Ken Burns The Civil War Shelby Foote 2

Shelby Foote was awesome

Absolutely

Burns set out to originally capture Foote as a “Gotcha”.
What ended up happening is that Burns discovered an absolutely fascinating human and storyteller. Ken stayed in touch with Shelby until Foote died and, as absolutely GOAT as the doc is, knew that he is what turned that PBS series into a must see ‘event’

Foote is a hack who has an ability to tell compelling stories.

Second interview with Foote a year later (1987).

Just read "The Narrative" as soon as I finished I restarted on page one, its amazing, just wonderfully written. I love the Ball's Bluff piece.

I have had the three volume narrative for years and have yet to read it.

Thanks for the post. I’ve now watched that interview about an even dozen times. I have never been able to stop the video until it’s entirety.

My two favorite stories that Foote told in Burns's series both involved Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The first was of Forrest at Fallen Timbers grabbing a Yankee soldier, swinging him up in the back of Forrest's horse and using him as a bullet shield as he made his way off the battlefield.

The second was talking to Forrest's descendants and telling them that he felt Forrest and Lincoln were the two most brilliant figures in the war, and someone in Forrest's family saying "We aren't very fond of Mr. Lincoln."

Because Foote didn't don literary sackcloth and ashes and self-flagellate endlessly like Wright Thompson about the original sin of slavery as every decent Southerner should.