Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

Great recommendations. I haven't read either of the books you mention, although I do sort of have The Killer Angels in the back of my mind as something I should read. I don't doubt that the experience of the book goes beyond that of the movie. So often that is the case.

I only recently got into reading about Lincoln (he wasn't so much an icon in Mississippi when I was growing up, LOL), but I did read a very interesting intellectual biography of him last winter, called Redeemer President. It wasn't new, just something I picked up at the library. I guy named Guelzo wrote it. I found it fascinating, because he did a good job of reconstructing the intellectual influences on Lincoln during his formative years. I guess I hadn't quite realized before just how intellectually engaged Americans on the frontier were. They were very aware of their distance from centers of learning and strove to keep up with the new ideas of their day through many periodicals, societies for discussion, etc. They put us to shame in that way.

I also got hold of the new biography of Mary Lincoln by Catherine Clinton (which was actually what I was looking for when I got Redeemer President; the Mrs. Lincoln bio was hard to come by at first). That got me on a kick of reading about the era. I followed up with a history of Southern women called Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore; The Children's Civil War; and The Road to Disunion (Vol. 1). I never went back to read Vol 2, though I meant to. The Road to Disunion 1, by a man named Freehling, started in colonial times and ran up to 1850. It was densely written and not a quick read, though it was very, very informative to me.

I have always preferred reading about the Revolutionary era because it is a happier time in my imagination. The Civil War was a tragedy for all Americans, but it was especially tragic for the South, including my own ancestors. I do think that Shelby Foote makes a provocative comment in that Civil War series, when he points out that the Civil War is what made us one as a nation. He makes the point by discussing the grammar of "The United States," as I'm sure you recall--how that plural phrase was construed as a plural (the United States are) prior to the war, and as a singular (the United States is) afterward.

I just put Redeemer President on my Amazon list; it looks like a great read. Thanks for the recommendation!

If you end up reading The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara's son Jeff picked up his father's writing style after Michael's death. Jeff wrote a prequel and a sequel to The Killer Angels, detailing the battles leading up to and following Gettysburg. He then moved on to write about the Mexican War, and then several books on the American Revolution, again in the same style of historical fiction. I know what you mean about the American Revolutionary War being a happier time. As any war does, it had its share of tragedy and hardship, but it seems that all Americans today can look back on it without the divisiveness that still can bubble to the surface when re-examining the Civil War.

Even though the state of Maryland was on the border during the Civil War, I think that today, politically and culturally, the state would be more appropriately classified as part of the north. I don't have any relatives I know of who fought in the war, but I can easily see how the ravages of the war wrought in the southern states could inspire feelings of great sadness, even today. It will always remain fascinating to me, though, that despite the plurality of cultural differences and traditions in all of the states, despite the vast differences in religious and ethnic traditions, we can still call ourselves one nation.

On a side note, I don't know if you or your husband have ever made it to the Gettysburg battlefield, but the monument for the State of Mississippi is one of the most impressive. I've never found out why, but the artist chose to enlarge the hands and feet, and rendered them in great detail, making it almost surreal. The same sculptor did the Louisiana monument, and you can tell as soon as you look at them.