Years ago I sent Mr. Foote a letter asking if you would sign one volume of his Civil War trilogy I owned if I sent it to him. Soon after I received a hand-written note back from him saying he did not sign his books but thanking me for my interest. The note, which he signed, was on a small piece of note paper written with a quill. So even though I do not have a signed book I do have (and treasure) a personalized and signed note from him. I later learned he had written the original draft of his 3 volume book long hand with a quill. If you have ever seen his 3- book set you can imagine what a task and labor of love that must have been. That original draft deserves a place in one of our finest museums or archives. He was an amazing man to be sure and a true southern gentleman.
What a treasure! I'm so thrilled you have that.Who else would send you a letter written with a quill pen now!? People barely write anything with a modern pen and paper anymore.I fear we will not see or know the likes of any gentleman like him rarely or ever again.
Appreciating history so much, you find yourself becoming an indispensable part of it. Mr. Foote must have thought highly of your request. I trust you keep the note inside the cover of one of his books? Don't forget to write this information for inclusion with his signed note; it will verify the provenance for posterity. Your quest has become an heirloom.
Wonderful. I have been a fountain pen writer from childhood right to the present time. At junior school we had dip in pens with inkwells on our desks. Oh that this is gone. Well done Shelby
Shelby Foote had what I considered to be the quintessential Southern Genteel accent. His speech pattern, cadence, tonality, vocabulary, and humor were spot on. It is Shelby's voice I hear whenever I read lines of dialog for Atticus Finch ('To Kill a Mockingbird'), Lucien Wilbanks ('A Time to Kill'), and many characters from novels of William Faulkner. I dare say that Ken Burns will be remembered as much for preserving Shelby's voice for prosperity as for putting the War of Northern Agression into context. As a fellow Mississippian I am forever in his debt.
@@alexhines9128 Alex, it was not meant to be cheeky. I was endeavoring to be accurate. This is a term used by Southerners (before, during, and after the war) to describe the incursion of Northern ideals and Federal troops. Some have stated that the phrase originated in the 1950's during the struggle to desegregate the south. The study performed as a basis for this conclusion used as a source, a search using the Google index of news papers. Google started with as a left leaning organization and has continued to fall further to the left such that they have now scribed an arc surpassing 270 degrees. Yet, even their research list a reference using that phrase in a 1862 speech given by a Union General, { ...In Google’s indexing, it appears exactly once during the conflict, describing the war, not as a proper name as it is commonly seen today. (The single example in the 19th century comes from an 1862 speech by Union General John Alexander McClernand, who cautioned Tennesseans that “you have been told, gentlemen, that this is a war of Northern aggression. I deny it. It is no war of aggression. It is a war of defence, of defence of our common Constitution and Union.”) ... } Apparently General McClernand in 1862 deemed the phrase prevalent enough and important enough to include a denial of it within a speech given to Southerners. Clearly "Southerners" were discussing the "War of Northern Aggression" at or before the beginning of the Civil War. Looks like Google has been attempting to obfuscate history yet again.
I think Brits imitate Southern accents better than Yankees do. And I love to listen to Shelby Foote. He sounds so much like my grandfather, it's hilarious. Also, there's a tempo and shape that Southerners give to their storytelling that can't be duplicated. I wish to goodness he wouldn't say things like, "I think they've got it wrong," when he should be saying, "I have a different point of view on the battle flag," though. I dislike the "I'm right/you're wrong" game.
I met him in 1983, he was a great writer and a true southern gentleman..he is very well missed..nobody could ever replace this fine fellow..RIP Mr. Foote
I could listen to Mr. Foote for hours! A consummate gentleman, a brilliant scholar, an historian without peer. I find it amazing, to my mind, how much Mr. Foote resembles General Lee. I think he’d chuckle at that.
In his epic 3 volume Civil War, Shelby told the story of General Lee, on horseback and accompanied by a British Army officer acting in the capacity of observer, watching veteran Confederate soldiers marching past. As they approached, there was nothing remarkable but as they passed it was obvious that the men had cut or worn through the seat of their pants and were devoid of underwear. Aghast, Queen Victoria’s officer and gentleman exclaimed - “My God, General, the mens’ backsides are showing!” Cool as a cucumber, Virginia’s finest replied - “ Don’t worry Colonel; the enemy never sees the backs of my Texans”.
Shelby Foote was a master historian. His clear-eyed interpretation of history, largely free of the entrapments of emotional sentimentality, were a gift to the modern age--and a breath of fresh air.
His contributions to the wonderful Ken Burns’ documentary “The Civil War” were outstanding. He mixed academia with a terrific dry sense of humour. A sad loss.
Ray Davis “Not a single soldier in either side fought for or against slavery in their minds” ... in 1865 10% of all union forces were black. Almost every memoir of confederate soldiers, from private to general, mentions fighting for slavery Every single declaration of secession mentions slavery as one of the, if not the primary reason for said succession Why the fuck was Glory Glory Hallelujah so popular in the north? This man is a southern sympathizing fucktard confederate
You are exactly correct,their are Gentlemen and then there are SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN,I'm 68 LIVED in TENNESSEE ALL MY LIFE,My Father was a TENNESSEE COLONEL AN Award giving to Him By THE GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE,He spoke that slow Savannah DRAW like PROF. FOOTE ,I read everyone of his BOOKS,his perception of the Battles,The People,The City,S were JUST AMAZING To say the least! HE studied 1,000 OF letters written by MOTHERS,WIVES,SONS,AND ALL FACISTS OF THE REAL SOUTHERN HEART DURING THAT TIME!! Not the PROPARGANDA AND HALF TRUTHS COMING OUT OF THE NORTHERN NEWSPAPERS THAT WERE CARRIED ON INTO THE TEXTS OF TODAY! REMEMBER SHERMAN BURNED EVERYTHING ,OUR WORD MEANT NOTHING ,WERE IF WAS NOT FOR SHELBY FOOTE THE REAL SCOPE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN TOLD IN OUR LIFETIME,OLE ABE WASN,T WHO YOU THINK HE WAS,ENJOY WHILE YOU LEARN THE REAL TRUTHS READ HIS BOOKS ,YOUR EYES WILL BE OPENED!!!
Shelby Foote was an insurance client of mine years ago. We would discuss business in his study . He told me stories of his friendship with Cybill Shepherd and books he had written apart from the Civil War Trilogy.
To me the Confederate flag had its beginnings as a battle flag pure and simple. Unfortunately many have come to hijack that flag for their own personal and twisted objectives. I have ancestors who fought for the South who certainly didn’t own any slaves. They were drafted into the Confederate Army. One of the issues is that we view this from our modern perspective and put our morality and social mores upon it. I certainly wish Mr. Foote was alive today to give his interpretation on our current views on this matter.
It began being seen as a racist symbol of segregation in the 50's when state capitols started flying it over their capitol buildings as a sign of solidarity against the rising Civil Rights movement. We tried to take it back as symbol of regional pride in the 80's and now due to the actions of one jackass it has come under an attack from which it will never recover in my lifetime
@@sigp3657 that is not and never has been the flag of the Confederacy That is Lee's battle standard. Lee fought only for Virginia and would have fought for the Union if Virginia had gone that way. It is a battle flag carried as a symbol of Southern pride by men who Churchill called the fiercest fighting men in the world. After Reconstruction there wasn't much left for us so we became the nations warrior sect. All the way through the Korean war that flag was carried in recognition of that
@MultiBagram the war was about freedom/session from the rothschild central banking cartel more than it was about slavery. Less than 1% of southern whites owned slaves.
@MultiBagram what lmao? Shut the f*ck up. You have absolutely no idea who the rothschilds are…they literally funded the trans Atlantic slave trade. I’m going to end this conversation now because you’re clearly ignorant and not capable of viewing history from different viewpoints.
@MultiBagram I’m not sure you listened to the video because Foote didn’t show sympathy towards either side. He said no soldier on either side gave a damn about the slaves/slavery. I feel like your assumptions flawed your claim from the beginning and therefore I must say, “Erroneous on both accounts!!”
Perfectly said Mr Foote! RIP. I might also add - what flag was at Sand Creek, Bear River, Sacramento, Washita, Marias River, Wounded Knee? The same one I wore on my shoulder 27x years as a US Army paratrooper... In Africa they say "wash your hands before you point at me"
It was a waste of my time to read all the 1,000s of writers who think they knew Union and Confederate soldiers' motivation to fight, when I could've simply read Shelby Foote (paraphrasing) "The northern soldier fought to preserve the Union and the southern soldier fought for what he thought was the second American Revolution and neither one gave a damn about slaves." Boys and Girls, let me save you the burden of research through those same 1,000's of authors and books I read, Foote has expressed the bottom line of it all, the same conclusion I came away with, and the millions of letters solders wrote home (including all four of my own Confederate grandpas) say exactly the same thing.
very easy to explain to any one with a rudimentary education in history.. Mr, Jefferson Davis spoke it very plainly and it is why he was elected unanimously without opposition at the beginning when there was no one seeking to be a pen mightier than....." Uneducated the slave is unfit for freedom ... educated he his unfit for slavery.. if you cannot see the wisdom in this by todays situation... then I must say you are insane. the whole idea of the south is that the black was a human.. not a third as prescribed by the north < and remember there were many states who had slavery in the north until 1866, surly as a teacher you know this. now this is just the answer to the rudimentary argument .. the truth lies in the reality in ,,, who is going to decide the issue.. the fed or the state,,, by constitution,, it must be the state,, after the south lost the war it became the fed... this is why men in the south fought without shoes and ate acorns to survive... they believed in a constitutional government.. ///// which no longer exists. good day,
You understand freedom. Very refreshing to see. Free speech is about protecting all speech. Even the despicable. We can not tolerate any infringement on free speech otherwise it’s not free speech.
While I share your respect for individuals' rights to self-expression, if you choose to express yourself - to exercise your free speech - you have to recognize that there are inevitable costs for speaking your mind. Speech may be free, but it isn't cheap. More to the point, however, while I too respect individuals' right to speak for themselves, when governmental bodies fly a flag they represent all of the people and they represent force. Therefore, there is something else involved when they embrace a symbol, and that is where I believe the real controversy and the need for debate begins.
@@dlpogge I take it that you will have no issues with Antifa and BLM thugs brutalizing your loved ones, threatening your life, parading countless litigants through the courts swearing to your inappropriate sexual advances, and destroying your professional livelihood because you failed to pay lipservice to each of their ever-changing list of purity tests. In your world view there are consequences for speech. Their world view doesn't match yours so it is only a matter of time until you experience their consequences. In my world view, I may detest everything that you say but I will defend your right to freely express it in an open and civil dialog. The only consequence to political speech is that some political candidates loose elections. Any other consequences should be investigated as a crime. Flags are symbols that represent different ideas to each person. No flag purports to represent everyone. People pledge their allegiance to their flag. There are provisions to propose changes to flags and there are procedures by which the citizens can vote to change their flag. It is a two stage process. The citizens vote on whether the flag should be changed. If their vote affirms the need to change the flag then committees are formed to suggest alternative flags. The citizens then vote on which new flag will represent them. My state flag was recently changed. It did not follow the two step process. The majority voted overwhelming to keep the flag everytime it came up for a vote. A newly elected governor made an executive decision to give in to special interests and change our flag as was in his political purview. By doing so he violated a political campaign promise. I do not like the new flag, but I am not protesting in the streets, setting fires, or shooting people. I will work feverishly to ensure that he doesn't make it through the next primary. Should he win the nomination I will vote for his opponent. I will make it my life's mission to ensure that he never wins another election and I will vehemently object if he is ever put forth as a political appointee. My state representative, whom I worked to elect and reelected even though he is not affiliated with my political party, has forever lost my vote for similar reasons. He is a good man that voted with his heart and for what the majority of his constituents desired. We part political ways, but remain friends.
The world lost another old southern racist from the so called "great generation". Yeah they were great alright great at being insanely cruel lynching murderers and segregationist oppressors of blacks. Rotten evil old bastards.
Shelby Foote describes the "nuance" that is so needed now. So many see things in terms literally of black and white. We seem to be almost as divided as before the Civil War.
Yep. It's entirely impossible for any one person to stand in one place, at one point in time, and get the full and proper perspective on any subject of history. As he said, it's true that a lot of idiots have misused this flag for their own uses, and it's fair game to oppose those people. But we should not allow misusers of history to deprive us of the truth.
As a Canadian, I was under the impression that the Civil War was fought to end slavery & preserve the union. Why can't all politicians just go with that concise answer?
The negro population has also worked up to a pitch of hatred that is probably unprecedented in U.S. history -- this, too, must be recognized to grasp the situation.
I had the wonderful good fotune to happen on mr foote at getteyburg many years ago and he was kind enough to let me tag along i live close enough to the battlefield to know much of it extremely well but he made each area come alive and to tell a tale of humans on both sides not just grand tactics. As a soldier and combat vet he made it relate in a very real way to my own experiance
Although my sympathies regarding the Civil War lie primarily with the Union (a distant ancestor of mine, Charles E. Hazlett was one of the junior Union commanders at Gettysburg) I think there is a lot of laziness today (2017) in accessing the Confederacy, it's goals and nature. Many Confederate troops could barely afford shoes, let alone slaves. Foote is absolutely right. It is a very complex subject and should be treated as such.
Its really not that complex. The state of S Carolina - who started the secession movement - said it was specifically about slavery. The north and south states were arguing abt slavery for decades before the civil war as well. Mr Foote’s loyalty to the South has him overlooking the horrible atrocities they committed.
@Jonathan Taylor No one considers the opinion of the rank and file when judging the basis for a war. Most battles until the 19th century used a significant # of mercenaries, they had literally no motive but money. When judging the motive, you look at why the Southern politicians chose to secede, and that was obviously about slavery given the debate at the time.
@Jonathan Taylor the Southern people elected said politicians. They were presumably, then, in favor of slavery. And then taking up arms against the United States - treason. I have ancestors that fought for the confederacy, there’s no need to romanticize what they did. They were proto-Nazis.
Rest assured that the US civil war, like all wars, was about power, control and money cloaked under the guise of righting some kind of morally repugnant wrong (like slavery, babies bayoneted in incubators, weapons of mass destruction, whatever - it's the oldest trick on earth). They can write ad nauseum otherwise but that simply flies in the face of all recorded history. There's slavery all over the world right now and my church is independently helping to address this in Africa where the problem is growing especially child slaves. We have approached government agencies here, diplomats, African officials and guess what none of them give a damn. The news is about as much what they report AS WHAT THEY DON'T. It's also a big problem in the Middle East and China and NO ONE CARES. People need iPhones and cheap products and the new plantations are global corporations.
@@tripp8833 Much like the northern soldiers who practiced genocide against the Plains Native Americans in order to to steal their lands to sell them to other white supremacists and railroad corporations. Those Americans were proto-Nazis.
What I always enjoyed about listening to Shelby Foote was, it was like he had been there. His knowledge and perspective was encyclopedic. I’ve never thought of history in terms of dates and events, it’s the characters and the stories behind that that help you understand a historical event. Vale Shelby Foote, you were the master historian on this subject.
He is wrong on the constitutional history. The Southern states seceded in 1860-1861. At that time, there was no hint that Congress would seek to amend the Constitution by abolishing slavery. On the contrary, on the eve of the war, Congress proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would have prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery, and that proposed amendment was endorsed by Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address. But the South wanted more. They wanted to carry their slaves from place to place, including free states where slavery was illegal. They did not respect the "states rights" of the Northern states, and the only "states right" they did support was the state's right to have slavery.
There is no evidence, this is called "Critical Theory". They just criticize anyone or anything they don't like, without prof or justification. It stops the argument that they were losing and turns it into a emotional shouting match, which they might win.
As a combat veteran I know full well this flag was a battle flag of soldiers and that's all....slavery existed many years before the Confederate flag exited, Mr. Foote has given the best take on it as I've ever heard
ACE Champion It was the ANV battle flag, which lost and was replaced by a white flag of surrender at Appomattox Court House. No one rightly carried it after that moment. In disrespect to the confederates who died under its aegis in battle, Nathan Bedford Forrest resurrected it as the flag of the KKK, and it has stood as the flag of lynchings, hate and terrorists since. Anyone willing to support that has crossed the line beyond the bounds of decency.
@Kyle Clark THE REAL TYRANT WAS THE SAVIOUR OLE ABE HIMSELF! A BRILLIANT PLAN THEY COOKED UP ,USING THE SOUTH AS A UNLIMITED RESOURSE OF MILLIONS, IN THE FORM OF THE ××MORRILL TARIFF TAX MEANT FOR SOUTHERN GROWERS ONLY! THE NORTH HAD SLAVES ALSO AND SLAVE TRADERS,SO IF YOU GOING TO TELL IT, TELL IT RIGHT!!IT WAS ALL ABOUT MONEY PERIOD,HE USED SLAVERY AS HIS ACE CARD!!FACT THERE WERE 4 NOTHERN STATES THAT WOULD NOT RELEASE THIER HANDS FOR UP TO 14 MONTHS,THE REAL FACTS ARE A LITTLE DIFFERENT HUM, ABE AND HIS CRONNEYS PUSHED THE SOUTH INTO A CORNER, FIGHT OR STARVE!!!!! DIO VENICE!!
Shelby Foote...a true myth! All my appreciation and respect! Great man! From an Italian admirer and supporter of you! THANK YOU for everything you have left to us with your Great and Truly Southern culture! Very much obliged!
I can accept the proposition that most common soldiers on both sides did not think of themselves as fighting for or against slavery; and that the issues which drove the North and South apart were many and complex. But slavery was far and away the chief issue among them, and the Founders' failure to abolish it in 1781, thinking it would slowly wither, virtually guaranteed a future rupture. And the 'property' involved was human beings, not land, buildings, or cattle. People. Men, women, and children.
He was - deservedly - a great authority on the American Civil War and he got his succinct views across without candour, in his inimitable and beautiful southern drawl. RIP Mr Foote!
I got to spend some time with Shelby many years ago and he was a brilliant writer and a great historian. But on the matter of the flag, as a native Mississippian, I could not disagree with him more. If all wars are indeed economic then this war was about slavery.
J Shepard It depends on how you look at it. For the wealthy/ruling class, of course it was about money. Regardless of their ideology, they had everything to gain monetarily by keeping slaves. Why else would we have the Missouri comprise? For the working class, it might have been for states rights, but let’s face it, did they really have a stake? As usual, they were used by the ruling class and bullshitted into thinking the civil war was for a higher purpose, which it wasn’t.
Please put on your thinking cap and do some research into just howany people in the South actually owned 20 or more slaves, very few. Hell, a majority of the South did not hold slaves at all. Economic dependence on slavery would have only concerned a very small group. The war was not about this, it was about the State's rights to govern themselves. Men would not have gave up their homes, livelihoods and lives (from the North or South) over the issue of slavery.
@@jeje1020 I am not surprised, but think about it. Why did we fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea? The working class is always on the front lines even when they don't have a dog in the fight. In so many ways we have been conned, coerced, and drafted to do the bidding of wealthier and more powerful men.
A brilliant historian and a true gentleman .. There are not many like him left that present history as the history actually was . It seems it gets embellished or twisted in order to support some political position or social construct .. He was the epitome of a Southern Gentleman ... You will not see another of his kind soon ,, maybe never ....
For millions of people it mean slavery and the fight to continue slavery. In the Jim Crow era it was used by individuals, States and terrorist organizations to celebrate institutional racism and oppression.
I understand his point, and agree with the complex perspective he takes, but it boils down to this: I believe that if there had been no slavery, there would have been no secession and no Civil War.
It was a cultural war. Foote is correct, slavery was not a concern until Lincoln made it one. His action enabled free slaves and enslaved to take up arms and help the north.
People forget that slavery was a holdover from America's time as British Colonial Subjects, our Founders and Statesmen petitioned the King of England to end its practice in the Colonies and were denied.
Read up on the nullification crisis. Secession came very close to happening 30 years before the civil war began and it had nothing to do with slavery. It was about tariffs and the debate over state powers vs federal powers. The divide between southern and northern society was well underway before the debate over the expansion of slavery came into the limelight
@@jmelcher24 And it didn't end in secession. Unlike later, when the expansion of slavery was in jeopardy, did South Carolina lead the south out of the Union.
My great grandfather and his brother were dirt poor north Mississippi hill farmers who never owned a slave. They joined & fought for the Confederacy for one reason - the Union was in their front yard burning & plundering their small farms. Ending slavery was a tremendous benefit of the civil war, but it was not the only reason the war was fought just as Shelby Foote stated. My fear today is that we have unfortunately learned very little from that terrible phase of our history and may be doomed to repeat it. God help us.
5 horns play the melodious Dixieland tune from under the hood of my orange ‘94 GMC truck.😊 I love and appreciate Mr. Foote’s knowledge and his accent.❤️
Shelby Foote died in 2005 and long before today's upheaval regarding the Confederate flag. I wonder what he would say if he was still with us. Real Southerners who know their history, know perfectly well that the Confederate flag didn't stand for racism. Adopted by the Klan the flag fell into evil hands and there it still remains as a judgment against innocent people who are no longer among our ranks.
+Ronnie Menton The vast majority of what we would call the "one-percenters" or the landed gentry in the South were Presbyterian. The flag of Northern Virginia, and I use that term in describing the armies of the confederacy, because a lot of the other states that fought for the South during the Civil War, fought under their own state's flags. But, going back to the Presbyterian roots of my argument is the Confederate flag was fashioned after the Presbyterian cross of St. Andrew. As Shelby Foote states, die hard racists of the KKK, and the Aryan Brotherhood, when they weren't lifting weights and screwing each other in prison got Confederate flag tattoos. The federal prison system of the '40's and '50's did not allow prisoners to have tattoos that showed. Skinheads (i.e. neo-nazis have not only hijacked the Confederate flag but have swastikas tattooed on the skin heads as well. And this is not only an American phenomenon, but is being repeated by the right wing lunatics in Western Europe. The Confederate Flag is a part of our tragic history and should be kept to remind us of that tragedy. These other sons of bitches, racist, nen-nazi skinheads so full of hate can get themselves tattooed with garbage cans, but don't re-write our history.
Oh how I would have loved to have been professored by Dr. Shelby Foote! Along with LSU's T. Harry Williams, they were both deemed as a history academic's dream!
Absolute truth. Shelby Foote was a excellent historian and exceptionally good writer/author. Not to mention you could listen to him for weeks on end. He has the voice of a educated southern narrator. RIP Shelby and thanks for leaving such good works behind.
"Robert Tombs or somebody once gave the best definition of that war I ever heard, "It was a war of one form of society against another form of society, and because one of those forms of society included chattel slavery and the other side didn't, except to a limited extent, it's always been identified as a war over slavery. Believe me, no soldier on either side gave a damn about the slaves, they were fighting for other reasons entirely in their minds."" "Southerners thought they were fighting a second American revolution; Northerners thought they were fighting to hold the Union together, and that held true throughout the whole war, except for some people who were absolute partisans on both sides: fire eaters in South Carolina and abolitionists in Massachusetts. But most of the people were fighting because they were fighting for... Southerners once said I'm fighting because you are down here; if you want to invade my home you've got me to fight, others say you are trying to tear the fabric of the Union, therefore you should be put down and not allowed to do what you claim what you want to do." "It's a very complex subject and I'm sorry to see it degenerate into a such things as identifying that flag as a symbol of racism, it is not. It was never intended as such. [The] Confederacy respected law above all things." ~ Shelby Foote
1:09 "People who say slavery had nothing to do with the war are just as wrong as people who say slavery had everything to do with the war." Exactly right.
Smogger911 please know slavery was the ultimate reason for conflict between the new states entering either as a “free state” or “slave state” from 1823 until the war. It was a constant battle in Congress. Further, the southern states wanted to remain as slave states and anti slavery was growing, it was a mess that consummated in the attack on Sumter. You can beat around the bush as much as you’d like, but when you remove all the clutter it was about outlawing slavery and the rights of human beings going from state to state as free. Distinguished scholars have proven that the abolishment of slavery was inevitable. Nevertheless, I respect your opinion and Foote’s ... I just don’t buy it . Thanks for your comment 👍
It should be required reading for students of history in America, to read his three volumes about the causes and events of the American civil war. He was compelling and honest to both sides in his greatest work.
Excellent video. Shelby Foote is the absolute authority on the Civil War! The Confederate flag is a battle flag that represented the southern states that succeeded from the Union! It's sad today that the public schools and universities are not teaching true US. It's always great to hear Shelby Foote opinion on matters of the Civil War!
A great historian and storyteller. Beautiful Southern accent. No matter what part of the world someone is from they love Southern accents. I could tell numerous stories but once in a restaurant in Canada my East Texas wife spoke and the whole staff came over to listen and were seemingly spellbound. No joke! Foote is correct about the Confederate flag. History and Heritage!
I surely do miss Mr. Foote and his learned approach to things. We could certainly use his wisdom in this day and age. He was a national treasure, for certain.
The Stars and Bars flag has my deepest respect as a flag of the United States beit to succeed from the union or to represent the infringement of the government on the citizens of the southern states. It never represented slavery to me until idiots made it their cause. It's a symbol of rebellion against what people felt as tyranny. Not a damned thing to do with slavery. TO get people to listen to this is next to impossible. This flag waves honorably over the remains of confederate soldiers who were fighting on the convictions of their rights as Americans. The way the bodies of confederates were treated on the Gettysburg battlefield by the north / union army was absolutely disgraceful in my thoughts. Back then people did not think nor cared. Lots of rabble on those battle fields. Was just a damned shame. It's going to happen again. We keep having our rights whittled down to nothing is sparking a new revolution just like the Civil war. Ok...I'm going too far for the scope of this forum. I love the Confederate flag as much as the Stars and Stripes of these United States as well everyone should and would if others had an ounce of brains. What a super video and well said. Thank you for sharing this with us!
I appreciate that Shelby acknowledges the huge role slavery played in the role, while also noting there were other contentious issues that caused the divide. The fact remains that it wasn’t all because of slavery, but it was a very relevant issue.
@@s2xg112 Tarriffs and taxes , the Republicans were going to raise them to discourage Southern/European Trade , It was 10% before secession, The Republicans who had the votes were going to raise it in 2 steps from 15% to 50% which would have bankrupted the South . That was a huge reason , Slavery which fell under the blanket of States Rights to determine Their own laws of which Slavery was one of the reasons stated but was just a serious ailment of a much bigger disease of States vs a growing Federal Government , We see the results of that now with unelected Beauracrats stamping on all of Our Rights and Politicians who are owned by Corporations and Foreign Governments and not We The People .
Now he didn't just pull that out of his proverbial hat.He understood what he was talking about,and spent so much time listening to people and doing serious research and was a honest gentleman.
Lol, but he’s wrong.. 20 years before the civil war, in 1841, cotton was 59% of all exported goods.. The South knew then they would eventually go to war.. No southern was leaving the union over any issue other than slavery.. Mr Foote knew that, he is lying for some reason?..
@@jacobjones5269 So all the ordinary folks wanted slavery? Poor white people went to war.Slavery did not serve most people,it was inefficient and we can all go back in time and blame the guy who invented the cotton gin that made cotton even more in demand because it could help process it more in the 19th century.More demand,more insane reason to not let go of the tigers' tail(slavery) so it was more than a simple reason to not let go of your slaves if you had them.You ended up continuing it because of many reasons including the law of any slaves born into the Masters' Women slaves were his or hers,and where did you stop.War,yes would come but banks were involved,investors etc.Economics affected everyone.
Loren Heard Precisely.. The whole southern existence depended upon it, and they knew it.. Heck, they even had strategies designed around cornering the market to enlist foreign help in bankrupting the Union.. 99% of the southern soldiers didn’t own any slaves, but they were most certainly fighting for that very right.. Once again, my home state mentioned Indian raids from Mexico as a grievance for secession.. Do you really believe Texas was gonna leave the Union for any other reseal besides slavery?.. Not happening..
The States rights argument is the argument that went on since prior to the founding of the Republic: federalism. That is, who is going to control, the States or the Federal government? If the States controlled, each State could enact its' own laws according to the wishes of its' citizens. If the Federal government controlled, they could overrule and/or void certain State's laws, such as slavery or no slavery. Control was the overarching issue, not slavery. Using our ideas of the present day to look at things of the past, and how things and thoughts on it developed a century + later, does not change how they were considered at the time they happpened. Doing so distorts history. History cannot be changed or eliminated no matter what anyone thinks of it today. Mr. Foote is right. At the same time you are welcome to your views.
Individual soldiers may not have been fighting to preserve/eliminate chattel slavery. But as we well know, wars are fought by poor boys for the benefit of powerful men. And to the powerful men directing the war, it was very much about slavery.
I finally finished reading his three volume narrative of the Civil War earlier this year. My regret is that I didn’t read it before. It was an amazing analysis that afforded an even handed perspective for both sides. He presented facts and perspectives that are rarely seen. He was a giant.
It's nice to hear someone in so few words encapsulate this complex matter. I think people like to boil things to the simplest thing, but wars are usually not fought over simple things, but rather complex matters.
He was obviously a white supremacist by his defense of the extremely wicked confederacy whose main objective was to perpetuate human rights violating slavery.
I have been out of high school for almost six decades. I was very interested in the civil war. Read journals from soldiers. Those journals told me a different story as Mr. Foote explains. I learned, all those years ago, and I can still hear my history teacher. Most people had not even seen a slave. An army couldn't be raised to fight for or against slavery. Not his exact words, but I can recall the lesson.
There are simple minds who accept what they are fed as fact... even if it is untrue. Mr. Foote calmly explains what that flag meant in the first place, and should mean today. It saddens me as well that a few pundits choose to say that is a simply a symbol of racism.
The problem I have is that, at about 1:00, he makes reference to the Emancipation Proclamation as affecting "private property". He is, of course referring to human beings as private property. That's plain wrong no matter how you try to spin it.
True. But like anything else you give a little and it’s never enough!! They saw it leading to not just the banning ofslavery which we all know is wrong but to them pushing for more states rights. They wanted no part of the north pushing their ways on them.
@@alanbozard4701 While there may have been other concerns over other issues, the armed defense of slavery cannot be overlooked. Again, that's wrong no matter how you try to spin it.
For many, the other questions of the civil war are as callous as the sidelining of the slavery issue. For slaves there was no other issue. For free men afraid of illegal enslavement there was no other issue. The "other issues" are just a smokescreen to give the lowliest most degenerate, treasonous, snakes some semblance of honor, intelligence, and character. As secessionist garbage and treasonous trash whose major and primary cause was white supremacy and slavery they deserved a gallows walk, to the last wide eyed flag ogling drummer boy.
@@gregorypaine513 And you realize of course that Ken Burns' entire premise of the film is that slavery was at the heart of the Civil War. He and Foote are polar opposites in their views.
And we can have differing views through the lenses of 175 years. But don’t pretend to know what was in the heart of man who blue or gray unless you actually talk to them!
Mr. Foote was wrong about that none of the soldiers on either side were fighting for or against slavery. The THOUSANDS of African American soldiers fighting for the Union would beg to differ. This group is often forgotten in history, especially in the South. Also remember that there were Regiments from every state in the Confederacy fighting for the Union. Where in the South can you find a statue or memorial for these men? General Lee (who once swore an oath to 'protect the United States against all enemies, foreign AND domestic') had a favorite Corps Commander, Gen. James Longstreet. A man who he always trusted. Yet you cannot find a single statue of him anywhere in the South. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the fact that after the war was over Gen. Longstreet supported the Union and reconstruction? These facts clearly show that 'preserving history' was not the main thing on the minds of the people who were erecting all these statutes in the South.
You are referring to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which was also the subject of the movie 'Glory'. At the end of the Civil War, many freed blacks joined the Republican party, since the Democrats heavily favored slavery beforehand, as a means to make the South's vast agriculture viable and profitable. As Shelby pointed out, it may depend on who you asked just what they were fighting the war for. I had many, many relatives fighting on both sides of that war. Many of which were either maimed or killed as a result. Either side saw it as a patriotic cause. Of these, most were fighting for the Union. Lincoln made it about slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation, after the first cause for Union. That changed the entire tide of the war. Both sides believed that God was for their cause. Lincoln believed that God was punishing the whole country because of slavery. The Battle for Gettysburg was the beginning of the end of the war. But the numbers of black soldiers that continually joined the Army did help to change the tide against an ever shrinking numbers of Confederate troops.
Foote is an addled old man. He's 100% wrong. Words change meaning. Symbols change meaning. The confederate battle flag has become a symbol of hatred, racism, and oppression.
@@arimfshapiro7907 You cannot change the meaning of words and symbols from their original historical context and then apply the changes to the same historical events without distorting history. it's certainly disingenuous for you to try that to fit your politics. You cannot call a dog a chicken. That is called "lying." The fact that others changed the meaning of the flag at a later time doesn't justify your change. It only means that both of you are wrong . Enjoy your dog soup.
@@MrRadioGypsy Do you seriously think the KKK and the NEO Nazis thnk the confederate flag harkens to the South's rich innocent heritage? This is not revisionist history. If the Confederate flag ever had a purity to its symbology, it has long been corrupted. You can't be serious in 2020 and not realize all of the pain this country has put on its oppressed people for centuries. It's time to man up and accept that our past is nothing we should be particularly proud of and do the right thing.
It's shocking that Mr. Foote states that the South saw the Amendments to the Constitution coming, and that is why they attempted to leave the federal system. No such legislation was proposed, and Lincoln himself stated the preservation of the Union was more important than the abolition of slavery where it was being practiced. Shame on him and his name to state that no one fought because of slavery. The "State's Rights" argument is undermined by the very legislation that the Confederate States enacted to leave the Union. Slavery is the sole reason the Southern States objected to the election of Lincoln. South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860 before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Shame on Shelby for seeing the Confederate effort for anything other than the continuation of slavery, and the battle flag as anything other than what it is...a monument to white nationalism, and the continuation of slavery supported by the Southern Baptists and Southern Methodists, and a fair number of "Copperheads" in the North, and everyone who fought for the South. Everyone.
Marse Robert also said it was a battle flag and not a national flag, and as such, since the battle had been fought-and lost-the flag was meant to be furled and put away.
My great grand father Wilhelm Loehr fought at Vicksburg with Waul's Texas Legion. He was fighting to protect his farm and family. Our family never owned a slave. The south fought to preserve their homeland. It makes me sad for the southern soldiers that lost their lives. Now we are dishonoring their memory and sacrifice by tearing down statues and confederate flags across the nation. It's history, let us not forget the past. God help us.
Then why was the South willing to forego secession with the Crittenton Compromise of 1860, which would have protected slavery in the Constitution. Sorry, but no one would have had to protect ANYTHING if the South had not attempted treason.
YA Stepanov secession, legally was “legal” or “right” to do then. No where in the constitution had spoken about the topic and so it was left up to the 10th A.
problem Jim is that you cannot have southern states rights without slavery. You would have to outwardly accept the institution of slavery if you want to have your way in the South, regardless if you and your family owned slaves. You are supporting slavery by fighting on its side. That is immoral.
@@yastepanov5748 thank you YA for setting things straight. The Southern apologists can never accept the truth that they are tied to the most immoral of institutions, regardless of the fact they did not own slaves, or whether they personally did not favor slavery. They are supporters of the imprisonment of innocent human being, by the mere fact of their support of the Old South.
We were taught in history class in the 1950s the complexities of the civil war. Our judgements of history must be placed in the context of those times, not in today’s context. Of course American history is practically not taught in our public schools any more. Thank you Shelby for your commentary.
The problem is it's being flown and flouted in today's context. It gets my utmost respect when I observe it in museums, not flying from a pole in my neighbor's yard. Then it is the enemy of the American flag.
Nadine Jackson Foote was erudite and articulate, which is why he is so easy for gullible Southerners to buy into. Listen closely and one hears Jefferson Davis talking- southern gibberish.
Roger White If you were a Southerner and had lived through the cruelty thrust upon the South after the war you would never make such an ignorant statement.
B Davis Boo hoo had you been a slave you would say the South got what it deserved. The slaves were the victims in all this. Even during reconstruction whites continued to oppress- poll tax, Tenant farming, the kkk. Slaves were the ones treated cruelly, the southerners got who got rich off the backs of slaves got their comeuppance. Don't lose sight of what the South put slaves through. There is no feeling sorry for the white aristocracy of the South.
The South is the only part of the USA to have suffered military conguest and put under military government. This was contrary to what Lincoln proposed to the nation before his death. The occupation came about because the Republicans in Congress knew that the Southern states would send people who would join with the northern Democrats in opposing their reconstruction measures. It is forgotten that the Democrats generally opposed the 13th Amendment because free blacks might move north to challenge white workers for low-paying jobs. Most immigrants voted Democrat. Lincoln and Johnson had freely issued pardons for confederates who applied and so the congressmen sent to Washington in December, 1865, included many prominent confederate leaders. But even if they had chosen lesser known men, the Republicans would have refused to accept any but known unionists. Then there were the black codes in the South which greatly restricted the rights of freedmen.
@@robertortiz-wilson1588 Simple good old boy Shelby strongly defends and glorifies the extremely EVIL, NEFARIOUS CONFEDERACY! It's a no brainer. Just listen to what he charasmatically says. Anyone who supports and agrees with such wickedness is wicked himself. If I agree with a bank robber in his crime, or a dope pusher I'm of the same spirit as they are. Understand?
In October, 1965, I was born in Illinois. I was taught that the Confederate Battle flag was just that. A battle flag. I do not like that certain fringe groups in our society have associated that flag to their "cause". All Americans today should respect the Confederate Battle Flag, it did, for four years represent the armies of a separate nation. Respect American History, all of it, both good and bad. Thank You Shelby Foote, may you rest in peace alongside the 640,000 Americans who died through those long 5 Aprils.
@B.T.W 01 travel the back roads thru southern Illinois and you will see the confederate flag flying from flag poles in peoples yards,i saw that myself.People that move out of the taxed to death liberal state of Illinois move to one state more than any other and that state is Alabama.You can look it up.
@B.T.W 01 I am born and raised in Alabama,i was just quoting fact not opinion,I do believe though that the worst thing a northerner can do is come down south and tell us how they did things up there.Alabama has been my home for 69 years and I've seen plenty of America and yet I choose to spend my life in Alabama.
I’m not entitled to respect the flag of traitors, especially those who took up arms for a cause as immoral as slavery. The Confederacy is vilified in modern times and rightfully so: it’s an tragic piece of American history and an enduring stain that continues to blacken the south’s reputation.
B.T.W 01 I’m not sure what you’re getting at. The original comment asserted that Confederate veterans were entitled to respect, which is a statement I strongly disagree with given the cause for which the Confederacy fought. If you wish to honor your Confederates ancestors that is entirely your business. It is, however, quite odd to do so as a citizen of a country which the Confederacy sought to destroy and who’s soldiers were killed by those flying the Confederate flag.
The foot soldiers had their own reasons, but they didn’t start the war. The southern states seceded and went to war because the leaders of those states, the rich and powerful, wanted to preserve the institution of slavery.
If he could of articulated one aspect of the conflict that wasn’t rooted in slavery, he would not of had so many critics. He claimed slavery was only one aspect of the conflict. Then, when he went on, he always commented on “other” issues that still were actually derived from slavery.
Every Confederate state except Virginia cited the preservation of slavery as their main cause for seceding from the Union in their articles of secession. And for a war supposedly fought over “states’ rights”, it’s very ironic that the Confederate constitution required that slavery be legal in every Confederate state - a federal mandate that superseded states rights in order to prevent abolition of slavery within the Confederacy. The South seceded over slavery, pure and simple.
@@wirelessone2986 So true, the US Army also had a patch with the swastika on it. www.quora.com/Has-the-swastika-ever-been-used-by-the-US-on-their-military-uniforms
But most southerners wanted the slaves kept in slavery on the plantation. The Battle Hymn of the Republic says it best: "As He [Christ] died to make men holy let us die to make them free".
Tim Randall You’re wrong. Check the 1860 Census. 6 percent owned slaves. That, however is a misleading statistic. The better statistic is to look at “family units” which was a value within that census. Of viewed that way, and accounting for the total white population, you now have 30 percent of the white population who come from a family that owns slaves. - You can still argue your previous, biased, sentiment. “ not many people owned slaves, therefore there was another reason to fight”. You can now say that 70 percent of people not only did not own slaves, but didn’t have any family that owned slaves. - I am southern. I love the south. I don’t like the north, generally speaking. Don’t argue disingenuously, argue with the right numbers. Also, don’t be a pussy. - Deo Vindice.
@racketyjack yes, foote was very knowledgeable about the civil war, but he had obvious blind spots. There was no reason more central to the war than slavery, and whether every single soldier thought about constantly or not, they all knew what the central issue was - foote was an apologist
@racketyjack It really doesn't matter how much he knows. If the battle flag started out without the meaning it holds today, it's largely irrelevant. It has morphed into a strong hate symbol for white supremacy, hate, and racism. It has to be relegated to museums with appropriate explanations.
@racketyjack Foote is why history was whitewashed in the first place. The Confederates states wanted to keep slavery so they fought the Union to do so. Every southern state wrote it in it's own Confederate charter that slavery was the most important reason why they were committing treason/sperating from the USA 🇺🇸. The actual documents are in the library of Congress. Look it up!
I respect Foote and admit he knows way more than I do about history and he is an expert on the subject of the civil war. That being said, I have to vehemently disagree with him when he says "Not one soldier who fought on either side gave a damn about slavery".
Mr. Lincoln also said something along these lines: "If I could save the union by preserving slavery, I would preserve it. If I could preserve the Union by abolishing slavery, I would abolish it." If you could ask ANY Yankee soldier why he was fighting, almost without a variance, he would say, "To preserve the Union." Except for some of the colored soldiers, hardly one of them would say, "I'm fighting to end slavery." Ask a Southerner why he was fighting and hardly a one would say "to preserve slavery." The Southern boy would always say "Because ya'll have invaded my home," or "Because we want to be left alone."
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Lincolns First Inaugural Address in March 1861
+Baxter Hawley, " If you could ask ANY Yankee soldier why he was fighting, almost without a variance, he would say, 'To preserve the Union.'" Not true. There's a reason that the original Battle Hymn of the Republic is about how John Brown's "soul is marching on". Because John Brown was the first soldier for abolition. There's a reason that draft dodgers in New York attacked blacks, because they saw the war as a war for black freedom. I'm not saying that every Union soldier was dedicated to ending slavery, but to pretend that it was not a major motivation for the Union is just wrong.
Lincoln also said, "If I could save the Union by preserving slavery in some places and abolishing it in others, I would do so." He wrote this in an open letter to a New York newspaper in August of 1862, by which time he'd already decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and was waiting for a Union victory so it wouldn't look like he was grasping at straws. Indeed, this letter was part of his preparation for that moment! (He did so a month later after the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg which casualty-wise was a bloody standoff, but the South did retreat to Virginia and the Northern press did present it as a Union victory, so that was close enough.)
Years ago I sent Mr. Foote a letter asking if you would sign one volume of his Civil War trilogy I owned if I sent it to him. Soon after I received a hand-written note back from him saying he did not sign his books but thanking me for my interest. The note, which he signed, was on a small piece of note paper written with a quill. So even though I do not have a signed book I do have (and treasure) a personalized and signed note from him.
I later learned he had written the original draft of his 3 volume book long hand with a quill. If you have ever seen his 3- book set you can imagine what a task and labor of love that must have been. That original draft deserves a place in one of our finest museums or archives. He was an amazing man to be sure and a true southern gentleman.
He wrote everything with a dip pen (and he had dozens of them). He said the pause to dip the pen gave him time to think.
What a treasure! I'm so thrilled you have that.Who else would send you a letter written with a quill pen now!? People barely write anything with a modern pen and paper anymore.I fear we will not see or know the likes of any gentleman like him rarely or ever again.
Appreciating history so much, you find yourself becoming an indispensable part of it. Mr. Foote must have thought highly of your request. I trust you keep the note inside the cover of one of his books? Don't forget to write this information for inclusion with his signed note; it will verify the provenance for posterity. Your quest has become an heirloom.
I think he speaks with a quill too. A great man indeed.
Wonderful. I have been a fountain pen writer from childhood right to the present time. At junior school we had dip in pens with inkwells on our desks. Oh that this is gone. Well done Shelby
As an Englishman I love his accent and his knowledge of the American Civil War, I could listen to him all day long.A great man sadly missed.
Shelby Foote had what I considered to be the quintessential Southern Genteel accent. His speech pattern, cadence, tonality, vocabulary, and humor were spot on. It is Shelby's voice I hear whenever I read lines of dialog for Atticus Finch ('To Kill a Mockingbird'), Lucien Wilbanks ('A Time to Kill'), and many characters from novels of William Faulkner. I dare say that Ken Burns will be remembered as much for preserving Shelby's voice for prosperity as for putting the War of Northern Agression into context. As a fellow Mississippian I am forever in his debt.
It’s rather ironic a Brit loving his accent, while the Yank usually loves the English accent...actually the London accent. Cheers 🍻
@@jamestaylor2920 I hope that was a little cheeky comment in calling it “The War of Northern Aggression”
@@alexhines9128 Alex, it was not meant to be cheeky. I was endeavoring to be accurate. This is a term used by Southerners (before, during, and after the war) to describe the incursion of Northern ideals and Federal troops.
Some have stated that the phrase originated in the 1950's during the struggle to desegregate the south. The study performed as a basis for this conclusion used as a source, a search using the Google index of news papers. Google started with as a left leaning organization and has continued to fall further to the left such that they have now scribed an arc surpassing 270 degrees. Yet, even their research list a reference using that phrase in a 1862 speech given by a Union General,
{ ...In Google’s indexing, it appears exactly once during the conflict, describing the war, not as a proper name as it is commonly seen today. (The single example in the 19th century comes from an 1862 speech by Union General John Alexander McClernand, who cautioned Tennesseans that “you have been told, gentlemen, that this is a war of Northern aggression. I deny it. It is no war of aggression. It is a war of defence, of defence of our common Constitution and Union.”) ... }
Apparently General McClernand in 1862 deemed the phrase prevalent enough and important enough to include a denial of it within a speech given to Southerners. Clearly "Southerners" were discussing the "War of Northern Aggression" at or before the beginning of the Civil War. Looks like Google has been attempting to obfuscate history yet again.
I think Brits imitate Southern accents better than Yankees do.
And I love to listen to Shelby Foote. He sounds so much like my grandfather, it's hilarious. Also, there's a tempo and shape that Southerners give to their storytelling that can't be duplicated. I wish to goodness he wouldn't say things like, "I think they've got it wrong," when he should be saying, "I have a different point of view on the battle flag," though. I dislike the "I'm right/you're wrong" game.
I met him in 1983, he was a great writer and a true southern gentleman..he is very well missed..nobody could ever replace this fine fellow..RIP Mr. Foote
I always wished I could have heard him speak.
Shelby Dade Foote Jr. We lost a living national treasure on June 27, 2005. #USCivilWar #USA #CSA
I could listen to Mr. Foote for hours! A consummate gentleman, a brilliant scholar, an historian without peer. I find it amazing, to my mind, how much Mr. Foote resembles General Lee. I think he’d chuckle at that.
reminds me of the warden in Cool Hand Luke.
In his epic 3 volume Civil War, Shelby told the story of General Lee, on horseback and accompanied by a British Army officer acting in the capacity of observer, watching veteran Confederate soldiers marching past. As they approached, there was nothing remarkable but as they passed it was obvious that the men had cut or worn through the seat of their pants and were devoid of underwear.
Aghast, Queen Victoria’s officer and gentleman exclaimed - “My God, General, the mens’ backsides are showing!”
Cool as a cucumber, Virginia’s finest replied - “ Don’t worry Colonel; the enemy never sees the backs of my Texans”.
Outstanding ! I love it.
Haha great stuff
Shelby Foote was a master historian. His clear-eyed interpretation of history, largely free of the entrapments of emotional sentimentality, were a gift to the modern age--and a breath of fresh air.
Shelby Foote was a southern gentleman, a fantastic story teller and an absolute national treasure. I mourn the loss of him.
His contributions to the wonderful Ken Burns’ documentary “The Civil War” were outstanding. He mixed academia with a terrific dry sense of humour. A sad loss.
Just like you, just like you....
@Roger Martin He wasn't in denial of anything. He just understood the complexities involved in the situation.
Ray Davis “Not a single soldier in either side fought for or against slavery in their minds”
... in 1865 10% of all union forces were black.
Almost every memoir of confederate soldiers, from private to general, mentions fighting for slavery
Every single declaration of secession mentions slavery as one of the, if not the primary reason for said succession
Why the fuck was Glory Glory Hallelujah so popular in the north?
This man is a southern sympathizing fucktard confederate
You are exactly correct,their are Gentlemen and then there are SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN,I'm 68 LIVED in TENNESSEE ALL MY LIFE,My Father was a TENNESSEE COLONEL AN Award giving to Him By THE GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE,He spoke that slow Savannah DRAW like PROF. FOOTE ,I read everyone of his BOOKS,his perception of the Battles,The People,The City,S were JUST AMAZING To say the least! HE studied 1,000 OF letters written by MOTHERS,WIVES,SONS,AND ALL FACISTS OF THE REAL SOUTHERN HEART DURING THAT TIME!! Not the PROPARGANDA AND HALF TRUTHS COMING OUT OF THE NORTHERN NEWSPAPERS THAT WERE CARRIED ON INTO THE TEXTS OF TODAY! REMEMBER SHERMAN BURNED EVERYTHING ,OUR WORD MEANT NOTHING ,WERE IF WAS NOT FOR SHELBY FOOTE THE REAL SCOPE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN TOLD IN OUR LIFETIME,OLE ABE WASN,T WHO YOU THINK HE WAS,ENJOY WHILE YOU LEARN THE REAL TRUTHS READ HIS BOOKS ,YOUR EYES WILL BE OPENED!!!
Mr. Shelby Foote was the best thing about Ken Burns The Civil War I could listen to him all day!!!
I could listen to him read the classified ads, and it would still sound good!
Ken Burns is a national treasure!
His story about meeting Babe Ruth as a kid in the Baseball documentary is really interesting
Shelby Foote was an insurance client of mine years ago. We would discuss business in his study . He told me stories of his friendship with Cybill Shepherd and books he had written apart from the Civil War Trilogy.
To me the Confederate flag had its beginnings as a battle flag pure and simple. Unfortunately many have come to hijack that flag for their own personal and twisted objectives. I have ancestors who fought for the South who certainly didn’t own any slaves. They were drafted into the Confederate Army. One of the issues is that we view this from our modern perspective and put our morality and social mores upon it. I certainly wish Mr. Foote was alive today to give his interpretation on our current views on this matter.
It began being seen as a racist symbol of segregation in the 50's when state capitols started flying it over their capitol buildings as a sign of solidarity against the rising Civil Rights movement.
We tried to take it back as symbol of regional pride in the 80's and now due to the actions of one jackass it has come under an attack from which it will never recover in my lifetime
@Garrison Nichols racist jokes and stereotypes probably don't bother you either.
You're the guy saying
"It funny cuz it true"
If you look at the words of the creator of the flag they tell a different story.
@@sigp3657 that is not and never has been the flag of the Confederacy
That is Lee's battle standard.
Lee fought only for Virginia and would have fought for the Union if Virginia had gone that way.
It is a battle flag carried as a symbol of Southern pride by men who Churchill called the fiercest fighting men in the world.
After Reconstruction there wasn't much left for us so we became the nations warrior sect.
All the way through the Korean war that flag was carried in recognition of that
@@stanb990 that don’t change what the man who created the flag said the flag stands for .
A true Southern gentleman. Rest In Peace.
@MultiBagram the war was about freedom/session from the rothschild central banking cartel more than it was about slavery. Less than 1% of southern whites owned slaves.
@MultiBagram what lmao? Shut the f*ck up. You have absolutely no idea who the rothschilds are…they literally funded the trans Atlantic slave trade. I’m going to end this conversation now because you’re clearly ignorant and not capable of viewing history from different viewpoints.
@MultiBagram LMFAOO imagine shilling for the most evil family on the planet. You’re a disgrace to humanity, truly.
@MultiBagram “you hate blacks and Jews because I say so!” imagine being such a delusional piece of leftist trash.
@MultiBagram I’m not sure you listened to the video because Foote didn’t show sympathy towards either side. He said no soldier on either side gave a damn about the slaves/slavery. I feel like your assumptions flawed your claim from the beginning and therefore I must say, “Erroneous on both accounts!!”
What an absolute treat it would have been to know this man and to have been able to listen to him in person.
I'm convinced this man lived during the civil war. I'm going to buy his books. A great historian. RIP Mr Shelby Foote.
Thank you. I've always wonder what Shelby Foote would say about the flag. I knew this would be his answer.
Perfectly said Mr Foote! RIP. I might also add - what flag was at Sand Creek, Bear River, Sacramento, Washita, Marias River, Wounded Knee? The same one I wore on my shoulder 27x years as a US Army paratrooper... In Africa they say "wash your hands before you point at me"
It was a waste of my time to read all the 1,000s of writers who think they knew Union and Confederate soldiers' motivation to fight, when I could've simply read Shelby Foote (paraphrasing) "The northern soldier fought to preserve the Union and the southern soldier fought for what he thought was the second American Revolution and neither one gave a damn about slaves." Boys and Girls, let me save you the burden of research through those same 1,000's of authors and books I read, Foote has expressed the bottom line of it all, the same conclusion I came away with, and the millions of letters solders wrote home (including all four of my own Confederate grandpas) say exactly the same thing.
+Randall Scott Thank you!
+Randall Scott U nailed it! My great grand pa, born in Germany, was a 1st LT. with Morgan's Raiders, 10th KY Cav.
When Shelby Foote is talking about the U.S. civil war, by far the smartest thing to do is to stop talking and start listening.
No one could have said it better. Thank you for saying so. I love it.
very easy to explain to any one with a rudimentary education in history.. Mr, Jefferson Davis spoke it very plainly and it is why he was elected unanimously without opposition at the beginning when there was no one seeking to be a pen mightier than....." Uneducated the slave is unfit for freedom ... educated he his unfit for slavery.. if you cannot see the wisdom in this by todays situation... then I must say you are insane. the whole idea of the south is that the black was a human.. not a third as prescribed by the north < and remember there were many states who had slavery in the north until 1866, surly as a teacher you know this. now this is just the answer to the rudimentary argument .. the truth lies in the reality in ,,, who is going to decide the issue.. the fed or the state,,, by constitution,, it must be the state,, after the south lost the war it became the fed... this is why men in the south fought without shoes and ate acorns to survive... they believed in a constitutional government.. ///// which no longer exists. good day,
Politics as usual. As a "black" man, I have my reservations about the stars and bars but I would never infringe on your right to hold it to you
I can respect the culture reference, but it is unfortunate that using what you love,the powers that shouldn't be can get you to fight their wars.
You understand freedom. Very refreshing to see. Free speech is about protecting all speech. Even the despicable. We can not tolerate any infringement on free speech otherwise it’s not free speech.
It all about perception. Alabama can’t afford any PR hits
While I share your respect for individuals' rights to self-expression, if you choose to express yourself - to exercise your free speech - you have to recognize that there are inevitable costs for speaking your mind. Speech may be free, but it isn't cheap.
More to the point, however, while I too respect individuals' right to speak for themselves, when governmental bodies fly a flag they represent all of the people and they represent force. Therefore, there is something else involved when they embrace a symbol, and that is where I believe the real controversy and the need for debate begins.
@@dlpogge I take it that you will have no issues with Antifa and BLM thugs brutalizing your loved ones, threatening your life, parading countless litigants through the courts swearing to your inappropriate sexual advances, and destroying your professional livelihood because you failed to pay lipservice to each of their ever-changing list of purity tests. In your world view there are consequences for speech. Their world view doesn't match yours so it is only a matter of time until you experience their consequences.
In my world view, I may detest everything that you say but I will defend your right to freely express it in an open and civil dialog. The only consequence to political speech is that some political candidates loose elections. Any other consequences should be investigated as a crime.
Flags are symbols that represent different ideas to each person. No flag purports to represent everyone. People pledge their allegiance to their flag. There are provisions to propose changes to flags and there are procedures by which the citizens can vote to change their flag. It is a two stage process. The citizens vote on whether the flag should be changed. If their vote affirms the need to change the flag then committees are formed to suggest alternative flags. The citizens then vote on which new flag will represent them. My state flag was recently changed. It did not follow the two step process. The majority voted overwhelming to keep the flag everytime it came up for a vote. A newly elected governor made an executive decision to give in to special interests and change our flag as was in his political purview. By doing so he violated a political campaign promise. I do not like the new flag, but I am not protesting in the streets, setting fires, or shooting people. I will work feverishly to ensure that he doesn't make it through the next primary. Should he win the nomination I will vote for his opponent. I will make it my life's mission to ensure that he never wins another election and I will vehemently object if he is ever put forth as a political appointee. My state representative, whom I worked to elect and reelected even though he is not affiliated with my political party, has forever lost my vote for similar reasons. He is a good man that voted with his heart and for what the majority of his constituents desired. We part political ways, but remain friends.
I loved listening him. When he passed, the world lost a great man.
The world lost another old southern racist from the so called "great generation". Yeah they were great alright great at being insanely cruel lynching murderers and segregationist oppressors of blacks. Rotten evil old bastards.
@@darrenduncan1674 Weak bait from an ignorant fool. Edit: I am referring to you.
Shelby Foote describes the "nuance" that is so needed now. So many see things in terms literally of black and white. We seem to be almost as divided as before the Civil War.
@Christopher Triplet Yes indeed! A great shame.
He is very similar to the warden in Cool Hand Luke.
Yep. It's entirely impossible for any one person to stand in one place, at one point in time, and get the full and proper perspective on any subject of history. As he said, it's true that a lot of idiots have misused this flag for their own uses, and it's fair game to oppose those people. But we should not allow misusers of history to deprive us of the truth.
As a Canadian, I was under the impression that the Civil War was fought to end slavery & preserve the union. Why can't all politicians just go with that concise answer?
The negro population has also worked up to a pitch of hatred that is probably unprecedented in U.S. history -- this, too, must be recognized to grasp the situation.
I had the wonderful good fotune to happen on mr foote at getteyburg many years ago and he was kind enough to let me tag along i live close enough to the battlefield to know much of it extremely well but he made each area come alive and to tell a tale of humans on both sides not just grand tactics. As a soldier and combat vet he made it relate in a very real way to my own experiance
Ed Bearss!!
Although my sympathies regarding the Civil War lie primarily with the Union (a distant ancestor of mine, Charles E. Hazlett was one of the junior Union commanders at Gettysburg) I think there is a lot of laziness today (2017) in accessing the Confederacy, it's goals and nature.
Many Confederate troops could barely afford shoes, let alone slaves.
Foote is absolutely right. It is a very complex subject and should be treated as such.
Its really not that complex. The state of S Carolina - who started the secession movement - said it was specifically about slavery. The north and south states were arguing abt slavery for decades before the civil war as well. Mr Foote’s loyalty to the South has him overlooking the horrible atrocities they committed.
@Jonathan Taylor
No one considers the opinion of the rank and file when judging the basis for a war. Most battles until the 19th century used a significant # of mercenaries, they had literally no motive but money. When judging the motive, you look at why the Southern politicians chose to secede, and that was obviously about slavery given the debate at the time.
@Jonathan Taylor the Southern people elected said politicians. They were presumably, then, in favor of slavery. And then taking up arms against the United States - treason. I have ancestors that fought for the confederacy, there’s no need to romanticize what they did. They were proto-Nazis.
Rest assured that the US civil war, like all wars, was about power, control and money cloaked under the guise of righting some kind of morally repugnant wrong (like slavery, babies bayoneted in incubators, weapons of mass destruction, whatever - it's the oldest trick on earth). They can write ad nauseum otherwise but that simply flies in the face of all recorded history. There's slavery all over the world right now and my church is independently helping to address this in Africa where the problem is growing especially child slaves. We have approached government agencies here, diplomats, African officials and guess what none of them give a damn. The news is about as much what they report AS WHAT THEY DON'T. It's also a big problem in the Middle East and China and NO ONE CARES. People need iPhones and cheap products and the new plantations are global corporations.
@@tripp8833 Much like the northern soldiers who practiced genocide against the Plains Native Americans in order to to steal their lands to sell them to other white supremacists and railroad corporations. Those Americans were proto-Nazis.
What I always enjoyed about listening to Shelby Foote was, it was like he had been there. His knowledge and perspective was encyclopedic. I’ve never thought of history in terms of dates and events, it’s the characters and the stories behind that that help you understand a historical event. Vale Shelby Foote, you were the master historian on this subject.
He is wrong on the constitutional history. The Southern states seceded in 1860-1861. At that time, there was no hint that Congress would seek to amend the Constitution by abolishing slavery. On the contrary, on the eve of the war, Congress proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would have prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery, and that proposed amendment was endorsed by Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address. But the South wanted more. They wanted to carry their slaves from place to place, including free states where slavery was illegal. They did not respect the "states rights" of the Northern states, and the only "states right" they did support was the state's right to have slavery.
there was only one Shelby Foote a scholar and a gentleman always
Absolutely.
ratliff2006 how do you know that?
There is no evidence, this is called "Critical Theory". They just criticize anyone or anything they don't like, without prof or justification. It stops the argument that they were losing and turns it into a emotional shouting match, which they might win.
Brian Turner true....Shelby is awsome
Stryder Tesshu: you poor thing, try to understand context and do reading comprehension, THEN you can beat your wife and children
R.I.P. Mr. Foote I learned a lot from your books. You will be missed.
A great Man🤚...
Great scholar; great author. A pleasure to read; a pleasure to listen to
A really great answer from a true scholar.
reminds me of the warden in Cool Hand Luke.
As a combat veteran I know full well this flag was a battle flag of soldiers and that's all....slavery existed many years before the Confederate flag exited, Mr. Foote has given the best take on it as I've ever heard
ACE Champion It was the ANV battle flag, which lost and was replaced by a white flag of surrender at Appomattox Court House. No one rightly carried it after that moment. In disrespect to the confederates who died under its aegis in battle, Nathan Bedford Forrest resurrected it as the flag of the KKK, and it has stood as the flag of lynchings, hate and terrorists since. Anyone willing to support that has crossed the line beyond the bounds of decency.
@Kyle Clark THE REAL TYRANT WAS THE SAVIOUR OLE ABE HIMSELF! A BRILLIANT PLAN THEY COOKED UP ,USING THE SOUTH AS A UNLIMITED RESOURSE OF MILLIONS, IN THE FORM OF THE ××MORRILL TARIFF TAX MEANT FOR SOUTHERN GROWERS ONLY! THE NORTH HAD SLAVES ALSO AND SLAVE TRADERS,SO IF YOU GOING TO TELL IT, TELL IT RIGHT!!IT WAS ALL ABOUT MONEY PERIOD,HE USED SLAVERY AS HIS ACE CARD!!FACT THERE WERE 4 NOTHERN STATES THAT WOULD NOT RELEASE THIER HANDS FOR UP TO 14 MONTHS,THE REAL FACTS ARE A LITTLE DIFFERENT HUM, ABE AND HIS CRONNEYS PUSHED THE SOUTH INTO A CORNER, FIGHT OR STARVE!!!!! DIO VENICE!!
@@nora22000 NOW WHY IN THE HE'LL WOULD FORREST DO THIS WHEN HE HAD AT LEAST 55 BLACKS THAT FOUGHT BY HIS SIDE!!
@@rayoliver7244 Yes, Forrest kept black men he trained as slavebreakers before the war. He was a slavemonger by trade, a cretin by any measure.
No he just gave the take you agree with
Shelby Foote...a true myth! All my appreciation and respect! Great man! From an Italian admirer and supporter of you! THANK YOU for everything you have left to us with your Great and Truly Southern culture! Very much obliged!
I can accept the proposition that most common soldiers on both sides did not think of themselves as fighting for or against slavery; and that the issues which drove the North and South apart were many and complex. But slavery was far and away the chief issue among them, and the Founders' failure to abolish it in 1781, thinking it would slowly wither, virtually guaranteed a future rupture. And the 'property' involved was human beings, not land, buildings, or cattle. People. Men, women, and children.
He was - deservedly - a great authority on the American Civil War and he got his succinct views across without candour, in his inimitable and beautiful southern drawl. RIP Mr Foote!
I want this country and its people to be strong enough again to be able to withstand the opinions of those they don't agree with.
You either don't understand the word "withstand" or the word "democracy."
AT Hiker ...talk to the liberal left about that
Those neo-Confederate are a sensitive bunch. Hopefully, they'll come around.
Stinger 4186
Go waste someone
else's time because you're not worthy of mine
Let's see, what do you call someone who supports a cause that lost? Oh, losers.
I got to spend some time with Shelby many years ago and he was a brilliant writer and a great historian. But on the matter of the flag, as a native Mississippian, I could not disagree with him more. If all wars are indeed economic then this war was about slavery.
Why is what he said so difficult for people to comprehend? He doesn't say it wasn't about slavery. He said it wasn't *all* about slavery.
You are absolutely right.
J Shepard It depends on how you look at it. For the wealthy/ruling class, of course it was about money. Regardless of their ideology, they had everything to gain monetarily by keeping slaves. Why else would we have the Missouri comprise? For the working class, it might have been for states rights, but let’s face it, did they really have a stake? As usual, they were used by the ruling class and bullshitted into thinking the civil war was for a higher purpose, which it wasn’t.
Please put on your thinking cap and do some research into just howany people in the South actually owned 20 or more slaves, very few. Hell, a majority of the South did not hold slaves at all. Economic dependence on slavery would have only concerned a very small group. The war was not about this, it was about the State's rights to govern themselves. Men would not have gave up their homes, livelihoods and lives (from the North or South) over the issue of slavery.
@@jeje1020 I am not surprised, but think about it. Why did we fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea? The working class is always on the front lines even when they don't have a dog in the fight. In so many ways we have been conned, coerced, and drafted to do the bidding of wealthier and more powerful men.
A brilliant historian and a true gentleman .. There are not many like him left that present history as the history actually was . It seems it gets embellished or twisted in order to support some political position or social construct .. He was the epitome of a Southern Gentleman ... You will not see another of his kind soon ,, maybe never ....
A very true definition of the reasons for the War. The flag meant so much to the troops but never meant to be a racist symbol.
For millions of people it mean slavery and the fight to continue slavery. In the Jim Crow era it was used by individuals, States and terrorist organizations to celebrate institutional racism and oppression.
An amazing man. I could never get enough of him. Listened to his every word x
I understand his point, and agree with the complex perspective he takes, but it boils down to this: I believe that if there had been no slavery, there would have been no secession and no Civil War.
Slavery was not isolated below the Mason Dixon. Study up. Your wrong.
It was a cultural war. Foote is correct, slavery was not a concern until Lincoln made it one. His action enabled free slaves and enslaved to take up arms and help the north.
People forget that slavery was a holdover from America's time as British Colonial Subjects, our Founders and Statesmen petitioned the King of England to end its practice in the Colonies and were denied.
Read up on the nullification crisis. Secession came very close to happening 30 years before the civil war began and it had nothing to do with slavery. It was about tariffs and the debate over state powers vs federal powers. The divide between southern and northern society was well underway before the debate over the expansion of slavery came into the limelight
@@jmelcher24 And it didn't end in secession. Unlike later, when the expansion of slavery was in jeopardy, did South Carolina lead the south out of the Union.
My great grandfather and his brother were dirt poor north Mississippi hill farmers who never owned a slave. They joined & fought for the Confederacy for one reason - the Union was in their front yard burning & plundering their small farms. Ending slavery was a tremendous benefit of the civil war, but it was not the only reason the war was fought just as Shelby Foote stated. My fear today is that we have unfortunately learned very little from that terrible phase of our history and may be doomed to repeat it. God help us.
5 horns play the melodious Dixieland tune from under the hood of my orange ‘94 GMC truck.😊 I love and appreciate Mr. Foote’s knowledge and his accent.❤️
Shelby Foote died in 2005 and long before today's upheaval regarding the Confederate flag. I wonder what he would say if he was still with us. Real Southerners who know their history, know perfectly well that the Confederate flag didn't stand for racism. Adopted by the Klan the flag fell into evil hands and there it still remains as a judgment against innocent people who are no longer among our ranks.
+Ronnie Menton The vast majority of what we would call the "one-percenters" or the landed gentry in the South were Presbyterian. The flag of Northern Virginia, and I use that term in describing the armies of the confederacy, because a lot of the other states that fought for the South during the Civil War, fought under their own state's flags. But, going back to the Presbyterian roots of my argument is the Confederate flag was fashioned after the Presbyterian cross of St. Andrew.
As Shelby Foote states, die hard racists of the KKK, and the Aryan Brotherhood, when they weren't lifting weights and screwing each other in prison got Confederate flag tattoos. The federal prison system of the '40's and '50's did not allow prisoners to have tattoos that showed. Skinheads (i.e. neo-nazis have not only hijacked the Confederate flag but have swastikas tattooed on the skin heads as well. And this is not only an American phenomenon, but is being repeated by the right wing lunatics in Western Europe.
The Confederate Flag is a part of our tragic history and should be kept to remind us of that tragedy. These other sons of bitches, racist, nen-nazi skinheads so full of hate can get themselves tattooed with garbage cans, but don't re-write our history.
Did you even listen to this video?
You're more full of shit than a Christmas turkey
Darren Allen calm down. I fly my flag. It's great. no one cares.
Darren,You are an ignorant moron who knows nothing about history,..period...Go squirm along to your Antifa meeting little boy.....
A great historian and author!
Oh how I would have loved to have been professored by Dr. Shelby Foote! Along with LSU's T. Harry Williams, they were both deemed as a history academic's dream!
Absolute truth. Shelby Foote was a excellent historian and exceptionally good writer/author. Not to mention you could listen to him for weeks on end. He has the voice of a educated southern narrator. RIP Shelby and thanks for leaving such good works behind.
"Robert Tombs or somebody once gave the best definition of that war I ever heard, "It was a war of one form of society against another form of society, and because one of those forms of society included chattel slavery and the other side didn't, except to a limited extent, it's always been identified as a war over slavery. Believe me, no soldier on either side gave a damn about the slaves, they were fighting for other reasons entirely in their minds.""
"Southerners thought they were fighting a second American revolution; Northerners thought they were fighting to hold the Union together, and that held true throughout the whole war, except for some people who were absolute partisans on both sides: fire eaters in South Carolina and abolitionists in Massachusetts. But most of the people were fighting because they were fighting for... Southerners once said I'm fighting because you are down here; if you want to invade my home you've got me to fight, others say you are trying to tear the fabric of the Union, therefore you should be put down and not allowed to do what you claim what you want to do."
"It's a very complex subject and I'm sorry to see it degenerate into a such things as identifying that flag as a symbol of racism, it is not. It was never intended as such. [The] Confederacy respected law above all things." ~ Shelby Foote
1:09 "People who say slavery had nothing to do with the war are just as wrong as people who say slavery had everything to do with the war."
Exactly right.
It was 99 %.
Bull crap slavery was the only reason for the start of the civil war! The rest of the reasons were just to deflect their right to own slaves.
Smogger911 please know slavery was the ultimate reason for conflict between the new states entering either as a “free state” or “slave state” from 1823 until the war. It was a constant battle in Congress. Further, the southern states wanted to remain as slave states and anti slavery was growing, it was a mess that consummated in the attack on Sumter. You can beat around the bush as much as you’d like, but when you remove all the clutter it was about outlawing slavery and the rights of human beings going from state to state as free. Distinguished scholars have proven that the abolishment of slavery was inevitable.
Nevertheless, I respect your opinion and Foote’s ... I just don’t buy it . Thanks for your comment 👍
@Smogger911 Read the articles of secession from each State. Slavery is the Reason for the war . Period.
@Smogger911 Yeah they wanted to own people as farm animals and treat them as such, Free Labor, Huge profit, get real
It should be required reading for students of history in America, to read his three volumes about the causes and events of the American civil war. He was compelling and honest to both sides in his greatest work.
Excellent video. Shelby Foote is the absolute authority on the Civil War! The Confederate flag is a battle flag that represented the southern states that succeeded from the Union! It's sad today that the public schools and universities are not teaching true US. It's always great to hear Shelby Foote opinion on matters of the Civil War!
A great historian and storyteller. Beautiful Southern accent. No matter what part of the world someone is from they love
Southern accents. I could tell numerous stories but once in a restaurant in Canada my East Texas wife spoke and the whole staff came over to listen and were seemingly spellbound. No joke! Foote is correct about the Confederate flag. History and Heritage!
He is very similar to the warden in Cool Hand Luke.
@@tedosmond413 you need to buy a pair of glasses
@@rickyj5547 lol...nice try
I wish that I had a history teacher like Shelby Foote when I was young a truly great man
That would be something indeed.
I surely do miss Mr. Foote and his learned approach to things. We could certainly use his wisdom in this day and age. He was a national treasure, for certain.
The Stars and Bars flag has my deepest respect as a flag of the United States beit to succeed from the union or to represent the infringement of the government on the citizens of the southern states. It never represented slavery to me until idiots made it their cause. It's a symbol of rebellion against what people felt as tyranny. Not a damned thing to do with slavery. TO get people to listen to this is next to impossible. This flag waves honorably over the remains of confederate soldiers who were fighting on the convictions of their rights as Americans. The way the bodies of confederates were treated on the Gettysburg battlefield by the north / union army was absolutely disgraceful in my thoughts. Back then people did not think nor cared. Lots of rabble on those battle fields. Was just a damned shame. It's going to happen again. We keep having our rights whittled down to nothing is sparking a new revolution just like the Civil war. Ok...I'm going too far for the scope of this forum. I love the Confederate flag as much as the Stars and Stripes of these United States as well everyone should and would if others had an ounce of brains.
What a super video and well said. Thank you for sharing this with us!
I appreciate that Shelby acknowledges the huge role slavery played in the role, while also noting there were other contentious issues that caused the divide. The fact remains that it wasn’t all because of slavery, but it was a very relevant issue.
What were the other issues? The Confederate states specifically cited property rights-to own slaves as their reason to secede.
You misspelled "very relevant issue." You mean "only reason, just obscured by other b.s. reasons."
@@s2xg112 Tarriffs and taxes , the Republicans were going to raise them to discourage Southern/European Trade , It was 10% before secession, The Republicans who had the votes were going to raise it in 2 steps from 15% to 50% which would have bankrupted the South . That was a huge reason , Slavery which fell under the blanket of States Rights to determine Their own laws of which Slavery was one of the reasons stated but was just a serious ailment of a much bigger disease of States vs a growing Federal Government , We see the results of that now with unelected Beauracrats stamping on all of Our Rights and Politicians who are owned by Corporations and Foreign Governments and not We The People .
It's very sad he's gone !!!!
Now he didn't just pull that out of his proverbial hat.He understood what he was talking about,and spent so much time listening to people and doing serious research and was a honest gentleman.
Lol, but he’s wrong.. 20 years before the civil war, in 1841, cotton was 59% of all exported goods..
The South knew then they would eventually go to war..
No southern was leaving the union over any issue other than slavery.. Mr Foote knew that, he is lying for some reason?..
@@jacobjones5269 So all the ordinary folks wanted slavery? Poor white people went to war.Slavery did not serve most people,it was inefficient and we can all go back in time and blame the guy who invented the cotton gin that made cotton even more in demand because it could help process it more in the 19th century.More demand,more insane reason to not let go of the tigers' tail(slavery) so it was more than a simple reason to not let go of your slaves if you had them.You ended up continuing it because of many reasons including the law of any slaves born into the Masters' Women slaves were his or hers,and where did you stop.War,yes would come but banks were involved,investors etc.Economics affected everyone.
Loren Heard
Precisely.. The whole southern existence depended upon it, and they knew it.. Heck, they even had strategies designed around cornering the market to enlist foreign help in bankrupting the Union..
99% of the southern soldiers didn’t own any slaves, but they were most certainly fighting for that very right.. Once again, my home state mentioned Indian raids from Mexico as a grievance for secession.. Do you really believe Texas was gonna leave the Union for any other reseal besides slavery?..
Not happening..
Shelby Foote will forever be a legend
A legend to people that believe in the "Lost Cause"... Not for people that live in reality. He was a propagandist.
@@bipslone8880 the uneducated man bites back.
@@bipslone8880 rather believe that. Than hard left nonsense.
I just respected him so much. RIP. An amazing historian. He and Ken Burns are my favorite historians.
And Ken Burns vehemently disagrees with him on this.
@@boooootch who cares about what Ken thinks.
Have read much of Shelby Foote, and actually seen him recite from his writings; wonderful man!
I respect and admire Mr. Foote. But I cannot agree with him on this.
The States rights argument is the argument that went on since prior to the founding of the Republic: federalism. That is, who is going to control, the States or the Federal government? If the States controlled, each State could enact its' own laws according to the wishes of its' citizens. If the Federal government controlled, they could overrule and/or void certain State's laws, such as slavery or no slavery. Control was the overarching issue, not slavery. Using our ideas of the present day to look at things of the past, and how things and thoughts on it developed a century + later, does not change how they were considered at the time they happpened. Doing so distorts history. History cannot be changed or eliminated no matter what anyone thinks of it today. Mr. Foote is right. At the same time you are welcome to your views.
Im glad someone. Found this clip, shellby knows more about the. Flag than anyone in washington, what would he. Think if he were around tooday
Individual soldiers may not have been fighting to preserve/eliminate chattel slavery. But as we well know, wars are fought by poor boys for the benefit of powerful men. And to the powerful men directing the war, it was very much about slavery.
I finally finished reading his three volume narrative of the Civil War earlier this year. My regret is that I didn’t read it before. It was an amazing analysis that afforded an even handed perspective for both sides. He presented facts and perspectives that are rarely seen. He was a giant.
It's nice to hear someone in so few words encapsulate this complex matter. I think people like to boil things to the simplest thing, but wars are usually not fought over simple things, but rather complex matters.
Not the 1st time I've disagreed with Foote. The Confederacy only respected law so far as it allowed them to continue holding others in bondage.
A fine historian . A fine man .
Shelby Foote was an evil Lost Cause propagandist.
He was obviously a white supremacist by his defense of the extremely wicked confederacy whose main objective was to perpetuate human rights violating slavery.
Lol. "A fine man." To whom? A fellow white supremacist and racist?😆
He's not an historian, he's a novelist any serious historian will tell you Foote was not one
@@darrenduncan1674 how can you possibly think he is a white supremacist?!
I have been out of high school for almost six decades. I was very interested in the civil war. Read journals from soldiers. Those journals told me a different story as Mr. Foote explains. I learned, all those years ago, and I can still hear my history teacher. Most people had not even seen a slave. An army couldn't be raised to fight for or against slavery. Not his exact words, but I can recall the lesson.
Wish I could’ve met him. Sleep well good man.
this nation needs this type of knowledge and truth more now than it ever has.
Amen
There are simple minds who accept what they are fed as fact... even if it is untrue. Mr. Foote calmly explains what that flag meant in the first place, and should mean today. It saddens me as well that a few pundits choose to say that is a simply a symbol of racism.
@@m.r.donovan8743 What is really sad is that people chose to make it a symbol of racism to help rally racists and enhance their political power.
Read Alexander Stephens Cornerstone Speech for the truth.
@@tdirtyatlExactly.
The problem I have is that, at about 1:00, he makes reference to the Emancipation Proclamation as affecting "private property". He is, of course referring to human beings as private property. That's plain wrong no matter how you try to spin it.
True. But like anything else you give a little and it’s never enough!! They saw it leading to not just the banning ofslavery which we all know is wrong but to them pushing for more states rights. They wanted no part of the north pushing their ways on them.
@@alanbozard4701 While there may have been other concerns over other issues, the armed defense of slavery cannot be overlooked. Again, that's wrong no matter how you try to spin it.
Alan Bozard most citizens in those states did not want to secede.
royalhumpy - thanks for making that point - i forgot to do so in my post - now i don't have to edit it
For many, the other questions of the civil war are as callous as the sidelining of the slavery issue. For slaves there was no other issue. For free men afraid of illegal enslavement there was no other issue. The "other issues" are just a smokescreen to give the lowliest most degenerate, treasonous, snakes some semblance of honor, intelligence, and character. As secessionist garbage and treasonous trash whose major and primary cause was white supremacy and slavery they deserved a gallows walk, to the last wide eyed flag ogling drummer boy.
How do you not love this guy..
"Wooarah".. I love his accent..
Read his book on the Gettysburg Campaign.
Shelby Foote RIP When i want to know in depth correct explanation of that terrible War i head straight for this mans writings and videos.
Mr foote in "ken burns American civil war" is the reason I grew to love that period. He explains everything so well and from an honest perspective
I have the dvd s Great job Ken Burns!
@@gregorypaine513 And you realize of course that Ken Burns' entire premise of the film is that slavery was at the heart of the Civil War. He and Foote are polar opposites in their views.
And we can have differing views through the lenses of 175 years. But don’t pretend to know what was in the heart of man who blue or gray unless you actually talk to them!
Kyle R listen to Ken burns and what says the war was fought over.
Kyle R I agree that that was his best work. It would be interesting to see if he could objectively make it again.
This man is brilliant. Endless knowledge.
But this commentary was only about his opinion, which is hotly contested to this day, it did not state any facts about any battles of the War.
Very good...but not perfect. Grant knew that a big causation of the war was to do with slavery.
stuart - but bad historical analyst with hideous ethics
We'll agree to disagree on this Shelby
Mr. Foote was wrong about that none of the soldiers on either side were fighting for or against slavery. The THOUSANDS of African American soldiers fighting for the Union would beg to differ. This group is often forgotten in history, especially in the South.
Also remember that there were Regiments from every state in the Confederacy fighting for the Union. Where in the South can you find a statue or memorial for these men?
General Lee (who once swore an oath to 'protect the United States against all enemies, foreign AND domestic') had a favorite Corps Commander, Gen. James Longstreet. A man who he always trusted. Yet you cannot find a single statue of him anywhere in the South. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the fact that after the war was over Gen. Longstreet supported the Union and reconstruction? These facts clearly show that 'preserving history' was not the main thing on the minds of the people who were erecting all these statutes in the South.
You are referring to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which was also the subject of the movie 'Glory'.
At the end of the Civil War, many freed blacks joined the Republican party, since the Democrats heavily favored slavery beforehand, as a means to make the South's vast agriculture viable and profitable.
As Shelby pointed out, it may depend on who you asked just what they were fighting the war for.
I had many, many relatives fighting on both sides of that war.
Many of which were either maimed or killed as a result. Either side saw it as a patriotic cause.
Of these, most were fighting for the Union.
Lincoln made it about slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation, after the first cause for Union.
That changed the entire tide of the war.
Both sides believed that God was for their cause.
Lincoln believed that God was punishing the whole country because of slavery.
The Battle for Gettysburg was the beginning of the end of the war.
But the numbers of black soldiers that continually joined the Army did help to change the tide against an ever shrinking numbers of Confederate troops.
Foote is an addled old man. He's 100% wrong. Words change meaning. Symbols change meaning. The confederate battle flag has become a symbol of hatred, racism, and oppression.
@@arimfshapiro7907
You cannot change the meaning of words and symbols from their original historical context and then apply the changes to the same historical events without distorting history. it's certainly disingenuous for you to try that to fit your politics. You cannot call a dog a chicken. That is called "lying."
The fact that others changed the meaning of the flag at a later time doesn't justify your change. It only means that both of you are wrong .
Enjoy your dog soup.
@@MrRadioGypsy Do you seriously think the KKK and the NEO Nazis thnk the confederate flag harkens to the South's rich innocent heritage?
This is not revisionist history. If the Confederate flag ever had a purity to its symbology, it has long been corrupted. You can't be serious in 2020 and not realize all of the pain this country has put on its oppressed people for centuries. It's time to man up and accept that our past is nothing we should be particularly proud of and do the right thing.
@@troubledsole9104 our past? Are you a southerner? Or are you referring to the US's history overall?
It's shocking that Mr. Foote states that the South saw the Amendments to the Constitution coming, and that is why they attempted to leave the federal system. No such legislation was proposed, and Lincoln himself stated the preservation of the Union was more important than the abolition of slavery where it was being practiced. Shame on him and his name to state that no one fought because of slavery. The "State's Rights" argument is undermined by the very legislation that the Confederate States enacted to leave the Union. Slavery is the sole reason the Southern States objected to the election of Lincoln. South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860 before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Shame on Shelby for seeing the Confederate effort for anything other than the continuation of slavery, and the battle flag as anything other than what it is...a monument to white nationalism, and the continuation of slavery supported by the Southern Baptists and Southern Methodists, and a fair number of "Copperheads" in the North, and everyone who fought for the South. Everyone.
Marse Robert also said it was a battle flag and not a national flag, and as such, since the battle had been fought-and lost-the flag was meant to be furled and put away.
My great grand father Wilhelm Loehr fought at Vicksburg with Waul's Texas Legion. He was fighting to protect his farm and family. Our family never owned a slave. The south fought to preserve their homeland. It makes me sad for the southern soldiers that lost their lives. Now we are dishonoring their memory and sacrifice by tearing down statues and confederate flags across the nation. It's history, let us not forget the past. God help us.
Jim Nowak Amen!
Then why was the South willing to forego secession with the Crittenton Compromise of 1860, which would have protected slavery in the Constitution.
Sorry, but no one would have had to protect ANYTHING if the South had not attempted treason.
YA Stepanov secession, legally was “legal” or “right” to do then. No where in the constitution had spoken about the topic and so it was left up to the 10th A.
problem Jim is that you cannot have southern states rights without slavery. You would have to outwardly accept the institution of slavery if you want to have your way in the South, regardless if you and your family owned slaves. You are supporting slavery by fighting on its side. That is immoral.
@@yastepanov5748 thank you YA for setting things straight. The Southern apologists can never accept the truth that they are tied to the most immoral of institutions, regardless of the fact they did not own slaves, or whether they personally did not favor slavery. They are supporters of the imprisonment of innocent human being, by the mere fact of their support of the Old South.
“ Complicated” is right
We were taught in history class in the 1950s the complexities of the civil war. Our judgements of history must be placed in the context of those times, not in today’s context. Of course American history is practically not taught in our public schools any more. Thank you Shelby for your commentary.
We get taught some names some dates and oh yeah everyone prior to the civil rights act of 1964 was racist and wanted segregation and slavery
To try and judge the flag based on today's context is crazy.
The problem is it's being flown and flouted in today's context. It gets my utmost respect when I observe it in museums, not flying from a pole in my neighbor's yard. Then it is the enemy of the American flag.
@@donaldthomas9389 what happened to the frist amendment for freedom of speech
This man is a true hero and legend unto me. As a writer.
A fine Southron & historian; love to hear him talk. Thanks for posting
Like hot 🍫
Nadine Jackson
Foote was erudite and articulate,
which is why he is so easy for gullible Southerners to buy into.
Listen closely and one hears Jefferson Davis talking- southern gibberish.
Roger White If you were a Southerner and had lived through the cruelty thrust upon the South after the war you would never make such an ignorant statement.
B Davis
Boo hoo had you been a slave you would say the South got what it deserved.
The slaves were the victims in all this.
Even during reconstruction whites continued to oppress-
poll tax,
Tenant farming,
the kkk.
Slaves were the ones treated cruelly,
the southerners got who got rich off the backs of slaves got their comeuppance.
Don't lose sight of what the South put slaves through.
There is no feeling sorry for the white aristocracy of the South.
The South is the only part of the USA to have suffered military conguest and put under military government. This was contrary to what Lincoln proposed to the nation before his death. The occupation came about because the Republicans in Congress knew that the Southern states would send people who would join with the northern Democrats in opposing their reconstruction measures. It is forgotten that the Democrats generally opposed the 13th Amendment because free blacks might move north to challenge white workers for low-paying jobs. Most immigrants voted Democrat. Lincoln and Johnson had freely issued pardons for confederates who applied and so the congressmen sent to Washington in December, 1865, included many prominent confederate leaders. But even if they had chosen lesser known men, the Republicans would have refused to accept any but known unionists. Then there were the black codes in the South which greatly restricted the rights of freedmen.
If you take it back to it’s original meaning it was to protect the lawful right to own human beings
I agree with Shelby! Well said!
Lol. Because you're a white supremacist sociopath like he was. Huh? Right?
@@darrenduncan1674 what is wrong with you?
@@robertortiz-wilson1588 Simple good old boy Shelby strongly defends and glorifies the extremely EVIL, NEFARIOUS CONFEDERACY! It's a no brainer. Just listen to what he charasmatically says. Anyone who supports and agrees with such wickedness is wicked himself. If I agree with a bank robber in his crime, or a dope pusher I'm of the same spirit as they are. Understand?
@@robertortiz-wilson1588 what's wrong with you. Can't even respect other people's opinions on history
@@rickyj5547 the other person deleted their comment, I don't even remember what it was about.
Shelby Foote died in 2005 so I wonder how he would feel about the current controversy.
I could listen to Shelby all day
In October, 1965, I was born in Illinois.
I was taught that the Confederate Battle flag was just that.
A battle flag.
I do not like that certain fringe groups in our society have associated that flag to their "cause".
All Americans today should respect the Confederate Battle Flag, it did, for four years represent the armies of a separate nation.
Respect American History, all of it, both good and bad.
Thank You Shelby Foote, may you rest in peace alongside the 640,000 Americans who died through those long 5 Aprils.
@B.T.W 01 travel the back roads thru southern Illinois and you will see the confederate flag flying from flag poles in peoples yards,i saw that myself.People that move out of the taxed to death liberal state of Illinois move to one state more than any other and that state is Alabama.You can look it up.
@B.T.W 01 I am born and raised in Alabama,i was just quoting fact not opinion,I do believe though that the worst thing a northerner can do is come down south and tell us how they did things up there.Alabama has been my home for 69 years and I've seen plenty of America and yet I choose to spend my life in Alabama.
I’m not entitled to respect the flag of traitors, especially those who took up arms for a cause as immoral as slavery. The Confederacy is vilified in modern times and rightfully so: it’s an tragic piece of American history and an enduring stain that continues to blacken the south’s reputation.
B.T.W 01 I’m not sure what you’re getting at. The original comment asserted that Confederate veterans were entitled to respect, which is a statement I strongly disagree with given the cause for which the Confederacy fought. If you wish to honor your Confederates ancestors that is entirely your business. It is, however, quite odd to do so as a citizen of a country which the Confederacy sought to destroy and who’s soldiers were killed by those flying the Confederate flag.
The foot soldiers had their own reasons, but they didn’t start the war. The southern states seceded and went to war because the leaders of those states, the rich and powerful, wanted to preserve the institution of slavery.
If he could of articulated one aspect of the conflict that wasn’t rooted in slavery, he would not of had so many critics. He claimed slavery was only one aspect of the conflict. Then, when he went on, he always commented on “other” issues that still were actually derived from slavery.
Tell it Shelby, Tell it!
Every Confederate state except Virginia cited the preservation of slavery as their main cause for seceding from the Union in their articles of secession. And for a war supposedly fought over “states’ rights”, it’s very ironic that the Confederate constitution required that slavery be legal in every Confederate state - a federal mandate that superseded states rights in order to prevent abolition of slavery within the Confederacy.
The South seceded over slavery, pure and simple.
Pretty obvious isn't it.
Truth!
You are missed, Mr. Foote, more than you could ever imagine.
There were marchers in the Klan that did hold the Virginia Battle Flag. However, the Klan had / has own banner.
Clear that up.
The KKK also carried a Cross, just like the one churches use = same but different.
They also carried the US flag a lot in the 1920s
The cross and the flag go together like biscuits and gravy.
@ The Deitz...well said...also Indians used the swastika....Hitler got ahold of it and permanently ruined it in my opinion.
@@wirelessone2986 So true, the US Army also had a patch with the swastika on it. www.quora.com/Has-the-swastika-ever-been-used-by-the-US-on-their-military-uniforms
BTW: Most southerners did NOT own slaves.
Only 1.5% owned slaves. It's like the wealthy 1% now.
William McCarthy but slavery played a huge role in the south’s economic growth
But most southerners wanted the slaves kept in slavery on the plantation. The Battle Hymn of the Republic says it best: "As He [Christ] died to make men holy let us die to make them free".
Tim Randall
You’re wrong.
Check the 1860 Census.
6 percent owned slaves.
That, however is a misleading statistic.
The better statistic is to look at “family units” which was a value within that census.
Of viewed that way, and accounting for the total white population, you now have 30 percent of the white population who come from a family that owns slaves.
-
You can still argue your previous, biased, sentiment.
“ not many people owned slaves, therefore there was another reason to fight”.
You can now say that 70 percent of people not only did not own slaves, but didn’t have any family that owned slaves.
-
I am southern. I love the south.
I don’t like the north, generally speaking.
Don’t argue disingenuously, argue with the right numbers.
Also, don’t be a pussy.
-
Deo Vindice.
First slave owner was Anthony Johnson. Check his demographics.
Shelby and his knowledge is needed now more than ever.
Confederate apologist
@racketyjack yes, foote was very knowledgeable about the civil war, but he had obvious blind spots. There was no reason more central to the war than slavery, and whether every single soldier thought about constantly or not, they all knew what the central issue was - foote was an apologist
@racketyjack It really doesn't matter how much he knows. If the battle flag started out without the meaning it holds today, it's largely irrelevant. It has morphed into a strong hate symbol for white supremacy, hate, and racism. It has to be relegated to museums with appropriate explanations.
@racketyjack Foote is why history was whitewashed in the first place. The Confederates states wanted to keep slavery so they fought the Union to do so. Every southern state wrote it in it's own Confederate charter that slavery was the most important reason why they were committing treason/sperating from the USA 🇺🇸.
The actual documents are in the library of Congress. Look it up!
@@rosep8481 ....Knew more about the civil war,than you could ever hope to learn....
I respect Foote and admit he knows way more than I do about history and he is an expert on the subject of the civil war. That being said, I have to vehemently disagree with him when he says "Not one soldier who fought on either side gave a damn about slavery".
"(This war) is a war for a great national purpose and the N*gro has nothing to do with it." --Abraham Lincoln
Mr. Lincoln also said something along these lines: "If I could save the union by preserving slavery, I would preserve it. If I could preserve the Union by abolishing slavery, I would abolish it." If you could ask ANY Yankee soldier why he was fighting, almost without a variance, he would say, "To preserve the Union." Except for some of the colored soldiers, hardly one of them would say, "I'm fighting to end slavery." Ask a Southerner why he was fighting and hardly a one would say "to preserve slavery." The Southern boy would always say "Because ya'll have invaded my home," or "Because we want to be left alone."
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
Lincolns First Inaugural Address in March 1861
+Baxter Hawley, " If you could ask ANY Yankee soldier why he was fighting, almost without a variance, he would say, 'To preserve the Union.'"
Not true. There's a reason that the original Battle Hymn of the Republic is about how John Brown's "soul is marching on". Because John Brown was the first soldier for abolition. There's a reason that draft dodgers in New York attacked blacks, because they saw the war as a war for black freedom.
I'm not saying that every Union soldier was dedicated to ending slavery, but to pretend that it was not a major motivation for the Union is just wrong.
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln also said, "If I could save the Union by preserving slavery in some places and abolishing it in others, I would do so." He wrote this in an open letter to a New York newspaper in August of 1862, by which time he'd already decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and was waiting for a Union victory so it wouldn't look like he was grasping at straws. Indeed, this letter was part of his preparation for that moment! (He did so a month later after the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg which casualty-wise was a bloody standoff, but the South did retreat to Virginia and the Northern press did present it as a Union victory, so that was close enough.)