Confederates in the Attic: A Tour to United States' Contribution to Civil War

Confederates in the Attic
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Confederates in the Attic
The Civil War in the United States is regarded as the most decisive period in the history of America. This is the war that defined the societal, political and economic frameworks with a wider expectation of uniting the regions and consequently resulted to the emergence of the United States of America as a single nation as it is presently. In his book, “Confederates in the Attic,” Tony Horwitz provides a narration or commentary of his entire tour through the regions where the United States Civil War took place. The writer advanced his childhood desires in the war by touring the entire south exploring remembrances, fighting fields, and most significantly, the accounts that mattered to the natives. The title of his book, “Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War,” has two connotations in the writer’s thoughtful as well as appealing tour of the contribution of the United States Civil War in the contemporary world of the south. First, it makes an illusion of the writer’s interest in the war. As a descendant of a Russian Jew, Horwitz was brought up in the North, but in his early life as a child, he established a captivation with the south’s belief and antiquity. He demonstrates in his book that while he was young, he penned about the war and further built a wall painting of important fights in the attic of his place of residence. Secondly, the title depicts the state remembrance, the significance or lack of significance that is connected to this critical nationwide occurrence. As Tony explores the sites all over the south, he meets unreformed rebels who still believe in the archaic convictions. He further encounters cliques of “re-enactors,” fanatics who try to recreate the encounters of the soldier’s life and demise. Among his most daunting and still understandable discoveries is that perspectives towards the war disunite based on ethnic lines.
Tony Horwitz came back home from accounting on overseas war areas only to discover a contrasting conflict from his area. Although the war had come to an end, it remained blazing in the minds and hearts of the Americans especially the southerners. Since he liked the south and the war, Horwitz embarked on a journey of discovery that is the historical, sociological and personal lives of people to comprehend why lots of Americans were absorbed in 1860. Amidst his journey, Horwitz joined the tough reenactors of the civil war who duplicate every item of a defiant life of a soldier from the pilot bisques to the beasts. Here women were absorbed too scarlet O’Hara and a widow who was 90 years of a federal soldier.
Horwitz found out that the south which was old remained divided according to race, therefore, leading to murder. He explored the history of the war and the current terrain and interviewed Shelby Foote, as well as other scholars for them to do away with the, believes that hinder the understanding of history. As Horwitz illustrated in ...