Customer Reviews

Confederates in the Attic : Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

5 star:		(187)
4 star:		(62)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Although I don't know more than the average person about the Civil War, I've always had a sneaking suspicion that it is still with us somehow. Tony Horwitz's "Confederates in the Attic" confirmed that suspicion and in a most amusing, touching, and balanced way.

A War reenactor friend recommended I read the book. We were talking about the modern-day states rights concerns and he said that the debate had its origins at Fort Sumter. So, I picked up the book thinking it would simply be a survey of what I now know is called neo-Confederate thought. But I was more than a little bit thrilled to find that it was not just a sociological study, but also a travelogue-probably my favorite kind of book.

After returning to the States from an extended time abroad, Horwitz's childhood interest in the Civil War-and especially Rebels-was rekindled after a band of hardcore reenactors showed up in his yard on their way to a battlefield. Soon he began to tour the South visiting relevant War sites and interviewing the Confederate descendants that kept that cause's heritage alive. Horwitz's has an amazing gift for storytelling and it shines through in this book. He has an uncanny ability to come across mundanely interesting characters in his travels and to write their stories with an original verve.

The book is also balanced. Although he is a Yankee, Horwitz's affinity for the Rebels is evident. But he checks that affinity with a good dose of history and reality. He conveys the notion that the South's resentment of the North is not wholly unjustified, but actually often well placed. At the same time, though, he illustrates the willful naivete that makes Gods of Confederate generals and that forgets the Old South's uglier sides. Horwitz manages to do all this while highlighting not just the tragic, but also the fun and curious stories of the Civil War and its remnants today.

Every American should strive to learn a bit more about the War, and this is a great place to start. It's a fun, touching read that demonstrates why that chapter in our history is still important-and indeed still with us-today.

This book started strong, keeping me rapt, but dragged at the end. Unlike a lot of the previous reviewers, I thought the emphasis on reënactment was rather dull. More interesting were Horwitz's conversations with Shelby Foote and Lee Collins, the HPA president in Atlanta. Collins made a great point when he said the Stars and Stripes flew over slavery for 80 years, while the battle flag never did. I also disagree with other Southerners that this book was totally biased. Sure it was written by a bleeding-heart Yankee, but I thought he did a fairly good job of keeping his personal views quiet, with a few notable exceptions.

I must warn Yankees, however, that this book doesn't really give a great example of what you should expect to encounter when you come to the South. Yes, Southerners take pride in being Southern and honor their Confederate heroes, but it's not as immediate a concern to most people as Horwitz would have you believe. Southerners mainly just don't like always being portrayed by the Northern media as rednecks and racists, when the North has just as many of both. Often this is why we hold dear our Confederate heritage as a kind of fraternal solidarity-bloc to fend off Northern bias.

All in All, good read...in short, you won't put it down before you're done.

Confederates in the Attic is a good read, but the subtitle, Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, needs to be understood. This is not an exhaustive study of an issue, but snapshots taken on a journey around the edges; and, it is important to keep in mind, that the one taking the pictures chooses the subjects. In this case, it is the fringe subjects he has chosen. If you do keep that in mind, you can enjoy each snapshot without trying to make it fit into a bigger picture. This is not easy to do since it seems Horwitz himself forgets the dispatch philosophy and tries to bring a continuity to the work by tying it together under the theme of simmering southern racism and the dissenting opinions over the meaning of the Rebel batttle flag. Horwitz is at his best when he simply tells the story and lets it speak for itself. When he tries to extrapolate some greater theme, he gets into trouble. In a work this size, he can not exhaust a subject to present needed objectivity. He reminds me of the blind man grabbing the tail of an elephant and declaring the elephant is like a rope. Read this book like you're looking at the tail of the elephant and enjoy it for what it is--good stories, well told. But don't for a minute think you're viewing the whole elephant.

Tony Horwitz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, takes to the road yet again, traveling from state to state in the American south, delivering one of the best guides to contemporary American attitudes on a specialized subject that's ever been written. In large part the intelligently penned and entirely addictive Confederates in the Attic is a mythbusters for the Civil War crowd. I know Tony Horwitz, author of Baghdad Without A Map, didn't intend it that way, but how else can you see this enjoyable travelogue when every chapter dispels at least one nugget of falsely cherished American folklore?

Permit me to mention but a few:

General Robert E. Lee, that beloved "marble man" iconic hero of admirers the world over, someone oft-billed as a non-slave owning Virginian, actually owned slaves until the end of 1863.

The infamous Hornet's Nest at Shiloh was in reality not the centerpoint of the battle, and in fact was among the least hotly contested and bloody spots on the sprawling field.

The first shots of the war were, as everyone knows, fired in Charleston Harbor, but not at Fort Sumter in April 1861, rather in January of that year at a Northern steamer called Star of the West.

Henry Wirz, the infamous commandant of the Andersonville "concentration camp" in southern Georgia was executed as much for his refusal to implicate his superiors as for his supposed mismanagement of the Hell-ish camp.

Horwitz also refers to Traveller, Lee's most famous mount (more favored by the General than his secondary steed, Ajax) as a "she". Assuming this was not a typo, then how many knew General Lee rode through the war on a mare?

But this book is much more than a mere exercise in mythbusting. It stands as an exploration of how the Civil War still affects the culture in which we Americans live today. One thing Horowitz exposed was how ignorant of the conflict too many modern Americans are. In one of his final chapters he revealed that even in Alabama, heart of Dixie, only half of college-age individuals could name a single Civil War battle. Horwitz's meeting with an Georgia-based representative of a pro-Confederate heritage special interest lobby pointed out the thought-provoking fact that those who revile the supposed racism inherent in the flying of the Stars and Bars should bear in mind that our own national flag, Old Glory herself, flew over legalized slavery for nearly half its history as a symbol.

And those sorts of factoids are what makes Confederates in the Attic so compelling. It opens the mind even as it interests a reader on a more personal and broader level. It's a lot of fun to tag along through the pages of the longest chapter of the book, the winsomely named "Civil Wargasm" and be a party to stories of camping in the dead of night on Antietam's Bloody Lane or to pore over paragraphs concerning the final resting place of Thomas Jackson's amputated arm, but it's even more rewarding to wrestle with the philosophical challenges one encounters scores of times in Horwitz's four-hundred pages.

Something else I gleaned from the two days I spent reading this unique book. Those people most Americans would most readily accuse of racism---Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, Confederate flag aficionados, Deep Southern figures with much regional pride---are often the most open-minded and least racist sorts out there. Consequently, as Horwitz's journey to a mostly black high school in southern Alabama demonstrates, racism and phobic misunderstanding of others' of divergent ethnicity is by no means confined to those of European heritage.

Confederates in the Attic might just be the best book I've read this year.

When this book first came out, I was concerned that it would, like so many books, paint those who still memorialize the Confederacy as either rabid racists or slack-jawed yokels. However, the photograph of Robert Lee Hodge on the cover kept calling me. Once I took the plunge, I couldn't pull myself out. He critically examines Southrons and our obsession for the War Between The States, yet he does so with pathos, respect, objectivity, and a sense of humor. I haven't enjoyed a vicarious road trip this much since reading Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. The chronicle is worth reading, if for nothing else, the 'Gasm with Rob Hodge. He draws some interesting parallels between those re-enacting the 1860's and those attempting to re-enact the 1960's as well.

let me begin this review by saying that I am somewhat of a Civil War aficionado. Having said that, no other book that I have read has bridged the ap between the Civil War and the present as well as Tony Horwitz's CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC.

Horwitz, whose national reporting and war correspondence I have admired in the Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, is once again in top form. The urbanity and sophistication of those two periodicals contrasts nicely with the rural south he reports on in this book. After moving to Virginia and meeting local Civil War reenactors, be takes a two year-long Odyssey through fourteen southern states to explore the legacy of the Civil War. William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor combined could not have created such a menegerie of bizarre southern gothic characters.

On his voyage, he encounters Civil War reenactors so "hardcore" that their wives have left them. He encounters hate groups, explores the Confederate Flag controversey, investigates a racially motivated murder, ends up waist-deep in Confedeate kitch, and wanders into a meeting of the "children of the confederacy" eerily reminiscent of a Hitler-youth group.

This book appeals to both northerners and southerners, because it accomplishes te seemingly contradictory tasks of appreciating southern heritage while satirizing the southerners who have not yet forgiven the "Yankees" for destroying their newly formed Confederacy. The names of the chapters "At the Foote of the master," "The Civil Wargasm," and "Gone With the Window" show how the author keeps a satirical tone while appreciating the legacy of the Civil War. This book is an incredible piece of scholarship and journalism.

The reviews of this odyssey (70+ at the time of this writing) are more telling than the book. With only a couple of exceptions, non-southerners believe that the book is 5 star, inciteful, revealing ,etc. (how would they know-is it beause the book mimics Hollywood sterotypes?), while the southerners believe that the book is at least dishonest and arrogant. Even though I rate it 3 stars, I must agree with the southerners (but I am one). I give it 3 stars because the subject deserves them despite Mr. Horowitz's sometimes sophmoric and often repetitious treatment. He is a good writer, but I was truly diappointed at his carefully chosen anectdotal snapshots, and wonder at the ones he must have omitted. I thought it was an interesting read and understand the 5 star ratings, but I found myself trying to figure out what was honestly reported and what was not. Its pretty bad when one S.C. reviewer writes (while giving 5 stars): "I live in S.C. and was not aware of all the characters down here." Exactly.

In sum , please read the excellent reviews by Penn. 8-23-98, Wisc. 8-10-98, Miss. 7-6-98, Ala. 6-16-98, USA 5-26-98, and take the book with a grain of salt. Consider what could be written and embellished upon if a southerner (or even Mr. Horowitz)took a 2 year trip through D.C., Phil., Newark and NYC. Or the steel towns-what would the steel workers be?-hardworking, honest, blue collar Americans or ignorant, Labor Socialist, racists(black and white). It's easy to be prejudiced and myopic. I had hoped for more from him. Lastly, I question his eye. Has he been to the same Cold Harbor battlefield that I have? It's actually pretty well preseved, ground works and all, although in a low key fashion. It has a mixed grave yard. It even has a farm house that served as a Union field hosptital (and Lee's headquarters). A plaque notes that the family/owners were relocated to the basement where blood ran on them through the floor boards. I have similar gripes about his observations of important sites at Richmond and Lexington, Va.

After completing James M. McPherson's _Battle Cry of Freedom_, I thought I'd seek out some reflections on what the Civil War/War Between the States means to Southerners today. Tony Horwitz's little gem fit the bill. Though the weft of the narrative comprises the author's adventures driving around the South, the warp is his humorous encounters with the hardcore reenactors--not the sort that participate in mock battles at the national historical sites (the "farbs" as the hardcore call them), but the kind of people that deliberately spill rancid grease on their clothes for the sheer authenticity (and fun) of it. Then again, the warp might be the Civil War panorama the author painted as a child in the attic of his house. This suggests, perhaps, that the book is a somewhat rambling travelogue, and to some extent it is: witness, for instance, the author tracking down the mythical Tara. But even in such digressions, there is poignancy.

Yes, the Civil War lives in the hearts of Southerners, yet it's not the facts that live so much as the mythology that's grown up around the War. The South laments the passing of a tradition, of a way of life, of a set of values. There's a pride among Southerners for their past as problematic as it is. For some that pride slips into a kind of creepy sentimentalism. For others there is, beyond admiration of forebears, a recognition of the destruction the War wrought and an acknowledgement of the injustices for which, ultimately, it was fought.

The book talks about the Southern white men with the Confederate flags on the back of their pickups, the same people that Howard Dean in recent times was criticized for having suggested he'd like to reach out to; that's a stereotype, his critics complained. The point is is that the South continues to appeal to some of the symbols and ideas of the War era, but its motivations are at times complex and contradictory and at other times painfully simple: like liking the way the flag looks on the truck, because it's cool.

In Horwitz's book you read about a different side of Shelby Foote, who became such a grandfatherly icon of the Civil War from his appearances in the Ken Burns documentary. You meet the reportedly oldest Confederate widow. You spend a restless night (illegally) camped out in the Sunken Road at Antietam. You join a small Southern town as it defends its problematic statue of a Yankee soldier, while his Confederate counterpart is said to stand watch in a town in Maine.

Horwitz also does a great job bringing in information about the War itself, shattering more myths and bringing life to old stories.

Perhaps, from our vantage point today, one might wonder about how much some of the perspectives shaped by the Civil War still have ramifications today in our political process. How much of this legacy has played a role in the nation's division into Red States and Blue States?

An excellent read. I couldn't put it down. An excellent and funny account of one man's journey to understand his own and the present day South's obsession with the Civil War. I wish more of the unreconstructed rebels who live in the South today could take themselves with the same amount of seriousness and humor that Mr. Horwitz does. I spent my first 18 years in Massachussetts, and the last 18 in North Carolina, and this is the best and most balanced account of understanding how and why the Civil War is still so important in the South. Mr. Horwitz does a service by showing that all devotees to the Lost Cause are not right wing crackpots from the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder. He shows there are as many reasons for the devotion as there are devotees. I hope many in the South note his observations concerning the ongoing urbanization of the South with all the strip malls and fast food joints covering up and encroaching upon the battlefields and formerly rural communities. While I am out of sympathy with the Confederacy and what it stands for, I wish that the historical sense Mr. Horwitz found throughout the South at all levels was as strong in the North. As many of these reviews indicate, Northerners just want the South to "get over it", but that's easier said than done. Mr. Horwitz shows there are too many reminders, living and marble and concrete for Southerners to just get over it. On the other hand, he also revealed among many of the people he met, an appalling lack of knowledge of the facts of history. I recommend this book as a starting point for learning more about the war and its consequences for the South and the Nation, so the memory of the Confederacy won't be abused as it is now by many groups that use it to justify and legitimize their stands and actions. This book is for anyone who wants to understand the mind of the South today. You don't have to be a Civil War buff or Daughter of the Confederacy to enjoy it.

This is a book that students of the Civil War and especially history teachers should read. Tony Horwitz has done what just about every student of history would like to do: travel across the Old South, following the armies, visiting the battlefields, and even joining "re-enactors." But this is much more than a nostalgic visit. Horwitz asks questions of himself and those that were willing to talk with him and discovers many disturbing, even frightening things about our nation. History teachers will cringe, weep, laugh, (and perhaps change professions) as they read of his conversations with the myriad persona who talked with him during his sojourn. Perhaps, most disturbing is the concluding chapters where he discovers that not only has the war not solved any problems, it has left a legacy of a fractured nation based on race, section, ideology, and political lines. I recommend this book most highly. As a teacher -- who happens to be teaching the CW at present -- it is sobering and refreshing, a reminder that (as Faulkner said), the past is, indeed, never dead.