Mike Pride: 'Widow' Is A Civil War Casualty Too
THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH, By Robert Hicks. Warner, 409 pp., $24.95.
Shelby Foote was not the greatest Civil War historian of his generation, but he was the best Civil War talker. Just after he died this year, Fresh Air, Terry Gross' public radio show, rebroadcast an interview with him. It was mesmerizing - the gentle Southern voice, the quiet authority, the personal connection to the war and to the South.
Then there were Foote's instant replies to the big questions. Years of study and contemplation had given him the ability to crystallize the cold logic of the Civil War. When Gross asked why so many battles had led to such horrible slaughter, Foote had the answer. It was, he said, because the weaponry was so superior to the tactics.
This explains the rebel turkey shoot at Fredericksburg, Va., its counterpart on the third day at Gettysburg and the carnage at Cold Harbor, Va. It also is the key to the battle at Franklin, Tenn., in which Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood led his army to disaster.
The Battle of Franklin holds no lofty place in the annals of the war, but a group in the Nashville suburb where it was fought is trying to preserve part of the battlefield. Robert Hicks, a Nashville music publisher, is a member of the group's board, and his new novel, "The Widow of the South," is a tool in the campaign.
Shelby Foote was not the greatest Civil War historian of his generation, but he was the best Civil War talker. Just after he died this year, Fresh Air, Terry Gross' public radio show, rebroadcast an interview with him. It was mesmerizing - the gentle Southern voice, the quiet authority, the personal connection to the war and to the South.
Then there were Foote's instant replies to the big questions. Years of study and contemplation had given him the ability to crystallize the cold logic of the Civil War. When Gross asked why so many battles had led to such horrible slaughter, Foote had the answer. It was, he said, because the weaponry was so superior to the tactics.
This explains the rebel turkey shoot at Fredericksburg, Va., its counterpart on the third day at Gettysburg and the carnage at Cold Harbor, Va. It also is the key to the battle at Franklin, Tenn., in which Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood led his army to disaster.
The Battle of Franklin holds no lofty place in the annals of the war, but a group in the Nashville suburb where it was fought is trying to preserve part of the battlefield. Robert Hicks, a Nashville music publisher, is a member of the group's board, and his new novel, "The Widow of the South," is a tool in the campaign.