Mitchell, Ellen (October 31, 2017). "White House defends Kelly's Civil War remarks". The Hill. Archived from the original on November 1, 2017. Retrieved November 1, 2017

Robert Brent Toplin, Ken Burns’s The Civil War: Historians Respond (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).It’s worth noting that filmmakers not trained as historians, like Ava DuVernay ( Thirteenth) or Marlon Riggs ( Ethnic Notions, Color Adjustment), have been able to produce challenging and accurate documentaries. Indeed, through lenses like theirs, the Civil War narrative would have been much more nuanced and would have encompassed of a wider set of experiences and ideas. PBS’s own highly rated Civil Rights documentary, “Eyes on the Prize ,” aired in 1987, just a few years prior to “The Civil War .” Although written and directed by a variety of people, “Eyes on the Prize” was – and still is – considered good, sound history, and is still being screened in history classes across the U.S. today. Burns, The Civil War; Keri Leigh Merritt, “Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary,” Smithsonian Magazine, April 23, 2019. Shelby is also known for being fair in re-telling historical stories, and follows the events and recorded dialogue of the actual battle and foreshadows the epic history of the war that would take him two decades to complete. C. Stuart Chapman. Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006), pp. xix, 185, 186, 201, 202. a b Chandra Manning. "All for the Union...and Emancipation, too: What the Civil War Was About" Dissent, Volume 59, Number 1, Winter 2012, 93

Shelby Dade Foote Jr. was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss. He inherited colorful ancestors, including frontiersmen, gamblers who squandered fortunes and soldiers who fought for the Confederacy. The other, the southern, Lost Cause perspective, rightly says the south were fighting against enormous odds and an unstoppable North, but also puts a stamp of nobility on it. As if defending a slave system can ever be noble. He had always preferred the novel genre just liked his reported hero and close friend William Faulkner.following Faulkner’s footsteps: Foote in his trilogy created Jordan County. Known for completing five novels in five years, he is also renowned for merging fictional characters with historical figures.

The Civil War: A Narrative, Mine Run to Meridian (40th Anniversaryed.). Alexandria, VA: Time-Life. 2001. ISBN 0-7835-0108-0. When Percy read the final book, he wrote to Foote: “It’s a noble work. I’m still staggered by the size of the achievement. . . . It is The Iliad.”

His postwar career was varied but inauspicious, including a brief stint as a reporter for a newspaper in Greenville. Later, Mr. Foote said that journalism offered a great grounding in fast writing, "but I don't think one should stay in it too long if what he wants to be is a serious writer." The reality is, the Civil War has been hotly debated for 160 years and will be for another 160 years. It is far more complex than the author seems aware of. There were “good guys” on both sides. There were “bad guys” on both sides. And while the right side won the war, there were plenty of scoundrels who made it happen and do not deserve the lofty place history has given them. Hidden Treasures: Searching for God in Modern Culture, James M. Wall, Christian Century Foundation, 1997, p. 12James I. Robertson Jr. "The Civil War: A Narrative (review)" Civil War History, Volume 21, Number 2, June 1975, pp. 172-175 Rebecca Savransky, “Ken Burns Says One Factor Caused the Civil War: ‘Slavery’,” The Hill, October 31, 2017. Foote matriculated at the University of North Carolina in 1935, but thought his courses boring and dropped out after his second year. Returning to Greenville, he wrote for a local newspaper, and began writing a novel, Tournament, about a delta planter who gambled away his fortune. It was a portrait of his grandfather. Joining the Mississippi national guard, he served as an artillery instructor. Promoted to the rank of captain, he spent several years in Northern Ireland awaiting a wartime combat role which never came. One story has it that Foote defended a soldier against a superior officer, leading to his court martial and dishonourable dismissal from the army. An alternative account, in which Captain Foote went absent without leave to spend time with an Irish girl Tess Lavery (whom he later married), also ends in a dishonourable discharge. He was allowed to enlist in the US marines in 1945, but saw no action. The Civil War: A Narrative, Petersburg Siege to Bentonville (40th Anniversaryed.). Alexandria, VA: Time-Life. 2000. ISBN 0-7835-0112-9.