Just finished reading Foote for the second time. His sympathies fairly obviously shift more towards the North as the books progress. He even explains why in the introduction to the last volume.
It took him 20 years to write the darn thing and the racist southern politicians of the 50s and 60s, who claimed to be upholding the principles of the CSA, soured him to some extent on the original enterprise itself.
Just finished reading Foote for the second time. His sympathies fairly obviously shift more towards the North as the books progress. He even explains why in the introduction to the last volume.
It took him 20 years to write the darn thing and the racist southern politicians of the 50s and 60s, who claimed to be upholding the principles of the CSA, soured him to some extent on the original enterprise itself.
1. I read the books like 15 years ago - so my memory isn’t very fresh.
2. I think Foote had some relatives that had served in the Confederate army - not sure about that though.
3. I think Foote had been an artillery captain in WWII - so he was predisposed to view armed conflict through that prism.
4. I think Foote talks about where he was physically placed when he wrote the books - maybe starting Memphis and then from there moving to points south - so his geographic perspective as well as his upbringing was that of a Southerner.
5. Foote was very much character driven - some of his favorites were obvious Jackson, Lee and in fact Lincoln. He talks about the grief that he had when he finished his writers since he had to say good-bye to those characters - as if saying good-bye to old friends.
6. As the narrative of the war marches on, in my opinion Lincoln becomes more and more of a central figure. Since Foote is so character driven it would perhaps be a bit natural for some amount of his sympathy and loyalty to drift towards Lincoln, and hence the north.
7. Your last comment puzzles me though. Foote is perhaps the all time champion of the point of view that we may only judge the characters of the time by what they knew and experienced not by our knowledge and experience. This was a HUGE deal for Foote. For example, Lincoln made many a statement over the course of this life, that if judged by today’s standards, would be unequivocally racist. Yet very few think of Lincoln as a racist, since as Foote says we can’t apply our point of view to the words and actions of those men of the 19th century. So to me, anyway, if Foote’s views of the civil war were influenced by the politics of the 1950’s and 1960’s, this would seem to violate one of his own core principles. I’m not so much arguing the point, as I am trying to make sense of what to me seems like a contradiction.