiloh was the most misunderstood battle of the Civil War (179).

Victory Defeated by Death and Night. Shiloh Monument
For Southerns. Image courtesy of NPS

Once he was done with Shiloh, Horwitz took his next stop at Vicksburg. Vicksburg offered an example of people trying to mesh the past with a need for modern capitalism. The casinos of Vicksburg overwhelm the riverbank and offered a false example of the history that the Civil War provides. However, it is the first place that Coca-Cola was bottled, which I did not know. Horwitz seems to have a talent for finding interesting people in these stops that he makes. At Vicksburg, he talks to a museum curator who says, "...if it hadn't been for the Yankee occupation, we wouldn't have any good stories to tell" (201).

Victory Defeated by Death and Night. Shiloh Monument
For Southerns. Image courtesy of ShilohNick

In our final chapter of our reading, Horwitz goes back to Virginia to meet Robert Lee Hodge and some other members of the "hardcores." They go on the "Civil Wargasm." They spend a week going super speed through various battles and places that had significant meaning in the war. Something that is important to this class is when they make it to Manassas, he discusses Disney's plan and failure to establish a theme park honoring the American past. His opinion and writers voice are very much against this theme park. He states, "In the end, the park's foes prevailed in a rare triumph of high culture over low" (217).


The Ken Burn interview about his documentary series, The Civil War, brought to light the difficulty and painstaking hours it took to make something like that during a time with no internet. They had to photograph and record all of the photos that the nine part series used. These photographs were taken from archives, and even from some individual's personal collections. My favorite part was the comment section on Youtube where people were either incredible enthused by the documentary, or people were ranting about it being Northern propaganda, a controversy that Horwitz touches briefly in the Shelby Foote section.