Author | Tony Horwitz |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Historical, Non-fiction |
Publisher | Pantheon |
Publication date | March 3, 1998 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
Pages | 432 pp |
ISBN | 0-679-75833-X |
Confederates in the Attic (1998) is a work of non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Horwitz. Horwitz explores his deep interest in the American Civil War and investigates the ties in the United States among citizens to a war that ended more than 130 years previously. He reports on attitudes on the Civil War and how it is discussed and taught, as well as attitudes about race.
Among the experiences Horwitz has in the book:
When published, Confederates in the Attic became a bestseller in the United States. The New York Times described it as intellectually honest and humorous, saying Horwitz seemed uncomfortable placed between two sides, seeking peace between the factions. [2] [3] [2]
Toward the end of the chapter on Alberta Martin, Horwitz states that Martin's Confederate husband was a deserter. In response, in 1998 the Southern Legal Resource Center sued Horwitz on Martin's behalf, with encouragement from the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It noted that two other William Martins were on the rolls of the same company as Alberta's husband. In addition, the SLRC claimed that Horwitz had ridiculed her in his book. [4] [5]
In 2000 the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus added Confederates in the Attic to its freshman reading list. [3] [6]
Historical reenactments is an educational or entertainment activity in which mainly amateur hobbyists and history enthusiasts dress in historical uniforms and follow a plan to recreate aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as a reenactment of Pickett's Charge presented during the 1913 Gettysburg reunion, or as broad as an entire period, such as Regency reenactment.
The Battle of Olustee or Battle of Ocean Pond was fought in Baker County, Florida on February 20, 1864, during the American Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in Florida during the war.
Ambrose Powell Hill Jr. was a Confederate general who was killed in the American Civil War. He is usually referred to as A. P. Hill to differentiate him from Confederate general Daniel Harvey Hill, who was unrelated.
An old soldiers' home is a military veterans' retirement home, nursing home, or hospital, or sometimes an institution for the care of the widows and orphans of a nation's soldiers, sailors, and marines, etc.
The Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum was a Civil War museum located in Atlanta, Georgia. Its most noted attraction was the Atlanta Cyclorama, a cylindrical panoramic painting of the Battle of Atlanta. As of December 2021, the Cyclorama is located at the Atlanta History Center, while the building is now Zoo Atlanta's Savanna Hall.
Henry Wirz was a Swiss-American convicted war criminal who served as a Confederate Army officer during the American Civil War. He was the commandant of Andersonville Prison, a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, where nearly 13,000 Union Army prisoners of war died as result of inhumane conditions. After the war, Wirz was tried and executed for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp; this made the captain the highest-ranking soldier and only officer of the Confederate Army to be sentenced to death for crimes during their service. Since his execution, Wirz has become a controversial figure due to debate about his guilt and reputation, including criticism over his personal responsibility for Andersonville Prison's conditions and the quality of his post-war trial.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
American Civil War reenactment is an effort to recreate the appearance of a particular battle or other event associated with the American Civil War by hobbyists known as Civil War reenactors, or living historians.
The Confederate Memorial at Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia, commemorates residents of Hampshire County who died during the American Civil War while fighting for the Confederate States of America. It was sponsored by the Confederate Memorial Association, which formally dedicated the monument on September 26, 1867. The town of Romney has claimed that this is the first memorial structure erected to memorialize the Confederate dead in the United States and that the town performed the nation's first public decoration of Confederate graves on June 1, 1866.
Star of the West was an American merchant steamship that was launched in 1852 and scuttled by Confederate forces in 1863. In January 1861, the ship was hired by the government of the United States to transport military supplies and reinforcements to the U.S. military garrison of Fort Sumter. A battery on Morris Island, South Carolina handled by cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy fired upon the ship, considered by some scholars to have been effectively the first shots fired in the American Civil War.
In historical reenactment, authenticity is a measure of how close an item, prop, action, weapon, tactic, or custom is to what would actually have been used or done in the time period being depicted. For example, in most northern European medieval reenactment cotton is an inauthentic material—as opposed to wool or linen—though it would be authentic in more modern periods and events, such as American Civil War reenactment or World War II reenactment. Likewise, pop culture references and talking about modern events or objects is inauthentic.
John Lawrence Burns was an American soldier and constable. A veteran of the War of 1812, at age 69 he fought as a civilian combatant with the Union Army at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. He was wounded, but survived to become a national celebrity.
Confederate Memorial Park is an Alabama State Park located in Mountain Creek, in rural Chilton County, Alabama, United States. Its address is 437 County Road 63, Marbury, Alabama 36051. It is sometimes found with the same address in Verbena, Alabama 36091.
Myrtle Hill Cemetery is the second oldest cemetery in the city of Rome, Georgia. The cemetery is at the confluence of the Etowah River and Oostanaula River and to the south of downtown Rome across the South Broad Street bridge.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
The North Carolina Monument is a North Carolina memorial of the American Civil War commemorating the 32 Carolina regiments in action at the Battle of Gettysburg. The monument is a public artwork by American sculptor Gutzon Borglum located on Seminary Ridge, West Confederate Avenue, in the Gettysburg National Military Park.
The commemoration of the American Civil War is based on the memories of the Civil War that Americans have shaped according to their political, social and cultural circumstances and needs, starting with the Gettysburg Address and the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery in 1863. Confederates, both veterans and women, were especially active in forging the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
Carol Reardon is an American military historian with a concentration in Civil War and Vietnam eras. She was a George Winfree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University. She now currently teaches at Gettysburg College.
At least four widows of veterans of the American Civil War are known to have survived into the 21st century. All were born in the 20th century and married their husbands while the women were still young and the men were in advanced age. This practice was not uncommon at the time due to the possibility of receiving pensions as dependents of Civil War veterans; the pensions were known for their generosity. Some of these unions were in name only, while others lived together as married couples.
The Illinois Monument is a public monument located in the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park in Cobb County, Georgia, United States. The monument honors the soldiers from Illinois who fought in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain during the Atlanta campaign of the American Civil War. It is located on Cheatham Hill, the site of intense fighting during the battle, and was dedicated in 1914, on the 50th anniversary of the battle. It was designed by Mario Korbel and James Dibelka.