Confederates In The Attic
Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Award-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returns home after nine years abroad to his relaxing farmhouse, which he cites as his respite in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Awoken by gunfire, an unexpected but startling familiar sound from his work overseas, he discovers that his new home is the site of a civil war reenactment. A history buff, Horowitz was familiar with the mock battles but did not fully come to understand those who pledged their lives to the cause in the 1800s until he spent a night with the “Southern Guard.”
These “Hardcores” are obsessed with maintaining strict authenticity, only permitting period clothing, artillery, and diet, including such delicacies as hard tack and salt pork. Stirred by the compassion surrounding him, not to mention the writer within, Horowitz commits to spend a year at war “searching out the places and people who kept the memory of the conflict alive.”
Horowitz’s journey delves deep into the underbelly of the South, carrying the reader with him as he journals his experiences with an unbiased pen and witty prose.
Disbelief, humor, and horror mingle as he encounters colorful characters and experiences on his journey. In meetings with the Sons of the Confederate Veterans or the members of the Ku Klux Klan, his interviews put faces to the grim and startling history of the era.
There are no limitations to the author’s inquisitiveness; at each turn or roadside stop, he finds a tour guide, develops a companion, or elicits an invitation. The fact that he lives in the state of Virginia seems to give him the credentials to move freely in some Southern circles, and it’s his affable personality and perhaps his journalistic savvy that draw others to him.
There is very little bias in his narrative, allowing the readers and individuals he encounters to paint their own picture and evoke their own emotional reactions.
From the vegetarian member of the Council of Conservative Citizens who doesn’t trust “federally inspected meat” to the Children of the Confederacy who believe there is nothing more fearful than a “Yankee,” the book is filled with antiquated fundamentalism contrasted severely with present-day reality. Through the historic homes of Charleston and Vicksburg to the blood-scarred fields of Manassas and Gettysburg, Horowitz breaks down the romantic ideologies of war and uncovers the drama of those hoping to “find real answers, to read between the lines in the history books and share their experiences.”
