I started reading the companion book to the Civil War series first out
of a trudging realization that I had no real knowledge about history,
then because it is a page turner. Totally absorbing and revelatory as
the threads of Lincoln, Lee, Emancipation, Jackson, Gettysburg, the
Confederacy become a fabric of intrigue, patriotism, despair. It is a
large, heavy volume, so not easy to carry around.
This led me to find a copy online of the PBS series itself. Strangely,
though, it is the words on page that I have found more captivating.
Another fascinating look at the southern milieu is A Shattered Nation:
The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy 1861-1868. by Anne Sarah Rubin.
She is a professor at U of Md in Baltimore and I would love to meet
her.. The book is a detailed thesis that lays out how the south, though
not a separate state once the war was over, has remained a unique nation
with values that can be traced to wartime.
I find myself reading, shaking my head and crying, having to stop after sections to ponder, to mourn.
The battle of Antietam begs me to return to again and again. A song begins.
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