Shelby Foote

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Shelby Foote (November 17, 1916 – June 27, 2005) was a noted American author and a legendary historian of the American Civil War.

Contents 1 Life and Career 2 Bibliography 2.1 Fiction 2.2 Non-fiction 3 Quotes 4 Trivia 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Life and Career

Foote was born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, the largest city in the primarily agrarian region called the Mississippi Delta. His ancestor, Richard Foote, came in 1688 from London to Chotank in King George County, Virginia, to represent his father's interest in settlement of the Brenttown tract.

Shelby attended the University of North Carolina but did not graduate before entering the United States Army in 1940. He was commissioned a captain of artillery, but lost his commission and was dismissed from the Army in 1944 for using a government vehicle, against regulations, to visit a girlfriend (who later would become his first wife). He later enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, but did not see combat duty.

After being discharged from the military, Foote was briefly a journalist. However, he began writing historical fiction, mostly set in the period surrounding the American Civil War. Among his works are Follow Me Down (1950), Love in a Dry Season (1951), and Shiloh: a novel (1952). Although he was not one of America's best-known fiction writers, Foote was admired by his peers—among them his lifelong friend Walker Percy. "Follow Me Down" was written after Foote had been working as a reporter and covered a trial in Mississippi. Foote used the trial and many of its important details to write the book.^{[citation needed]}

Although he never completed college or received formal training as a historian, he is nevertheless greatly respected and Foote's ability to create a realistic portrayal of the American Civil War — factually accurate, richly detailed, and entering into the minds of men on both sides — led his editors at Random House to invite him to write a short history of the war to appear for the conflict's centennial.

Foote subsequently wrote a comprehensive three volume, 3000-page history of the American Civil War, together entitled The Civil War: A Narrative, which is considered by many to be a classic. The individual volumes include Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958), Fredericksburg to Meridian (1963), and Red River to Appomattox (1974).

Foote appeared in Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War. Foote's drawl, erudition, and quirk of speaking as if the war were still going on, made him a favorite. The exposure made him a minor celebrity (a role he did not relish, especially as increased public attention gave him less time to work on his novels), and generated renewed popular interest in his books.

Despite his Southern upbringing, Foote deliberately avoided Lost Cause mythologizing in his work. He considered Abraham Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest to be the only two authentic geniuses of the war, a belief that raised the ire of Forrest's granddaughter. He also believed that the cause of the South was lost from the minute it declared war.

Foote was a Guggenheim Fellow three times and served as a lecturer at the University of Virginia and the University of Memphis.

From the 1950s until his death, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1987, he became a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In one of his last television projects, Foote narrated the three-part series The 1840 Carolina Village, produced by award-winning PBS and Travel Channel producer C. Vincent Shortt in 1997. "Working with Shelby was a genuinely illuminating and humbling experience", said Shortt. "He was the kind of academician who could weave a Civil War story into a discussion about fried green tomatoes -- and do so without an ounce of presumption or arrogance. He was a treasure."^{[citation needed]}

In the early 1990s, Foote was interviewed by journalist Tony Horwitz for the project on American memory of the Civil War which Horwitz eventually published as Confederates In The Attic (1998). Foote was also a member of The Modern Library's editorial board for the re-launch of the series in the mid 1990s.^[1] (This series published two books excerpted from his Civil War narrative. Foote also contributed a long introduction to their edition of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage giving a narrative biography of the author.)

Foote died at Baptist Hospital in Memphis on June 27, 2005. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Fiction

• Tournament (1949)
• Follow Me Down (1950) (paperback ISBN 0-679-73617-4)
• Love in a Dry Season (1951)(paperback ISBN 0-679-73618-2)
• Shiloh: a novel (1952) (paperback ISBN 0-679-73542-9)
• Jordan County (1954) (paperback ISBN 0-679-73616-6)
• September, September (1978) (paperback ISBN 0-679-73543-7)

[edit] Non-fiction

The Civil War: A Narrative series:

• The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville. New York : Random House, 1958 (paperback ISBN 0-394-74623-6)
• The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian. New York: Random House, 1963 (paperback ISBN 0-394-74621-X)
• The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol 3: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Random House, 1974 (paperback ISBN 0-394-74622-8)
• Stars in Their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863
• Chickamauga: And Other Civil War Stories
• The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863

Note: The two books Stars in Their Courses and The Beleaguered City are excerpted from the three-volume narrative. The former was a whole chapter in the second volume, and the latter excerpted from the second volume where some material was interspersed with other events.

Also, in 1993, Foote contributed a lengthy introduction to the Modern Library edition of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage (which was published along with "The Veteran", a short story that features the hero of the larger work at the end of his life). In this introduction, Foote recounts the biography of Crane in the same narrative style as Foote's Civil War work. Originally published in hardback, this volume is now in the Modern Library's paperback classics, ISBN 0679783202.

[edit] Quotes

• "People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made."
• "I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value."
• On his epic: "They wanted only about two hundred thousand words," Foote recalled, "and it seemed like a good way to spend a year or two." Before finishing one hundred pages, he realized that he would have "to go spread-eagle, whole hog on the thing." (From the biographical sketch in Stars In Their Courses.)
• "I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that war." (From The Civil War).

[edit] Trivia

When The Civil War was first broadcast, Foote's phone number was publicly listed. The series drew considerable attention, and he would frequently get phone calls from people who had seen him on television. Foote never got around to unlisting his number, and the volume of calls would increase each time the series re-aired. (Source: 2002 interview available as a special feature on The Civil War DVD release.)

[edit] References

1. ^ Foote is still listed on the board's web page

[edit] External links

• The Windsor Connection of Shelby Foote and cousin Horton
• PBS Civil War
• American Enterprise interview with Bill Kauffman
• Ole Miss biography and obituary.
• Fellowship of Southern Writers biography