Product Description

Foote's comprehensive history of the Civil War includes three compelling volumes: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, and Red River to Appomattox. Collected together in a handsome boxed set, this is the perfect gift for any Civil War buff.

Fort Sumter to Perryville
"Here, for a certainty, is one of the great historical narratives of our century, a unique and brilliant achievement, one that must be firmly placed in the ranks of the masters." —Van Allen Bradley, Chicago Daily News

"Anyone who wants to relive the Civil War, as thousands of Americans apparently do, will go through this volume with pleasure.... Years from now, Foote's monumental narrative most likely will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of its kind." —New York Herald Tribune Book Review

Fredericksburg to Meridian
"This, then, is narrative history—a kind of history that goes back to an older literary tradition.... The writing is superb...one of the historical and literary achievements of our time." —The Washington Post Book World

"Gettysburg...is described with such meticulous attention to action, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commanders that I understand, at last, what happened in that battle.... Mr. Foote has an acute sense of the relative importance of events and a novelist's skill in directing the reader's attention to the men and the episodes that will influence the course of the whole war, without omitting items which are of momentary interest. His organization of facts could hardly be bettered." —Atlantic

Red River to Appomattox
"An unparalleled achievement, an American Iliad, a unique work uniting the scholarship of the historian and the high readability of the first-class novelist." —Walker Percy

"I have never read a better, more vivid, more understandable account of the savage battling between Grant's and Lee's armies.... Foote stays with the human strife and suffering, and unlike most Southern commentators, he does not take sides. In objectivity, in range, in mastery of detail in beauty of language and feeling for the people involved, this work surpasses anything else on the subject.... It stands alongside the work of the best of them." —New Republic

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13811 in Books
• Published on: 1986-11-12
• Released on: 1986-11-12
• Format: Box set
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Paperback

Amazon.com Review
This beautifully written trilogy of books on the American Civil War is not only a piece of first-rate history, but also a marvelous work of literature. Shelby Foote brings a skilled novelist's narrative power to this great epic. Many know Foote for his prominent role as a commentator on Ken Burns's PBS series about the Civil War. These three books, however, are his legacy. His southern sympathies are apparent: the first volume opens by introducing Confederate President Jefferson Davis, rather than Abraham Lincoln. But they hardly get in the way of the great story Foote tells. This hefty three volume set should be on the bookshelf of any Civil War buff. --John Miller

From the Inside Flap
Foote's comprehensive history of the Civil War includes three compelling volumes: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, and Red River to Appomattox.

Customer Reviews

A Definitive Work on Civil War
I became a "fan" of the Civil War, to the extent any person can become a fan of a war, after watching Ken Burns' excellent series on PBS. I then set out to learn more about the war, and read, over the course of a couple of years, the three volume masterpiece of Shelby Foote. I can state without reservation it was one of the most enriching reading experiences of my life.

In Foote's talented hands, the characters of the conflict, North and South, come alive. He doesn't ignore the war out west, and treats battles such as Vicksburg, Shiloh, New Orleans and countless others with precision and attention.

He has somewhat of a Southerner's slant, but he is not so opinionated as to ignore gallantry by the North, and he rightfully rips Confederates when it is called for. Lincoln comes off much more sympathetically then Jeff Davis in my opinion, and he recounts various blunders by Confederate generals including Ewell's failure to act at Gettysburg, the disappearance of JEB Stuart when Lee needed him most, Joe Johnston's hesitancy and Hood's uncontrolled aggression in Georgia, etc.

Some reviewers here at Amazon criticized his lack of footnotes and a few missed details (ie who got in the last word in a series of letters between Grant and Lee, etc.) Come on, anyone reviewing the bibliography knows that Foote has done his research, I would expect anyone writing a 2800 page chronicle of a 4 year war to get a fact wrong here and there. 135 years after the war, details still pop up in archives and newly discovered letters which make people question prior assumptions. This is no historical novel as some have suggested - he doesn't invent dialogue and guess about the personal lives of characters like the Shaara books - this is history. And if anyone wants a fuller understanding of characters such as Grant, well than read Grant's Autobiography, as I did, and get the complete picture.

Perhaps Foote's trilogy is not for everyone. He leaves out some statistical data favored by historians such as MacPherson, who spent much more time on the events leading up to the war and who attempted to put the conflict in more of a historical context, although quite frankly those are omissions I didn't miss at all. I think for most general readers, who are simply motivated by a desire to learn about the battles, the great personalities, and the heroic struggles of the North and the South fought on soil familiar to all of us, the Foote books are a striking success. I haven't found a better single source of the history of the war, including detailed battle plans, maps, personal histories, etc. Buy the books, and come back to them here and there while readling other material in between. This is not a reading assignment to tackle in a single season. You'll find Foote's writing to be polished, lively, informative but not overwhelming, like coming back to an old storyteller friend.

worth every detail--compellingly readable--thanks, Shelby
Perhaps the greatest accolade I heard of Shelby Foote's involvement with the PBS mini-series "The Civil War" was the admiring comment that he seemed to have been there. I feel very much the same way about this epic 3-volume set. McPhearson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" may be the standard one-volume history of the Civil War, and a fine work it is, but it offers nowhere near the feeling of proximity to people and events as does this massive labor of love. Foote is so good at so many of the writer/historian's crafts that combine to make this trilogy essential Civil War reading. His skill at bringing a novelist's eye to this material has already been frequently noted. But he also has a wonderful way of giving a reader the feeling for the terrain on which battles were fought, for the ebb and flow of those battles, for the character of the men involved (and what characters! the proud, obstinante Jeff Davis, the rugged, unwashed Grant, the patrician Lee, the moody, tragic Lincoln--who would dare invent them? Yet Foote brings them, and dozens more, to breathing life). He conveys equally well the movement of troops as he does ideas--not to mention the sights, sounds, smells of the era, be they on the battlefield, in the army camp, or the White House. These are books that I will turn to again and again (I just got done re-reading volume 3), because, like no one else, Shelby Foote not only makes me feel like he was there, but that *I* was too.

A mammoth history of the Civil War
I have just completed this almost 3000 page tome on the American Civil War. I am not American but have always found the Civil War fascinating. A while back I finally decided to purchase a book about the Civil War that would read well and also be informative. Well Foote's books certainly are that. It became an obsession with me to get home everday and read on.....it felt as if I was there. This is partly due to the fact that the books read like a novel (probably why it is called a narrative!). I have read critiscms of the book which state that Foote is pro-Confederate and that this is really a Confederate History....well this is nonsense. He handles both sides with equal deft care. His descriptions of the main battles...First Bull Run, Fredricksburg, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville are all excellent and not to mention the rest of the campaigns. My only critiscm if it can be called that is that his second and third book are far better than his first which tended to drag a little but this may be because things started to really heat up in the second and third book as did the War. Altogether an excellent book and kudos to the author. Now I have to find something else to fill the void.....?