Synopses & Reviews
When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.
Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America's greatest conflict. The result is an adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where the ghosts of the Lost Cause are resurrected through ritual and remembrance.
In Virginia, Horwitz joins a band of 'hardcore' reenactors who crash-diet to achieve the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates; in Kentucky, he witnesses Klan rallies and calls for race war sparked by the killing of a white man who brandishes a rebel flag; at Andersonville, he finds that the prison's commander, executed as a war criminal, is now exalted as a martyr and hero; and in the book's climax, Horwitz takes a marathon trek from Antietam to Gettysburg to Appomattox in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, an eccentric pilgrim who dubs their odyssey the 'Civil Wargasm.'
Written with Horwitz's signature blend of humor, history, and hard-nosed journalism, Confederates in the Attic brings alive old battlefields and new ones 'classrooms, courts, country bars' where the past and the present collide, often in explosive ways. Poignant and picaresque, haunting and hilarious, it speaks to anyone who has ever felt drawn to the mythic South and to the dark romance of the Civil War.
About the Author
Tony Horwitz is the author of One for the Road and the best-selling Baghdad Without a Map. A senior writer for The Wall Street Journal and winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, he has also written The New Yorker and Harper's, among other publications. He lives with his wife and son in Virginia.
Reading Group Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and suggested reading list that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of Tony Horwitz's
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. Mingling history, memoir and travelogue, this fresh, provocative, fast-paced adventure will leave many readers itching to travel in Horwitz's tracks.
1. Horwitz begins the book by wondering why his immigrant great-grandfather became obsessed by the Civil War. Does he ever answer this question? Why are so many Americans with no blood tie to the War nonetheless fascinated by it?
2. While Americans cling to the Civil War, they've forgotten most of the rest of their history. There is no comparable obsession with the Mexican War, the War of 1812, or even the American Revolution. What are some of the reasons for this?
3. Horwitz, though not a native Southerner, seems to enjoy the region and its people. What are some of the traits of the South he finds appealing in Charleston and elsewhere?
4. Horwitz meets many women who are as devoted as men to memory of the War: Sue Curtis, June Wells, Melly Meadows, Mauriel Joslyn. How does their approach to the War differ from that of men?
5. Horwitz devotes more space to Robert Lee Hodge than to any other character. Why? What drives Rob? Do you find him heroic, appealing, repellent, or just plain nuts?
6. Horwitz suggests that reenactors are motivated by an urge to escape their own time zone and experience the "period rush" of entering another era. What is it about the 1860s that seems more appealing than our own time period? Does Horwitz ever experience a period rush?
7. At one point, Horwitz, clad as a Confederate reenactor, walks into a shop full of black shoppers and feels ashamed. Is it possible to play-act the Civil War as spectacle, or does reenacting the War inevitably raise troubling questions? Horwitz often asks himself a difficult question: what is the appropriate way to remember the Confederacy and those who fought for it? Can you honor your Confederate ancestors without insulting others? What do you think?
8. Horwitz visits most of the War's major battlefields, including Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg and Manassas. What draws him, and other people, to these parks? In what ways are they a sanctuary from modern society?
9. Many Southern whites revere the rebel battle flag as a symbol of the valor and sacrifice of their ancestors. To many African-Americans, the same flag is a hated symbol of segregation and white supremacy. Is there any middle ground? Which of the states in the South have navigated this minefield most successfully?
10. As he tours the Civil War landscape, Horwitz often finds battlefields and other sites threatened by strip malls and tract housing. What value is there in saving these sites, which are often just empty fields?
11. Throughout his journey, Horwitz encounters a profound sense of Southern grievance, a feeling that the region is still looked down on. Is this Southern paranoia or a justifiable response to the way the region is regarded by the North and by Hollywood?
12. Horwitz writes about the killing of Michael Westerman while flying a Confederate flag from his truck, in Todd County, Kentucky. What are the social and emotional reasons why Westerman's killing becomes such a flashpoint for Southern anger, both black and white?
13. In Richmond, Horwitz listens to a debate over whether a statue of Arthur Ashe belongs on Monument Avenue. He finds his own views shifting. Do you think the statue should have been put there?
14. In Alabama, Horwitz visits classrooms to see how the Civil War is being taught today. How are black and white students approaching the War differently? Is there any sense of a common American history?
15. Across the South, Horwitz implies that the dream of the Civil Rights era is embattled. In what ways does he show progress in race relations, and in what ways retreat?
16. At Andersonville Prison, Horwitz finds that there are two irreconcilable views of who was responsible for the tragedy there. Who wrote these histories and why? Which view do you think is more accurate?
17. The South's population is changing dramatically as the region fills with Northerners, Latin Americans, Asians and others. If this trend continues, can Confederate remembrance endure in the 21st century?
18. Since the book's publication, Horwitz has been attacked by both right-wing and left-wing Southerners who think he is either an apologist for Confederate heritage or a sworn enemy of it. Overall, do you think he is fair? Too fair?
19. Every year, it seems, there is a new book or movie, such as Cold Mountain or Gettysburg, that reignites passion for the Civil War. What literature, film or television series has brought the War alive for you?
Author Q&A
Q: Where did you get the idea to write a book about the South and the Civil War?A: It really began in childhood. While other boys in the 1960s built spaceship models and dressed as John Glenn for Halloween, I was busy painting Civil War battles on the walls of my attic bedroom. My parents thought I was strange. As I got older, my obsession shifted to the South in general, where I lived and worked for several years during and after college. I was fascinated by the South's fierce sense of identity and history, and by its troubled racial history.
Then I fell in love with an Australian (now my wife) and ended up following her overseas for ten years, where we worked as war correspondents. When I finally dragged her home to America in 1993, to rural Virginia, I was struck by how alive--and controversial--the Civil War remained in the South, even though Americans have managed to pretty much forget the rest of their history. I wanted to explore this contradiction--and also wanted an excuse to indulge my lifelong passion for the region and the War.
Q: How would you describe Confederates in the Attic? History? Sociology? Travelogue?
A: A bit of each. At heart it's a travel adventure that uses the Civil War as a lens through which to look at the contemporary South. There's a lot of history in the book, but it's mostly about how we remember the past and what that says about us in the present. The book's also a portrait of the places I go--cities like Charleston, Richmond, and Vicksburg, and the backcountry South from the Carolinas to the Mississippi--and the often bizarre characters I meet.
Q: Speaking of bizarre, a lot of the attention given to Confederates has focused on your experiences as a "hardcore" Civil War reenactor. Did that surprise you? Any other striking responses to the book?
A: I was a little surprised that people talked so much about the handful of reenacting episodes. I intended them mainly as comic relief, a break from the more serious chapters, such as the one on a racially-motivated murder and trial in Kentucky.
The most pleasant surprise for me is that more than half those attending my readings, or writing to me about the book, have been women. People tend to think of the Civil War as a "guy thing." But many women are drawn to the War, too, particularly in recent years, with the Ken Burns series and books like Cold Mountain.
Perhaps it's also that some of the most colorful characters in Confederates are women: a salty-mouthed Confederate widow in Alabama, a modern-day Scarlett O'Hara, a black activist in Selma, Alabama. They bring a very different perspective to the subject than the men I meet, many of whom are obsessed with battlefield history.
Q: Do you find a regional variation in responses to your book?
A: Absolutely. Most Southerners, I think, read the book with some sense of recognition--and often with a degree of defensiveness. They're accustomed to talking openly about issues such as race and regional identity, which makes for very lively and occasionally fiery discussions (I was heckled at one reading). At the same time, I think Southerners have a better-developed sense of humor than other Americans and they really respond to the comic parts of the book.
A lot of Northern readers, on the other hand, seem stunned and a bit uneasy about what's in the book. They keep asking me, "Is it really like that down South?" They often can't believe that so many Southerners are still wrapped up in the Civil War and remain unapologetic supporters of the Confederacy.
All of which confirms for me one of the central themes of the book--that the Civil War is still being fought, and that the South remains a very distinct region.
Q: In many ways, this is a book about obsession--yours as well as the nation's--with the past. What's the psychological root of this?
A: There isn't one, easy answer to that. But I do think most of the people I met share a low-grade discontent with modern life. We're very lucky to live at a time in our history that's prosperous and secure. But it's also an era that seems to lack meaning and drama--at least compared to the 1860s, when people lived and died for grand causes.
I also think a lot of people, myself included, feel oppressed by America's TV culture and strip-mall sameness. The Civil War's a way to flee all that, to enter a landscape and way of life that seem somehow more romantic and more real than our own. I guess that's what I wanted to do with this book--escape for awhile and take readers along for the ride.
From the Trade Paperback edition.