“Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War”, by Tony Horwitz

 

432 pages, Vintage, ISBN-13: 978-0679758334

I have read dozens of books about American history in general and on the American Civil War in particular, but Tony Horwitz provides some refreshing insights into this seminal American conflict with Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. Traveling through ten different states, Horwitz sets out to answer several age-old questions about The Civil War (or “The Late Great Unpleasantness”, or “The War of Northern Aggression”, depending on which side you’re on).

But first and foremost, why can’t Southerners put the Civil War behind them? Why do so many of them insist on living in the past? Each chapter is written from a different state and they are informative, disturbing, poignant and often downright hysterical. Just the chapter names are amusing including, “At the Foote of the Master” (about expert Shelby Foote), “Gone With the Window” (about Atlanta’s continuing obsession with Gone With the Wind) and “The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells Some”.

Horwitz traipses through battlefields, camps with re-enactors, seeks out little-known stories and checks out dusty museums and personal collections. He also talks with dozens of people (both Civil War experts and simple folk) about such topics as slavery, The Daughters of the Confederacy, the Confederate flag controversy, Civil Rights, prisoner of war camps, The Ku Klux Klan and various Civil War luminaries. Perhaps the most enjoyable parts of the book involve Horwitz tagging along with some hardcore re-enactors.

His romantic vision of a cozy re-enactment weekend (complete with camp fire, hardy stew and good camaraderie) is quickly burst when he’s made to remove or discard almost everything he has, including his clothes, eyeglasses and food (they’re not vintage 1860s; also, Confederate re-enactors tend to constantly starve themselves to obtain the appearance of proper, emaciated Southern soldiers). Some hardcore even go so far as to soak uniform buttons in urine to achieve the correct “patina” – all of which sounds more like work than fun.

The most disheartening parts of the book involve describing the New South, which is more integrated than ever before yet feels more divided than any time since…well, the Civil War. Confederates in the Attic succeeds as a first-hand account of one man’s attempt to understand our modern (circa 1998) views of the Civil War and how they stack up against the actual war. This is done in a well-written, very humorous, fast-paced travelogue style that is highly entertaining and deeply moving and difficult to put down.