OPINION: The battle of Shiloh through the lens of Foote

We can never really feel what it was like when North and South fought. But we can peer back through a narrow lens. And the Ken Burns documentary “The Civil War,” which is nearly 20 years old, remains a staple of American remembrance regarding that war. The 608-minute, nine-episode series is always on PBS. And I often find myself wrapped up in it.

Of course, the voice of Shelby Foote dominates the documentary as much as the fiddle tune. He appears in 90 segments, approximately one hour total. Foote sounds like a grandfather for the region, bringing melody and grace to the Southern accent as he flavors the narrative with anecdotal ironies.

Foote, who died in 2005, was a respected fiction writer and historian prior to the documentary, but he didn’t find financial success and fame until the film. He told Burns, “Ken, you’ve made me a millionaire.”

I truly enjoy his appearance in the documentary, but I recognize that his brilliance as a writer and historian is too often overshadowed by that film. I own two books from his historical trilogy on the Civil War. And I’ve read portions of each, though I was ultimately overwhelmed by the density of those volumes. Still, if you sit down with those books, I think you’ll agree that his research on the war is truly impressive.

But I recently reread his more accessible novel, “Shiloh.” And it reminded me of what I like about historical fiction. We recognize that recorded history comes as a third-person narrative. We can’t use “I” for Abraham Lincoln. We can’t step into his body. We know the dry facts, but not the feelings, unless they come by way of quotation.

However, historical fiction uses the basic framework of names and places, while freeing an author from the chains of what’s provable. Instead, the perceptions must ring true. The author must open the eyelids of the long gone and make us believe that we are seeing and feeling what they did.

Foote’s 1952 novel, “Shiloh,” is about the two-day battle in southwestern Tennessee on April 6 and 7, 1862. It’s a seven-chapter book that offers first-person narratives of both Union and Confederate soldiers. There is a clear journalistic balance between the perspectives of Northern and Southern soldiers. Men on both sides were scared for their lives in the worst of circumstances.

I like the way Foote describes the inner dialogue in a soldier’s mind. For instance, in the third chapter, Private Luther Dade, a rifleman from Mississippi, takes a gunshot to the arm and is sent to a triage area to wait for a doctor, but there was no doctor about. Infection sets in. He stumbles toward the sound of gunfire, looking for help.

“I told myself: You better lay down before you fall down.”

Then I said: “No, you’re not bad hurt; keep going. It was like an argument, two voices inside my head and neither of them mine.”

“You better lay down.”

“No, you feel fine.”

“You’ll fall and they’ll never find you.”

“That’s not true. You’re just a little light-headed. You’ll be all right.”

“No, you won’t. You’re hurt. You’re hurt worse than you think. Lay down.”

Of course, war stories will always interest us, even if there is something kind of perverse about the fascination of man killing man on a mass scale. But normal, everyday people are swept up and away by war. And part of human empathy is the effort to understand their experience, even if we’re ultimately bound to fail.

We know of the markers and stones. We can visit battlegrounds and imagine what it must have been like in times long past. But it takes people like Foote to let us hear the voices behind those old markers.

In case you didn’t notice, this is my stab at a book report, kind of like an assignment you might have had for seventh grade summer reading. Anyway, I challenge you to read a historical novel and write to us about why it’s important and why it’s worth a look.

Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal.