Amazon.com Review
In 1954, Shelby Foote was a young novelist with a contract to write a short history of the Civil War. It soon became clear, however, that he had undertaken a long-term project. Twenty years later Foote finally completed his massive and essential trilogy on the War Between the States. His three books are prose masterpieces with lively characterizations and gripping action. Although Foote never sacrifices the truth of what happened to his penchant for artistry, his skills as a novelist serve him well. Reading all three of these books will take some time, but they are worth the investment--especially if you, like Foote, have a touch of sympathy for the South's lost cause.
Review
"Here, for a certainty, is one of the great historical narratives of our century, a unique and brilliant achievement, one that must be firmly placed in the ranks of the masters... a stirring and stupendous synthesis of history."
-- Van Allen Bradley, Chicago Daily News
"A grand, sweeping narrative... will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of its kind."
-- Richard N. Current, N.Y. Herald Tribune
The Civil War:
A Narrative
Fredericksburg to Meridian
"This, then, is narrative history -- a kind of history that goes back to an older literary tradition... The writing is superb ... one of the historical and literary achievements of our time."
-- T. Harry Williams, Book World
"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 all 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 unequalled."
-- Walter Millis