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ed116d0 The point I would make is that the novelist and the historian are seeking the same thing: the truth - not a different truth: the same truth - only they reach it, or try to reach it, by different routes. Whether the event took place in a world now gone to dust, preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in the imagination, preserved by memory and distilled by the creative process, they both want to tell us how it was: to re-crea.. history history-of-the-united-states Shelby Foote
6da1dae The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads. Shelby Foote
cd71e21 They took it for more than it was, or anyhow for more than it said; the container was greater than the thing contained, and Lincoln became at once what he would remain for them, "the man who freed the slaves." He would go down to posterity, not primarily as the Preserver of the Republic-which he was-but as the Great Emancipator, which he was not." slavery politics politics-of-the-united-states slavery-in-america slavery-in-the-united-states american-civil-war Shelby Foote
f78b20d Not married until 33, Abraham Lincoln said, "A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that cannot hurt me." marriage singleness abraham-lincoln-quotes Shelby Foote
588d874 We have more to fear from the opinions of our friends than the bayonets of our enemies." Politician turned Union General Nathaniel Banks, in plea he couldn't abandon an untenable position." peer-pressure Shelby Foote
86fa944 Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience. learning american-civil-war-biography experience mistakes Shelby Foote
c154929 On Lee as commander: "He had a cheerful dignity and could praise them (his men) without seeming to court their favor." leadership encouragement american-civil-war-biography confederate-army robert-e-lee dignity confederate-states-of-america Shelby Foote
2ae28a3 A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice. The stunned champ cried while inspecting the machine, "There's a man in there!"Lincoln's good news, he confided from the heights of leadership, was that there was in fact a man in there." compassion leadership abraham-lincoln-quotes american-civil-war fallibility humility Shelby Foote
5fdaccb Generally the first week in September brings the hottest weather of the year, and this was no exception. Overhead the fans turned slow, their paddle blades stirring the air up close to the ceiling but nowheres else... mississippi-writers mississippi-authors Shelby Foote
53fc0bb Burnside left even sooner, hard on the heels of a violent argument with Meade, an exchange of recriminations which a staff observer said "went far toward confirming one's belief in the wealth and flexibility of the English language as a medium of personal dispute." army-of-the-potomac union-army civil-war-eastern-theater Shelby Foote
73d5e27 He is the kind of person I should expect to rescue one from a mad dog at any risk but then insist on a stoical indifference to the fright afterward." Jefferson Davis's future wife describing him at first meeting." fear stoicism humility Shelby Foote
069dab3 I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land, but that something in the Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this land, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and t.. Shelby Foote
350c0b3 Later they took him to Jackson and that explained it; he was crazy. mississippi-writers mississippi-authors Shelby Foote
1bc7531 They burnt crosses every night all around us, and a man who'll burn what he prays to, he'll burn anything. racism ku-klux-klan Shelby Foote
1b343ce Whatever shortcomings they might develop under pressure (Grant's, for instance, was said to be whiskey; hearing which, the President was supposed to have asked what brand he drank, intending to send a barrel each to all his other generals) Shelby Foote
ad9058e I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought. history military-history Shelby Foote
bfabac6 The politicians were in full bay, particularly those of his own party who had been urging, without success, his support of antislavery legislation which he feared would lose him the border states, held to the Union so far by his promise that no such laws would be passed. It also seemed to these Republicans that entirely too many Democrats were seated in high places, specifically in the cabinet and the army; and now their anger was increased.. Shelby Foote
d4052d2 Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled, the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion, that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successor.. Shelby Foote
ae8d939 It's not any fun in the dark," he said, and she saw his eyes brimming with tears that glistened in the moonlight. She really felt sorry for him--even she. For what could be more pitiful than a voyeur in the dark?" Shelby Foote
685d8ff Then too, and this was as romantic as the others, Briartree was the only thing she had ever really owned. Everything else had more or less been lent her; so it seemed. But this was hers, earned by blood, the only good she ever got from being kin to her mother. Shelby Foote
b6733f0 There was beginning to be a sense of history, made immediate by the fact that an English king had given up his throne for a woman: "the woman I love," the king said and they thrilled to hear him say it, huddled about their radios as for warmth. Romance wasnt dead, they told themselves. Even in their time such things could happen--and they were on hand, almost a part of it, leaning toward the loudspeakers. Yet there was something weak and so.. Shelby Foote
9427847 We were green; most of us had never left home before (officers as well as men, except the officers carried their greenness better) yet here we were, traveling south up an enemy river past slow creeks and bayous and brooding trees. I thought to myself if this was the country the Rebels wanted to take out of the Union, we ought to say thank you, good riddance Shelby Foote
bd9ba43 On paper, in the colonel's lamp-lit office, when we saw a problem it was easy to fix; all we had to do was direct that corps commanders regulate their columns so as not to delay each other, halting until crossroads were clear, keeping their riles well closed, and so forth. It didn't work that way on the ground, which was neither flat nor clean - nor, as it turned out, dry Shelby Foote
f4afd77 When I stopped I begun to hear all sorts of things I hadnt heard while I was running. It was like being born again, coming into a new world. There was a great crash and clatter of firing, and over all this I could hear them all around me, screaming and yelping like on a foxhunt except there was something crazy mixed up in it too, like horses trapped in a burning barn. I thought theyd all gone crazy--they looked it, for a fact. Their faces w.. Shelby Foote
9415ccd But it was one thing to condemn him when court had adjourned and you looked back on what he had done, and it was another different thing entirely when you were sitting on the jury with a man's life in your hands and Nowell was walking up and down in front of the rail in that crisp white linen suit, stopping every now and then and leaning forward to speak in a voice that was barely above a whisper, the courtroom so quiet you could hear your .. Shelby Foote
2627ecb At any rate, though he never succeeded in laughing at her, as she had done (and continued to do) at him, he fulfilled at least half of what he had predicted he would do when they were married; he beat her. The trouble was, she fought back. And ably, too: for she would snatch up any weapon that was handy, a table lamp, the nail scissors, one of her sharp-heeled shoes, an open box of dusting powder, and once her rubber douche bag. With Amy th.. Shelby Foote
94436ea For my part I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapacity of the people to govern themselves. Shelby Foote
82bea9b I could see their faces then, and the army became what it really was: forty thousand men--they were young men mostly, lots of them even younger than myself, and I was nineteen just two weeks before--out on their first march in the crazy weather of early April, going from Mississippi into Tennessee where the Union army was camped between two creeks with its back to a river, inviting destruction. battle-of-shiloh civil-war-western-theater Shelby Foote
eef3327 for men who a short time before had been shooting at him and doing all in their power to wreck his cause, I remembered what my father had said about the South bearing within itself the seeds of defeat, the Confederacy being conceived already moribund. We were sick from an old malady, he said: incurable romanticism and misplaced chivalry, too much Walter Scott and Dumas read too seriously. We were in love with the past, he said; in love with.. confederate-states-of-america Shelby Foote
3dc8801 They nodded their heads with quick flicky motions, like birds, and nursed their rifles, keeping them out of the dirt. I had gotten to know them all in a month and a few of them were even from the same end of the county I was, but now it was like I was seeing them for the first time, different. All the put-on had gone out of their faces--they were left with what God gave them at the beginning. Shelby Foote
2ad20ec Now I lay me down to sleep In mud that's many fathoms deep. If I'm not here when you awake Just hunt me up with an oyster rake history civil-war-eastern-theater history-of-the-united-states military-history Shelby Foote
06296fa That was when General Johnston rode up. He came right past where I was standing, a fine big man on a bay stallion. He had on a broad-brim hat and a cape and thigh boots with gold spurs that twinkled like sparks of fire. I watched him ride by, his mustache flaring out from his mouth and his eyes set deep under his forehead. He was certainly the handsomest man I ever saw, bar none; he made the other officers on his staff look small. battle-of-shiloh civil-war-western-theater Shelby Foote
d28ef86 It was a strange thing to be in a distant land, among things you'd never seen before, all because our people in Congress had squabbled among themselves and failed to get along and there were hotheads in the South who thought more of their Negroes and their pride than they did of their country Shelby Foote
2df914d It wasn't a question of luck, the way some folks will tell you; they will tell you it's back luck to be near the wounded. It was just that we didn't want to be close to them any longer than it took to run past, the way you wouldn't want to be near someone who had something catching, like smallpox Shelby Foote
b878305 But it seemed so wrong, so scandalous, somehow so unreligious for a dead man to have to keep on fighting - or running, anyhow - that it made me sick at my stomach. I didn't want to have any more to do with the war if this was the way it was going to be Shelby Foote
763b9b1 They will tell you Shiloh was no cavalry battle; the field was too cut-up with ravines and choked with timber for the usual mounted work. However, none of Forrest's men realized this at the time and we had our moments shiloh battle-of-shiloh civil-war-western-theater Shelby Foote
c16fca2 When General Johnston had heard them out, he drew himself up in the saddle, leather creaking, and said quietly: "Gentlemen, we shall attack at daylight tomorrow." battle-of-shiloh civil-war-western-theater Shelby Foote
ae4a906 In Paris (though he had just come four thousand miles from the river where it was born, though Bessie Smith herself had sung at a Negro dance ten miles from Briartree while they were packing for their trip abroad, and though Duff Conway, the greatest horn man of his time--for whose scratched and worn recordings Jeff was to pay as high as fifty and sixty dollars apiece--had been born and raised in Bristol, son of the cook in the Barcroft hou.. Shelby Foote
c8333fa Back home the election was over; the country had a new president: 'Mr Roosevelt' he was called at first, then 'Roosevelt,' then 'that Roosevelt,' and finally just 'he' or 'him' by mouths that twisted bitterly on the pronoun, for the westering boats were crowded with expatriates--"A traitor to his class," they said." Shelby Foote
88dc757 So their relationship entered a new phase, characterized by enmity round the clock. True, they had fought all along--there had been the gladiatorial contests in which she would snatch up any handy weapon to even the odds. But that sort of combat was almost a sporting thing: it seemed the natural way to close their arguments, just as war is said to be an extension of politics, statecraft. Shelby Foote
17c42fc We're each two different people, is why, and we live in two different worlds. Just as we carry our waking bodies and some of our waking thoughts into the world of dreams, so we bring the thoughts and happenings of the world of dreams back with us when we return to the world of daylight. They mingle, they explain each other: we look forward and backward, trying to find a reason for what is happening in this world by remembering something mor.. Shelby Foote
5384c58 Saturday and Sunday nights the long gray car would be parked among Fords and Chevrolets, as if it had littered or spawned on the gravel quay beside the club. Inside, the five-man Negro band pumped jazz--Button Up Your Overcoat and I'll Get By and That's My Weakness Now, interspersed with numbers that had been living before and would be living after: San and Tiger Rag and High Society--while the planters and bankers, the doctors and lawyers,.. Shelby Foote
ad63d9c Jeff and Amy were part of this, though never in the sense that the natives were. They were not indigenous: they were outlanders, 'foreigners,' distinguished by a sort of upcountry cosmopolitan glaze which permitted them to mingle but not merge. Even their drinking habits set them apart. Deltans drank only corn and Coca-Cola; gin was perfume, scotch had a burnt-stick taste. They would watch with wry expressions while Amy blended her weird co.. Shelby Foote
38b15b5 They were Amy and Jeff Carruthers and they rode south out of Bristol, gravel chattering under the upswept fenders. After a while the man said suddenly, "Whats it like?" Amy glanced out at the fields. "Cotton. Everywhere nothing but cotton." Shelby Foote
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