Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz

 

Tony Horwitz grew up enchanted by the Civil War.  Although he grew up in the city, he imagined being on the battlefields.  Like most little boys, he put his childhood games aside as he grew up.  But he found himself still interested and in the late 1990's, he decided to spend time visiting the South and the sites of the war.

He spent a year or so visiting all aspects of the war that tore the nation apart.  He visited battle sites and visited with people who still spend their time caught up in the war, glorifying their ancestors' parts in it.  He lived for a weekend with some hard-core re-enactors who insist on wearing authentic uniforms and living on the meager supplies that the Confederate army had to rely on.  He visited those who glorify the Confederate flag, both as a symbol of the men who fought under it and as a tool to signify racial divide and hate.  He spent time at hospitals and prisoner-of-war camps and he got into the controversy surrounding the Confederate statues that dot the South, although this book is too soon to see the recent removals of many of those statues.  He visited with representatives of the historical societies that keep the records of those times, both the male and female versions.  

Although I grew up and live in the South, I learned a lot from this book.  One of the largest hospital camps in the South is about forty-five minutes from me and I never knew that.  I learned that the Confederate flag was never a governmental flag but was only ever a battle flag, but these days it has received different meanings and most people don't want to be associated with it.   Horwitz's description of his time on the battlegrounds sent chills up my spine and hope that we will never be that divided again.  This book is recommended for readers of nonfiction books.