I first became aware of Foote through the Ken Burns documentary. Without Foote, that documentary would not have been so fascinating, and I doubt that America would have been as captivated by it.
I remember him quoting Faulkner when he was talking about Gettysburg: “For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain...” When Foote quoted this passage, I could feel that he meant it, he had lived it.
Afterwards, I read his three-volume account of the Civil War. He was able to view the war, the various battles, as though he were taking part in them. He felt the exhaustion, the hunger, and the terror. And he made the reader feel them, too. If a person can only read one account of the Civil War, this is the one I would recommend.
Foote's best quote was about a soldier waiting to make Pickett's Charge, who saw a rabbit running away ...
The soldier said to the rabbit something like:
"Run, you old hare - if I was an old hare, I'd run too ..."
The best ficticious quote I know is from the movie, Gettysburg:
Colonel Freemantle:
"He tells me it was your uncle who defended Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. And that he was therefore the guardian of the original "Star-Spangled Banner". I must say,I do appreciate the irony of it all."
General Longstreet:
"Colonel Fremantle, it does not begin or end with my uncle or myself. We're all sons of Virginia here.
That major out there commanding the cannon: That's James Dearing. First in his class at West Point, before Virginia seceded.
And the boy over there with the color guard. That's Private Robert Tyler Jones. His grandfather was President of the United States.
The colonel behind me,that's Colonel William Aylett. Now, his great grandfather was the Virginian Patrick Henry. It was Patrick Henry who said to your King George III: "Give me liberty or give me death."
There are boys here from Norfolk, Portsmouth, small hamlets along the James River. From Charlottesville and Fredericksburg. The Shenandoah Valley.
Mostly they're all veteran soldiers now. The cowards and shirkers are long gone. Every man here knows his duty. They would make this charge even without an officer to lead them. They know the gravity of the situation and the mettle of their foe. They know that this day's work will be desperate and deadly. They know that for many of them this will be their last charge. But not one of them needs to be told what is expected of him. They are all willing to make the supreme sacrifice to achieve victory here. The crowning victory and the end of this war. We are all here.
You may tell them when you return to your country that all Virginia was here on this day."