A War reenactor friend recommended I read the book. We were talking about the modern-day states rights concerns and he said that the debate had its origins at Fort Sumter. So, I picked up the book thinking it would simply be a survey of what I now know is called neo-Confederate thought. But I was more than a little bit thrilled to find that it was not just a sociological study, but also a travelogue-probably my favorite kind of book.

After returning to the States from an extended time abroad, Horwitz's childhood interest in the Civil War-and especially Rebels-was rekindled after a band of hardcore reenactors showed up in his yard on their way to a battlefield. Soon he began to tour the South visiting relevant War sites and interviewing the Confederate descendants that kept that cause's heritage alive. Horwitz's has an amazing gift for storytelling and it shines through in this book. He has an uncanny ability to come across mundanely interesting characters in his travels and to write their stories with an original verve.

The book is also balanced. Although he is a Yankee, Horwitz's affinity for the Rebels is evident. But he checks that affinity with a good dose of history and reality. He conveys the notion that the South's resentment of the North is not wholly unjustified, but actually often well placed. At the same time, though, he illustrates the willful naivete that makes Gods of Confederate generals and that forgets the Old South's uglier sides. Horwitz manages to do all this while highlighting not just the tragic, but also the fun and curious stories of the Civil War and its remnants today.

Every American should strive to learn a bit more about the War, and this is a great place to start. It's a fun, touching read that demonstrates why that chapter in our history is still important-and indeed still with us-today.


Explains to the Yankee diaspora our empathy with the War   October 27, 1999
 41 out of 57 found this review helpful

It often takes an outsider to sweep through the south and paint an accurate picture of its citizens. V.S. Naipal did that in "A Turn in the South". Tony Horwitz does that with his book.

We southerners are tired of being branded anachronistic racists when we honor our confederate battle flag and our ancestors who fought in the war. (My ancestors fought for the confederacy and the American revolution too.)

Mr. Horwitz takes the most difficult task of explaining to the bewildered people of, say, San Francisco why southerners still honor the civil war dead. He does this as a non-partisan by stander whose own ancestors were post-Civil-war Jewish immigrants to the North.

One notable chapter is the section on Shelby Foote. Poor Mr. Foote's early career as a novelist and his life-long literary scholarship has been overshadowed by his fame as a civil war scholar and commentator on the Ken Burns PBS Civil War series. I recommend his novel Shiloh as well as his correspondence with Walker Percy. Add Faulkner, Flannery O'Conner, and now Tony Horwitz and you might possible fathom our unique culture down south.

Bye yall.


Horwitz is one of the best journalists in the country   May 1, 2000
 40 out of 50 found this review helpful

let me begin this review by saying that I am somewhat of a Civil War aficionado. Having said that, no other book that I have read has bridged the ap between the Civil War and the present as well as Tony Horwitz's CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC.

Horwitz, whose national reporting and war correspondence I have admired in the Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, is once again in top form. The urbanity and sophistication of those two periodicals contrasts nicely with the rural south he reports on in this book. After moving to Virginia and meeting local Civil War reenactors, be takes a two year-long Odyssey through fourteen southern states to explore the legacy of the Civil War. William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor combined could not have created such a menegerie of bizarre southern gothic characters.

On his voyage, he encounters Civil War reenactors so "hardcore" that their wives have left them. He encounters hate groups, explores the Confederate Flag controversey, investigates a racially motivated murder, ends up waist-deep in Confedeate kitch, and wanders into a meeting of the "children of the confederacy" eerily reminiscent of a Hitler-youth group.

This book appeals to both northerners and southerners, because it accomplishes te seemingly contradictory tasks of appreciating southern heritage while satirizing the southerners who have not yet forgiven the "Yankees" for destroying their newly formed Confederacy. The names of the chapters "At the Foote of the master," "The Civil Wargasm," and "Gone With the Window" show how the author keeps a satirical tone while appreciating the legacy of the Civil War. This book is an incredible piece of scholarship and journalism.


Entertaining but Elitist   March 15, 2000
 28 out of 36 found this review helpful

First off, kudos to Horwitz for his talent at writing. It's breezy, fast paced and full of good turn-of-a-phrase writing that keeps the reader interested. Having said that, he still could have benefited from a bit of editing. Loping off 100 pages would have helped as the book did drag till the end.

I first found the book lively and engaging, but as I went deeper into its pages, I began to get an uneasy sense of Horwitz's prejudice. The emerging elitist tone of the book comes through and leaves the reader uncomfortable. He seems to use his pen as a brush that paints all Southerners as backwoods, racist, hillbilly rubes. In Confederates In the Attic, Horwitz has created a kind of reverse Amos and Andy for the 90s.

This would be a fun book to read if there wasn't such an undercurrent of meanness and intolerance in his writings. The worst moments come in the chapter "Dying For Dixie". In it, a young African-American male guns down a young white father of newborn twins solely because he had a rebel flag flying from his truck. Was anyone else disturbed by how Horwitz went out of his way to smear the reputation of the murdered man? How about Horwitz's sympathetic portrait of the killer? It's actually downright scary to read. It's the kind of "blame the victim" journalism that I doubt Horwitz would ever try on a rape victim.

On the flip side, Horwitz every now and then comes up with some penetrating insight. He made a brilliant observation that, like in 1861, we are once again wondering if America will remain one nation - that today we are losing our sense of a common people with common principles and starting to fracture along class, race and gender lines. If Horwitz had spent more time using his travels to expand on issues like this it would have made for a more powerful book. That and a little less disdain for the proletariat.


An entertaining and educational book   February 14, 2000
 19 out of 24 found this review helpful

CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC by Tony Horwitz

Americans are fascinated by the Civil War. Not only the battlefields of Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh and the rest, but also the controversy over the reasons for the war. Whether the defense of the institution of slavery was the main justification for the war or whether the South fought in order to maintain their way of life is a question even today. This controversy lives on as exemplified by the current flap over whether or not the Confederate flag should continue to fly over the South Carolina State Capitol.

A select few of the modern day prejudices and obsessions are delineated in this delightful book. Horwitz has documented his own fascination and that of many others whom he met in various trips around the South.

Some are the fanatic `reenactors' of Civil War battles while others are those organizations and individuals honoring the `lost cause.'

One `hardcore reenactor' (he prefers to be called a living historian) is Robert Lee Hodge, who Horwitz followed around on some of his reenactments. This man is the epitome of an obsessed person. Whether it's demonstrating the Rebel Yell or imitating the bloating of dead soldiers, Hodge is endeavoring to reproduce exactly the surroundings and actions of the Civil War soldier. The books' author follows him into such masochistic endeavors as sleeping in a mosquito-laden swamp because that's what the Johnny Rebs sometimes had to do.

On a more serious note, the author investigates some of those organizations dedicated to preserving the old South. Examples are The Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy. These clubs also are interested in preserving the history of the Confederacy.

More disturbing is the evidence of profound racial prejudice that was found by the author.

Many other facets of todays' fascination with the War Between the States are explored in this entertaining and educational book.