Shelby Foote, Historian And Novelist Dead At 88

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/books/29foote.html?pagewanted=all


"Shelby Foote, the historian whose incisive, seasoned commentary - delivered in a drawl so mellifluous that one critic called it "molasses over hominy" - evoked the Civil War for millions in the 11-hour PBS documentary in 1990, died on Monday at a Memphis hospital He was 88 and lived in Memphis.
The novelist, whose Southern storyteller's touch inspired millions to read his multivolume work on the Civil War, was 88.

His death was reported by his wife, Gwyn, The Associated Press said.

Mr. Foote's 89 cameo appearances in Ken Burns's series "The Civil War" were informed by his own three-volume history of the war, two decades in the making, that blended his practiced novelist's touch with punctilious, but defiantly unfootnoted research."


I don't know what possessed me to check out one of his books from the library but by 1985 when Ken Burns' documentary came out I had read all three of his volumes on the Civil War. It was an extra treat to see him explaining the war from his Southern rooted vantage point.
He'll be missed