Minimizing hundreds of years of uncompensated, brutalized slavery, omitting the abject failure of any type of reparations, and completely ignoring the racist violence following the end of the war, “The Civil War” ultimately allowed white Americans to distance themselves from current-day racism and the persistent (and worsening) racial wealth gap. It pardoned sinners who had never asked for pardon; it erased the sadistic violence of the era that still has yet to be fully exposed; it made it all, somehow, feel worth it. Davis was winning a position as a leader in the Senate. Successor to Calhoun, he had become the spokesman for southern nationalism... not independence but domination from within the Union. This movement had been given impetus by the Mexican War. Up til then the future of the country pointed north and west, but now the needle trembled and suddenly swung south. The treaty signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo brought into the Union a new southwestern domain, seemingly ripe for slavery and the southern way of life: not only Texas down to the Rio Grande, the original strip of contention, but also the vast sun-cooked area that was to become Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, part of Colorado, and California with its new-found gold. Here was room for expansion indeed, with more to follow; for the nationalists looked forward to taking what was left of Mexico, all of Central America down to Panama, and Yucatan and Cuba by extension. Yet the North... had no intention of yielding the reigns. The South would have to fight for this... using States Rights for a spear and the Constitution for a shield. Jefferson Davis, who had formed his troops in a V at Buena Vista and continued the fight with a boot full of blood, took a position, now as then, at the apex of the wedge. Honey-voiced, sporting a full beard and drawing from a seemingly endless well of war anecdotes, he became a star of Ken Burns's 11-hour public television documentary, which aired in 1990. Described as gregarious, he nevertheless disliked the torrent of sudden interest in his life. He told People magazine, "What I do requires steady work and isolation from all this hoorah."

Rebecca Savransky, “Ken Burns Says One Factor Caused the Civil War: ‘Slavery’,” The Hill, October 31, 2017. The sins of omission in “The Civil War” unfortunately are not without consequence. Because so many Americans have had their basic understanding of the causes of secession, the realities of racial slavery, and the atrocities of the Confederacy profoundly shaped by this documentary, current day topics, from the Confederate Monument/flag debate to the push for reparations by American Descendants of Slaves, remain bitterly divisive, even though clear historical answers obviously exist. 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.”—Van Allen Bradley, Chicago Daily News a b Coates, Ta-Nehisi (June 13, 2011). "The Convenient Suspension of Disbelief". The Atlantic . Retrieved October 26, 2021.He had always preferred the novel genre just liked his reported hero and close friend William Faulkner.following Faulkner’s footsteps: Foote in his trilogy created Jordan County. Known for completing five novels in five years, he is also renowned for merging fictional characters with historical figures. Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement in European wars, beginning with the First World War, did what it did. But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the mid-nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

In a Class by Itself: Slavery and the Emergence of Capitalist Social Relations during Reconstruction In 2013, the Sons of Confederate Veterans used Foote's presentation of Nathan Bedford Forrest as a "humane slave holder" to protest against the removal of his statue in Memphis. Foote had argued that Forrest "avoided splitting up families or selling [slaves] to cruel plantation owners." [71] Shelby Foote historical marker, Greenville, Mississippi (2019) His first volume begins with Jefferson Davis, soon to be president of the Confederacy, in the US senate in 1861, expressing his "final adieu" to his old colleagues, and to the Union itself. The third volume ends with Davis's death in 1889, and his final comment made to a visiting journalist on his motivation: "Tell the world that I only loved America." Foote played both scenes for their inherent pathos.Personal". Daily Public Ledger. June 9, 1903 . Retrieved March 20, 2021. John Dennis, a Negro, attempted an assault on a white woman near Greenville, Miss., June 2d, and was lynched June 4th.

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Books. 1986. ISBN 0-394-74622-8. His trilogy the Civil-War: Narrative, will always be an outstanding legacy for Shelby Foote, as he sadly died in 2005 at the age of 88.Shelby Foote on William Faulkner, May 2, 2002, on American Writers: A Journey Through History, C-SPAN In 2003, Foote received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust. When asked about the American civil war, Foote resorted to an anecdote. Early in the conflict, he used to say, a squad of Union soldiers closed in on a ragged Johnny Reb. Figuring that he did not own slaves, nor had much interest in the constitutional question of secession, they asked him: "What are you fighting for, anyhow?" The Confederate replied: "I'm fighting because you're down here." Foote regarded that as "a pretty satisfactory answer". a b Italie, Hillel (November 4, 2017). "Debate over Ken Burns Civil War Doc Continues Over Decades". The Seattle Times. Associated Press . Retrieved October 26, 2021.

a b Barr, Alwyn. “The Journal of Southern History.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 41, no. 3, 1975, pp. 418–419.After finishing September, September, Foote resumed work on Two Gates to the City, the novel he had set aside in 1954 to write the Civil War trilogy. The work still gave him trouble and he set it aside once more, in the summer of 1978, to write "Echoes of Shiloh," an article for National Geographic Magazine. By 1981, he had given up on Two Gates altogether, though he told interviewers for years afterward that he continued to work on it. [13] He served on the Naval Academy Advisory Board in the 1980s. [50] David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 139. The reality is, the Civil War has been hotly debated for 160 years and will be for another 160 years. It is far more complex than the author seems aware of. There were “good guys” on both sides. There were “bad guys” on both sides. And while the right side won the war, there were plenty of scoundrels who made it happen and do not deserve the lofty place history has given them.