Bad Catholic Book Notes: Atlanta Will Fall

The Compromise of 1850

From Student of the American Civil War

The Mad Monarchist: The Empire of Lies

The Mad Monarchist: The Empire of Lies: One of America's most important "Founding Fathers" once referred to his vision of the United States of America as an "E...

Wreck of the Old 97

ELVIS by Albert Goldman

Elvis fans HATE this book.  Albert Goldman's muck raking biography published in 1981 still rankles Elvis lovers.  Goldman went on to write a similarly received biography of John Lennon in 1988.  Goldman died of a heart attack on an airplane in 1994.

Elvis and girlfriend Linda Thompson 

who Goldman says had to dodge bullets coming through the bathroom wall.

Although thoroughly researched, Goldman didn't like Elvis Presley, didn't like Elvis fans, didn't like Southern Culture, and didn't like Rock 'n Roll.    Goldman always drew the worst conclusions possible from the facts.   This makes for a deliciously fun read.

Albert Goldman and his muck raking book

Goldman's Elvis is really fun to read.  We hear about Elvis shooting out the television in the Presidential suite at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and the bullet nearly hitting Linda Thompson while she was sitting on the toilet.  We hear about how Elvis and some of the guys went to Paris during a leave while Elvis was in the army and Elvis took the entire chorus line of a Paris theater back to his hotel suite.  We hear about how Elvis liked young girls, the younger the better, evidenced by his infatuation with the 14 year old future wife Priscilla.  Goldman reports in detail on every rumored sexual deviancy and obsession of the King.

Young Elvis being mobbed by the girls.

"Colonel" Tom Parker is also shellacked by Goldman.  The Colonel is painted as a manipulative carnival huckster and compulsive gambler who cared absolutely nothing about Elvis Presley except as a meal ticket.  (Goldman's was the first to uncover that far from being a southerner, Colonel Parker was an illegal alien from the Netherlands named Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, who came to the U.S. stowed away on a ship).

Reading Goldman's Elvis was a perverse pleasure.  Hard core Elvis fans will still be offended, but I found it to be a lot of fun.

William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country

I just finished reading Professor James Lee McDonough's wonderful new biography of General Sherman.  This is a traditional "old school" biography which tells the story of the subjects life in a narrative form.

Sherman is a truly fascinating character.  His father, a lawyer and early justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, had an admiration for the Seneca Chief Tecumseh who tried to unite the Indian tribes to fight the United States.  Sherman's father died when Sherman was nine years old.   Being unable to care for her children, Sherman's mother divided up the children and sent them to live with various family members and friends. Sherman was sent to live with the family of U.S. Senator Thomas Ewing.  Ewing's wife was staunchly Catholic and raised all of her children as Catholics.  Although raised in a devout Catholic home, Sherman always refused to accept the Catholic faith.  Sherman eventually married Ellen Ewing whom he had been raised with.  Ellen was a very devout Catholic and reared all of the Sherman children in the Catholic faith.  Ellen's staunch religious views would be a source of contention between her and "Cump" (Sherman's childhood nickname) for the rest of their lives.

Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign

Sherman's career both before and after the Civil War are just as fascinating as his Civil War service.  As a young army officer, Sherman fought the Seminole Indians in Florida and was present in California when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill which launched the California Gold Rush.  Resigning from the army, Sherman took a job managing a bank in San Francisco.  Sherman weathered an economic downturn and a run on the bank, only to have the bank fail because the home bank in St. Louis failed.  For a short time, Sherman managed a bank on Wall Street until it too failed. For a very short period of time, Sherman tried to practice law, which also ended in financial disaster. For the rest of his life, Sherman hated bankers and lawyers.

Sherman in later life.

The eve of the Civil War found Sherman as the Superintendent of the State Military Academy in Louisiana.  It seems strange to say that Sherman loved the South and liked Southerners.  His early days as an army officer were spent in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.  Sherman became good friends with a number of prominent Southerners during his army service.

Resigning his position in Louisiana after that State seceded from the Union, Sherman returned to the army and led a division with some distinction at the battle of First Bull Run.  As a commander in Kentucky early in the war, Sherman had what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. Sherman realized that Southerners intended to fight to the bitter end and that it would be a long and bloody war of conquest.  Everybody thought Sherman was crazy and he was almost sent home in disgrace.  Fortunately, General Grant salvaged Sherman's career and gave him command of an army corps.  As Sherman was later to write, "Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk.  Now we stand by each other always."

Professor McDonough goes into great detail regarding Sherman's generalship.  Sherman disdained large battles with huge loss of life and sought to carry on a war of maneuver.  McDonough has high praise for Sherman's generalship, although he sees the march through the Carolinas as much more challenging than the vaunted "March to the Sea."

Sherman's relationship with African Americans is also interesting.  Sherman was a racist who often employed the "N" word.  He believed that blacks were inferior and should not be given full citizenship.  After the war, Sherman advocated ending reconstruction and giving control back to former Confederates so long as they were now loyal to the Union.  Sherman's career after the war sees him leading the U.S. Army's efforts against the Plains Indians.  Although Sherman generally felt that the Indians had been mistreated by the whites, he clearly saw them as inferior to whites and made some statements to the effect that it might be better to just wipe some of the tribes out altogether.

James Lee McDonough, Professor Emeritus of History, Auburn University

Sherman is an endlessly fascinating character, which is why another Sherman biography is not a waste of time.  Professor McDonough's book is well written and enjoyable.  Five out of five cannons.   

Julius Caesar: A Biography

Michael Grant (1914 - 2004) was a prolific freelance historian who wrote many books of "popular history" on the history of the Greeks, Romans and other ancient cultures.  Over the course of a long weekend vacation, I read Grant's 1969 short biography of Caesar, which has been republished many times in many different editions.

This short book (187 pages) is more of an overview of the life and career of Caesar than an in-depth study.  It is, nevertheless, filled with fascinating facts.  If you think that our current politics in the United States are a mess, it hasn't gotten as bad as the late Roman Republic yet.  At least bribery and assassination have not become the norm.  Grant recounts that during several elections there was so much money being borrowed to finance bribes to fix the election, that the interest rates rose.  Also, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  I read my wife, who is a bankruptcy attorney, a passage from the book detailing how Caesar as dictator basically introduced a primitive form of bankruptcy protection for debtors.  Grant also recounts how, because there was a shortage of gold and silver that many estates were being foreclosed on.  Because there was a glut of foreclosed real estate on the market, the property sold for much less than was owed on it.  My wife asked, "When was this?"  I said, "49 B.C."  She said"Sounds like the 2007!"

Grant also gives a good overview of Caesar's military campaigns.  Caesar waged what we would consider genocide against a number of Gaulish tribes which gained him money and fame.  Caesar's famous Commentaries were written to inflate his reputation at home to help him gain and keep political power.

I just thought this picture of Lictors carrying the Fasces was cool!

Over all, this little book was a worthwhile read.  Five out of five Fasces.

 Michael Grant (1914 - 2004)  

BEAUTIFUL AZAAN IN A CHURCH USA (LATEST)

Most Beautiful Azan ever heard.

Understanding Islamic Terrorism

I ordered and read this book after hearing Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo on Dr. Deal Hudson's Church and Culture program on Ave Maria Radio.  I read with interest on the internet that Dr. Sookhdeo was convicted by a British jury earlier this year of a misdemeanor grade sexual assault for groping a woman at this office at a Christian charity.

Regardless of whether Sookhdeo did or did not commit sexual battery, he knows his stuff when it comes to Islam.  Sookhdeo's 2004 book Understanding Islamist Terrorism: The Islamic Doctrine of War is excellent and should be read by every American.

Is Islam really "a religion of peace" as our political leaders keep telling us?  Not according to Sookhdeo.  Islam was a faith born in battle and spread by conquest.  Although modern liberal Islamic theologians have developed the idea that the battle for personal purity and against sin is "the greater Jihad" and that the literal jihad against infidels is the "lesser jihad," in classical Islam jihad means struggle against unbelievers.  Fundamentalist groups like Al-Qaeda and Isis take jihad against infidels seriously and see it as a duty of all Muslims.

Patrick Sookhdeo

Islam is not just a religion, it is a total system of politics, law and spirituality.  The book traces the history of jihad from the time of the Prophet until the 9/11 attacks.  In his conclusions, Sookhdeo states:  ". . . wars continue to be fought in which the name of Islam as a religion is invoked along with the concept of jihad; as has been seen, this reflects the mainstream interpretation of Islamic scholars in the classical period of Islam.  A twenty first century imam, who feels strongly that Islam is oppressed by the tyrannous and unjust governments of the US and Europe, comments: We say it proudly that Islam recognizes the near inevitability of recourse to war.  Islam in its classical interpretation finds it difficult to coexist with the modern world.  Such coexistence will remain a challenge unless Islam can examine itself and make modifications.  No matter how much is done to improve the socio-economic status of impoverished Muslim populations, no matter how carefully the West tries to avoid causing any kind of 'humiliation' which might inflict psychological pain on Muslims, there will remain reasons for Muslims to wage war on non-Muslims, unless Islam itself can change.  How far the Islamic world is capable of coming to terms with its own history, theology and practice is hard to estimate.  Typically Islam finds great difficulty in admitting fault or the need for change.  However, there are contemporary Muslims who are beginning to face this reality."

Beautiful Islamic Call To Prayer

Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron

This concise book (198 pages) sets the record straight on the biography of Eva Peron and the odyssey of her mummified body after her death.

Eva Peron

First published in 1980 after the success of the Broadway musical Evita, authors Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro debunk many myths that have risen up about Eva Marie Duarte's rise to power in Argentina.

Young Eva Maria Duarte

Born the illegitimate child of a ranch overseer, Eva and her family were ostracized by polite society. Wanting to be a famous actress like her idol Norma Shearer, Evita left home at age 15 to seek fame and fortune in Buenos Aires.  The author's debunk the anti-Peronist legend that Evita was taken off as the mistress of a wealthy entertainer and say that she most likely was accompanied to the big city by her mother.

There is little doubt that in the course of her rise in the Argentine entertainment industry that Evita probably spent some time on the proverbial casting couch, leading to the myth that she had been a prostitute.  Gaining notoriety as a soap opera actress on the radio, the young Eva met Colonel Juan Peron, the labor minister, when he recruited celebrities to raise money for the victims of an earthquake.  She soon became Colonel Peron's mistress.

Eva and Juan Peron

The book details Peron's rise to power.  When the ruling junta decided that Peron had too much power, they had him arrested and hauled him off to a prison on an island.  While labor minister, Peron had granted many concessions to the labor unions, causing him to be beloved by the workers.  When news of his arrest spread, the workers of Buenos Aires poured into the streets demanding Peron's release.  Realizing that they could not machine gun a crowd of 200,000 unarmed civilians, the government capitulated and released Peron.  In the following election, Juan Peron was elected President of Argentina.

The President and his lady

Eva Peron became beloved of the people when she began personally overseeing massive social programs for the poor.  The book details that if the Eva Peron Foundation called up a business and asked for a "donation" it better be forthcoming or else health and building inspectors would be on their way to write up all the violations they would find.  The book details that one businessman was so upset that his company accidentally sent Evita a bill that he fled to Uruguay to avoid arrest.

In the early 1950s, Eva was diagnosed with the uterine cancer which eventually took her life.  One of the great demagogues of all time, Evita was able to stir the crowds into a frenzy.  At times, even her husband was shocked and surprised by the level of near worship which was afforded Evita by the Argentine public.

The book details Eva's death and subsequent near canonization by the Argentine masses.  It also goes into great detail about what happened to Evita's body.  Mummified by an Argentine doctor, the body was held out awaiting the construction of a massive tomb.  Before this could be built, Juan Peron was removed from power by a military coup.  Fearing that Evita's body would be an object of worship for the Peronists, the junta set about to get rid of the corpse.  After sitting around in a general's attic for years, the body was finally shipped to Italy and buried under a false name in an Italian cemetery.  Peron's second wife, who became President of Argentina after Peron's death in 1974, had the body brought back to Argentina to try to shore up her sinking regime.  After she was removed from power by yet another military coup, the body was quietly buried in a Buenos Aires cemetery.

Evita the Mummy

Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron is well worth the time to read it.  Highly recommended.

"Protector of the Humble"

John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of a Confederate General

I just finished reading Stephen M. Hood's book about his distant relative General John Bell Hood.  Sam Hood feels like his famous relative has had a bad time at the hands first of former Confederate officers who wanted to deflect the blame for the Southern defeat away from them and onto Hood, and from 20th and 21st Century historians and writers who have perpetuated myths and falsehoods about the General.

If you Google this book, you will find plenty on the web about Stephen Hood's bashing of other Civil War historians, especially Wiley Sword, the author of the acclaimed book The Confederacy's Last Hurrah.  Reviews and discussions of the controversy swirling around this book can be found Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here.

I don't want to wade into all the controversy.  Suffice it to say that I greatly enjoyed reading the book and I think that Mr. Hood has proven that his famous cousin has been libeled by history.  For whatever it's worth here's my two cents about General Hood.  I think that General Hood was a brave and competent officer who was given an impossible job.  In my judgment, even if the Army of Tennessee had been commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great and George Patton, by the Summer of 1864 it probably wouldn't have made too much difference.  The North had an overwhelming superiority in men and supplies and, unless the South could have scored enough victories to cause Lincoln to lose the election of 1864, military defeat was inevitable.

As to the whole controversy surrounding the Battle of Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin, I think that Hood's plan at Spring Hill was sound but he was poorly served by his subordinates who failed to block the road out of town and allowed the Union Army to slip away during the night.  While I think that Stephen Hood has conclusively proven that General Hood was not drunk or high on laudanum during the Battle of Spring Hill, I think (and if Stephen Hood reads this, this is just my opinion and is not based on any evidence) that a more physically vigorous man without Hood's devastating injuries (General Hood had an arm mangled at Gettysburg and lost a leg at Chickamauga) might have personally gone to the front and made sure that the road from Spring Hill was blocked.

What really interests me is what this book shows about how history is written and transmitted.  Mr. Hood has proven conclusively that many myths, falsehoods, half-truths and down right lies have crept into the history books about General Hood.  If this is true of a relatively modern figure like John Bell Hood, how can we rely on anything written about an ancient figure like Hannibal, Alexander or Caesar?

One of the things that Stephen Hood criticizes Wiley Sword for is playing up Hood's engagement to the Southern Belle Sally "Buck" Preston and saying that Hood ordered the assault at Franklin, TN to impress his girlfriend.  In order to play up the prurient interests of the readers of this blog, here's a picture of Sally "Buck" Preston

I enjoyed John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General.  For anyone interested in the subject, I highly recommend it.

ANDERSONVILLE: THE LAST DEPOT

I can't say enough good things about William Marvel's 1994 monograph on the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.  The book is well researched and written in an engaging narrative style.

Andersonville, or Camp Sumter as it was officially called, was established after Belle Isle and other P.O.W. camps near Richmond or other areas became overcrowded and threatened by Union attacks.  The idea was to locate the prison in a remote rural area in the Deep South far from the front.

When the first prisoners were transferred from Belle Isle to Andersonville, they actually thought that the conditions in Georgia were much better than where they had come from.  Camp Sumter consisted of a wooden stockade with guard towers, called "Pigeon Roosts" at intervals, surrounding an open field with a creek running through it.  Although the original plan was to build barracks, this never came to fruition and no shelter was provided.  Prisoners lived in make shift tents and lean-tos called "Shebangs."

The real problem came when thousands and thousands of Union P.O.W.s were poured into the enclosure.  The stockade which was comfortable for 7 or 8 thousand, became a huge sewer when 30,000 men were packed inside the enclosure.  One of the biggest problems was lack of fresh water and lack of sanitation.  The creek which ran through the stockade first ran through a guards camp where it was used as a latrine.  Then the prisoners "sinks" or latrines were located along the lower end of the creek in the stockade causing the creek to back up and become one giant cess pool.  Supplying for thousands of prisoners also became a huge problem for the Confederate Army which could barely feed itself by that time in the war.  Thousands died of disease and malnutrition.

Union soldier William Smith, a survivor of Andersonville.

Photos like this enflamed the North and led to the trial and execution of Captian Wirz.

Neither side was really prepared to deal with the thousands of prisoners which they were suddenly stuck with.  During the first half of the war, prisoners were generally quickly exchanged.  The prisoner exchange broke down over the treatment of black Union soldiers by the Confederates. Confederates refused to treat black soldiers as P.O.W.s and originally threatened to hang any blacks who took arms and to treat the white officers as the leaders of slave revolts.  In the actual event, many black P.O.W.s were treated by their captors as slave labor.  Interestingly, there were several hundred blacks at Andersonville, most having been captured at the Battle of Olustee, Florida.  The Confederates refused to treat officers commanding black troops as real officers, and a Major of a black regiment was sent to Andersonville along with his troops.  (Officers and enlisted men were segregated in separate prisons).  The black troops were essentially used by the Confederates as slave labor on various projects around the camp.  Interestingly, Marvel says that the death toll among the blacks was less than among the whites because the blacks had less exposure to disease because of being allowed out of the stockade for work.

Captain Henry Wirz

Marvel is an apologist for the prison commander, Captain Henry Wirz.  According to Marvel, Wirz could not be responsible for everything he was accused of.  The peculiar command structure at Andersonville handicapped Wirz.  Wirz only had command over the Stockade itself and the prisoners.  He did not even have direct command over the guards, who were commanded by another officer.  Supplies for the prison were the job of the Post Commissary or Quartermaster and was largely beyond Wirz' control.  Marvel paints Wirz as a man of limited abilities faced with an impossible situation.  Marvel also denounces the unfair trial based largely upon hearsay and perjured testimony at which Wirz was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to hang.

Author William Marvel

13,000 Union soldiers perished at Andersonville.  The suffering endured by these American soldiers is truly beyond our understanding.  However, Marvel's book is outstanding.  Highly recommended.  

THE CONFEDERACY'S LAST HURRAH

It's probably not politically correct anymore to even study Civil War history.  Seemingly we have reached a point where we will be required to white wash any history that the ruling elite doesn't like.

After a visit to Franklin, TN in May I got back interested in reading about The Late Unpleasantness With the North.  I have had this book sitting around for a long time and decided to read it.  Originally published in hardback in 1992 as Embrace an Angry Wind: The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin & Nashville and released in paperback simply as The Confederacy's Last Hurrah, this is currently the best account of the Army of Tennessee's ill fated 1864 Autumn Campaign now in print.

Written by independent scholar Wiley Sword, the book is well written, well researched and entertaining.  In recent years Sword has come under fire by apologists for Confederate General John B. Hood who object to Sword's portrayal of the General.  Hood apologist and distant relative Stephen Hood has pointed out errors in some of Sword's statements and conclusions.  I find these errors and distortions to be minor.  The Confederacy's Last Hurrah is an excellent book.

Author Wiley Sword

Sword especially takes fire for describing in detail General Hood's relationship and failed engagement to the beautiful young Southern Belle Sally "Buck" Preston.  Although the "moon light and magnolia" romance lends nothing to the military history it does show that Civil War Generals were real flesh and blood human beings who have all of the problems and weaknesses that human beings have.  It also makes for very entertaining reading.

General John Bell Hood, C.S.A.

Sword has also been criticized for alluding that General Hood may have made bad military decisions because he was high on laudanum because of his horrific battle injuries.  (Hood had an arm mangled at Gettysburg and lost a leg at Chickamauga.)  I don't think that there is any doubt that in his crippled condition, regardless of how good his mind was, Hood was not in good enough physical shape for the rigors of commanding a Civil War army in the field.   Hood would have been fine for the job that Jefferson Davis gave Braxton Bragg, to sit around in Richmond and advise the President on strategy. But hours in the saddle in the field had to be taxing on a physically fit man, it was probably brutal on a man in Hood's condition.

Sally "Buck" Preston

It's obvious that Wiley Sword thinks that John Bell Hood was a bad general.  He's entitled to his opinion.  I tend to agree with Bruce Catton that at the stage of the war when Hood was appointed to command the Army of Tennessee there was no good decision that he could make.  Any decision Hood made was going to be a bad one.   By the summer of 1864, in order to win, any Confederate general was going to have to take long chances.  Jefferson Davis fired Joe Johnston because the President perceived that Johnston wouldn't fight.  Hood was expected to fight for Atlanta and that's what he proceeded to do.  Hood's plans were not bad on paper - but the execution of them always seemed to get bungled.

The invasion of Tennessee was controversial even then.  Hood pulled his troops out of Georgia and left Georgia to the mercy of Sherman and headed for Tennessee.  The best chance for victory in Tennessee came at Spring Hill when the Army of Tennessee almost trapped an entire Federal Army Corps.  The failure at Spring Hill is due to several factors.  As Sword points out, due to Hood's physical condition he left matters primarily to his subordinates and rather than going to the front himself and pushing the attack, Hood retired to his headquarters for rest.  A man in good physical condition would have probably gone to the front himself and pushed the attack like Stonewall Jackson did.  The escape of the Federal Army at Spring Hill was not entirely Hood's fault.  As Sword points out, Hood's lieutenants served him poorly at the Battle of Spring Hill.

There is considerable controversy over whether the disastrous assault at Franklin the next day, was ordered by Hood as a punishment for the Army allowing the Federals to escape at Spring Hill.  There is no doubt that Hood was livid at his subordinates for their bungling.  Time and again Civil War Generals ordered frontal assaults on prepared positions which in retrospect should not have been made.   Burnside assaulted Marye's Heights at Fredricksburg, Lee assaulted Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, Sherman assaulted Cheatham's Hill at Kennesaw Mountain, and Grant assaulted the formidable Confederate position at Cold Harbor.  Hood was certainly not alone among Civil War Generals in ordering a disastrous front assault.

I don't think that Hood realized how well the Union Army was entrenched at Franklin.  And except for a few accidents of war, like a Yankeee Brigade accidentally resting where it could repulse the Confederate breach of the line, Hood's assault at Franklin almost worked.  Nobody could have predicted the horrendous casualties that would be suffered by the Army of Tennessee on that day.  To the extent that Sword insinuates that Hood may have ordered the attack to impress his girlfriend, that's just nonsense.  Sword also says some unkind things about Hood's post-war marriage and says that he fathered 11 children in order to show he was a still a man.  Stephen Hood is right that Sword's comments along these lines are just plain mean.

The so called siege of Nashville by the Army of Tennessee was a forlorn hope.  That it would eventually repulsed and the Rebel army beaten back were almost a foregone conclusion.

I have left out of the above a lot of really interesting reading in this book regarding the politics and squabbling among the Union High Command during the Autumn Campaign.

The Confederacy's Last Hurrah is a very good book.  Highly recommended. 

CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC

Twenty years ago, in the mid-1990's, journalist Tony Horowitz made a trek through the South to discover why Southerners are still so obsessed by the Civil War (or the Late Unpleasantness With the North, or the War Between the States, or the War Against Yankee Aggression).

As you would expect, Tony wound up talking to every eccentric and nut job in every town he visited. He talks to fanatical neo-Confederates who are ready to continue the war and militant radical black activists who want to tear down every Confederate memorial and denounce Robert E. Lee as a "criminal."  Horowitz came in for several close calls in a couple of biker bars he visited.  It was also very amusing every time one of his subjects began to cuss "The Jews,"  Sometimes the Jewish Horowitz would let it go and other times he would say, "I'm Jewish."  One neo-Confederate responded, "Then you know what I'm talking about."

He found the real last Confederate widow, living in rural South Alabama, who was briefly married to an elderly veteran in the 1920s when she was a teenager.  I was fascinated that she said that he was so old "I called him Mr. Martin, even in bed."  Although Heritage groups had pumped up old man Martin's service record to make him a hero of the Army of Northern Virginia, Horwitz hired a researcher to comb through the archives and find out the truth.  Martin was drafted as a teenager in 1864 and sent to Virginia.  Hospitalized for the Measles, Martin just left and went back home to Alabama.  The regimental rolls listed him as a deserter for the rest of the war.  Martin's brother, who was also drafted at the same time was killed.

Robert Lee Hodge

Everybody's favorite character is "hardcore" reenactor Robert Lee Hodge. (They don't like to be called reenactors, they prefer the term "Living Historians").    Hodge wants everything to be period perfect and criticizes reenactors who he doesn't think are true to the Civil War period. (Anything that is out of sinc with the mid-19th century is "Farb").  With Hodge dressed as a ragged Confederate and Horwitz as a Yankee soldier, Hodge takes Horwitz on a whirl-wind tour of Civil War battlefields and musuems that Hodge calls "The Civil Wargasm."

Confederate History

At that time, in the mid 90's there was a lot of controversy going on about whether the Confederate Battle Flag should be removed from State Flags and State Capitol Buildings.  Horowitz's interviews with protesters on both sides of the issue is fascinating.

Confederate Kitsch

Also great reading in this book is Horowitz's interview with Shelby Foote (1916-2005).  Every much as eccentric as some of the others Horowitz interviewed, Foote still wrote his books in longhand and answered his own phone without a secretary.

Even twenty years later, Confederates In the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War is a very good read.  Five out of Five Stars and Bars.

Tony Horwitz and his wife, novelist Geraldine Brooks