Resumo de The Civil War

The Civil War
Shelby Foote (November 17, 1916 ? June 27, 2005) was a noted author and historian of the American Civil War. Foote was born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, United States. 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 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 active 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 (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. 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. 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, and generated renewed popular interest in his books.

Shelby Foote was the gentleman in Ken Burn's Civil War series that so effectively told the story of the Civil War. Shelby is a noted historian, and wrote the quintessential book on the conflict. If you have only one resource on the Civil War, this should be it. Shelby spent 20 years writing this material, and when you read it, you feel like you are hearing from an eye witness to the conflict. The books are filled with material you will not find anywhere else. If you did not get enough of of Shelby on Ken Burn's Civil War video series on PBS, then please treat yourself to Shelby Foote's masterpiece.
The Civil War between the northern and southern sections of the United States, which began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on the 12th of April 1861, and came to an end, in the last days of April 1865, with the surrender of the Confederates, was in its scope one of the greatest struggles known to history. Its operations were spread over thousands of miles, vast numbers of men were employed, and both sides fought with an even more relentless determination than is usual when armed nations meet in battle. The duration of the war was due to the nature of the country and the enormous distances to be traversed, not to any want of energy, for the armies were in deadly earnest and their battles and combats (of which two thousand four hundred can be named) sterner than those of almost any war in modern history. For the purposes of the military narrative it is sufficient to say that eleven southern states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was chosen president of this confederacy, and an energetic government prepared to repel the expected attack of the Union states. The resumption by the seceding states of the coast defenses (built on land ceded by the various states to the Federal government, and, it was argued, withdrawn therefore by the act of secession) brought on the

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