The Civil War A Narrative Author:Shelby Foote "It was a Monday in Washington,January 21;Jefferson Davis rose from his seat in the Senate..." With these words,Shelby Foote begins a tremendous, sweeping narrative of the most fascinating conflict in our history- a war which lastedfour long,bitter years, an experience more profound and meaningfulthan any other the American people have lived thr... more »ough.
This volume which opens with Jefferson Davis'resignation from the United States Senate and Abraham Lincoln's departure from Springfield for the national capital;and these two leaders,whose lives continually touch on the great chain of events throughout the story, are only the first of scores of exciting personalities which in effect make The Civil War:A Narrative a multiple biography set against the crisis of an age.
All the great battles are here, of course,from Bull Run through Shiloh,the Seven Days,Second Manassas to Antietam and Perryville in the fall of 1862; but so are the smaller and often equally important engagements on both land and sea:Ball's bluff,Fort Donelson,Pea Ridge,Island Ten,New Orleans,Monitor versus Merrimac, Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign- to mention only a few.
And perhaps never before have these conflicts been so clearly,so dramatically "narrative"is the key,not only to this extraordinary book's incandescence,but also to its truth. The story istold entirely from the point of viewof the people involved in it. The Reader not only learns what was happening in the North and South,on the political,military,diplomatic and home fronts-he lives through the eventsas if he were there.This is the way it was,in it's entirety,as faras Shelby Foote could discover it during the years of exhaustive research.« less