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414718c
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The money was tobacco money, not from the growing end but the manufacturing; they were from Winston-Salem, and there was plenty of it. Even Jeff who was a younger son (as Amy's father had been, in the days before the increased popularity of cigarettes boosted the fortune) could look forward to something over a million in his own name after three brothers by his father's first wife had got theirs.
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Shelby Foote |
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0e83129
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The woman was in her middle twenties and she wore a sort of tennis dress that shouted Money almost as loudly as the car did, sleeveless and V neck, of a semi-transparent material, chiffon or crepe-de-Chine or maybe georgette, which allowed the pink of her nipples to show through. She not only wore no brassiere, she obviously wore no undergarment of any description. There was nothing of modesty about her. Not that she was flaunting herself; ..
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Shelby Foote |
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97b9abe
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That was what bothered him most: the fact that she seemed to encourage his advances, and even granted him certain liberties, up to the point at which she turned on him with violence or laughter. He did not know which was worse, the chuckling or the blows; there was something terribly unmanly about being on the receiving end of either. But he looked forward to a time when he could repay her, could laugh at her or strike her as he saw fit. Th..
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2971783
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This was mainly a brown country, cluttered with dead leaves from the year before, but the oaks had tasseled and the redbud limbs were like flames in the wind. Fruit trees in cabin yards, peach and pear and occasional quince, were sheathed with bloom, white and pink, twinkling against broken fields and random cuts of new grass washed clean by the rain.
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Shelby Foote |
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2d1cb7c
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There is no chance for surprise," he said, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders with that French way he had. "Theyll be intrenched to the eyes."
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Shelby Foote |
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3b289fb
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But as they walked home together through the leaf-plastered streets, under that eerie refulgence, her father seemed to have divined her plans. This was in his manner, not his words: they were halfway home before he spoke. "Amanda," he said. He paused. "I want you to realize the consequences before you do something youll be sorry for." He did not look at her, and she too kept her eyes to the front. "You know that when I say a thing I mean it..
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02032e7
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for the people sat in their Sunday clothes, soberly nodding agreement with all the preachers said about impending doom on earth and searing flame hereafter, and came out Monday morning as before; they gave the Lord His day, and kept the other six for their own uses.
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09224c0
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With such incentives to brave deeds, and with the trust that God is with us, your generals will lead you confidently to the combat - assured of success. ________ General commanding
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39bb954
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But they were all thinking the selfsame thing: I might be a disgrace to my country. I might be a coward, even. But I'm not up there in those woods getting shot at
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4af48fc
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You easy-living boys had better get set, they said. There's johnnies out there thicker than fleas on a billy goat in a barnlot
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shiloh
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55fdf04
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alone producing over sixty percent more manufactured goods than the whole Confederacy,
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9005508
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He could do little. Brandy might help, he thought, but when he poured some into the hurt man's mouth it ran back out again. Presently a colonel, Johnston's chief of staff, came hurrying into the ravine. But he could do nothing either. He knelt down facing the general. "Johnston, do you know me? Johnston, do you know me?" he kept asking, over and over, nudging the general's shoulder as he spoke. But Johnston did not know him. Johnston was de..
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army-of-tennessee
battle-of-shiloh
civil-war-western-theater
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0819403
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Love has failed us. We are essentially, irrevocably alone. Anything that seems to combat that loneliness is a trap-Love is a trap:
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Shelby Foote |
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6e0308b
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She'd rouse me out of bed all hours of the night and I'd wait in the hall. They were mostly soldiers and sailors and merchant mariners, or businessmen down on convention. This is one lousy life, Mamma said, but I'm doing the best I can with what Ive got. I wish I could afford to send you to some kind of business school so you could learn to type.--She never did but I never blamed her. For one thing, she only turned the nicest ones over to m..
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Shelby Foote |
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So I had decided to do it the easy way. Make them believe he was insane and the scales would fall from their eyes; they would 'understand'; the fear, the hate would be gone, evaporated. "So thats it," they would say; "he's crazy. I knew it all along." They might even begin to pity and sympathize. Good old Hollywood Christianity: God's gift to the Defense."
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Shelby Foote |
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8160020
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Then one night at the very end of May he came home late with the smell of perfume on him. So thats it, I thought: after all these years. And I waited. Time after time I'd seen it happen to other men at such an age--a change of life: they get to thinking how much theyve missed, and they get scared. Just wait, I told myself, lying alone in bed those nights (it was June by then); it will play out on him soon enough.
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Shelby Foote |
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5eb34ce
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It's true we have an affinity for evil. What she told me had occurred in an atmosphere much like that of Troilus and Cressida, in which the faithful are betrayed and the brave are slain. I was reminded of Emerson's "Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual."
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Shelby Foote |
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ad9a6f5
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I told her the time to start worrying about a lawyer's fee was after he brought it up: which was a lie. Most people didnt pay them anyhow, I said: which at least was partly true, to a degree.
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Shelby Foote |
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ca68e31
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That night I woke up hearing voices. They were driving some kind of bargain, in a whisper. I couldnt hear the words they said, but I found out next afternoon. Dont be scared now, Mamma said; he's just a big overgrown boy. Overgrown two hundred and forty-five pounds, I thought. All right, I said. And when she sent me to my room right after early supper, I found my gown already laid out on the bed, the new one with lace on the collar that she..
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Next morning at breakfast he paid Mamma four hundred dollars, cash on the table, for that one night. I watched him count the money out of his wallet, and while I watched I thought what a good thing it was I hadnt told even Mamma about the altar boys those times in the sacristy, behind the stacks of missals. All told, she got twelve hundred dollars for just the last three weeks of June, plus Pullman tickets for both of us back to New Orleans..
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89bc025
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The trial was two months off. The public was primed. Hardly a day went by that the Stevenson boy didnt run something in the paper. They ate it up. They were anxious to see the show--it's their only chance to see 'live' actors. Generally speaking, they wanted to see Eustis get the chair. There is nothing unusual about that: they are bloodthirsty enough by nature. Besides, it meant another show, at least an epilog, though it's true the audien..
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de3b972
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Thats the trouble with having money; you think about buying almost anything you see.
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Shelby Foote |
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b810e8a
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Originally it was intended to put the names of the war dead on the signboard, the whites down one side and the Negroes down the other, with the American flag between. But the notion of having them all on one board caused so much ugly feeling -- there was even some talk of dynamite, for example -- that the service club whose project it was took a vote and decided that it would be better just to say something fitting about the spirit of our b..
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I asked myself, again and again: 'What does it mean? What does it mean?' And you know, I finally found the answer; one answer, anyhow. It dont mean a thing. Nothing. Why should it mean anything? I stopped thinking about it is what I finally did. It's what you better do, too. Dont think about it.
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Shelby Foote |
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c6c0987
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He was always on hand for misfortune, among the first to arrive when tragedy struck, and for this reason was known as Light Hearse Harry.
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Shelby Foote |
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fc9d409
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Who can tell? Together, with God's blessing -- which surely He will not withhold -- you may perhaps be laying the groundwork, the foundation for a future Athens, an Athens of the South. Yes. And this young woman's child, so soon to be born," he added, indicating Ella with a deferential nod, "will be one of its leading citizens, the one perhaps under whom it will come to flower, a beacon for the South, a torch held out."
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4e4f34d
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They played the things Duff had learned while crouching under Bantam Street windows, the old songs that had been great before some of the boys were born, things never set down on paper but kept alive in places and in memories such as these.
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Shelby Foote |
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0766f7c
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I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value.
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Shelby Foote |