Shelby Foote a noted novelist who became famous for his three volume “The Civil War” and for his appearances on the Ken Burns “Civil War” series was born on this day in 1916.

Shelby Foote’s first work of fiction was in 1949 a book called “Tournament.” He would publish 5 novels in 6 years until the mid 1950’s. He was asked to write a history of the American Civil War. It was originally going to be a one volume history that would take him a few years to write. It turned into taking 20 years and 2 huge volumes. Shelby Foote’s 3 volume “The Civil War” are my favourite books ever. My “Desert Island” books. I’ve read them I would highly recommend those books to anyone interested in the Civil War.

Foote’s became a ‘star’ in the early 1990’s when Ken Burns used Foote’s many comments in his “The Civil War” PBS series that became a huge hit. Shelby was the star of the series. Many have accused Foote of having a southern bias in both the books and the series. He is from the south but I think he is fair to both sides. Being in the Burns series spurred books sales of his Civil War series and made him a star. Sometimes I think he enjoyed that sometimes I think he was annoyed by it.  Foote only wrote one more novel, “September, September” in 1978. Although he would always talk about being at work on a new novel “Two Gates To The City” but that book was never finished. Shelby Foote lived in Memphis most of his adult life and I remember when in Memphis looking his name up in the phone book and the man’s name and number where in the book. I would never have dreamed of calling the number though. I did drive by his house just for the hell of it. Shelby was a real character. I always enjoyed listening to him talk. I did see him once. About 15 years ago he was at a ceremony at a local college and talked for about ten minutes. I took a day off to go hear him.