Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

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.
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Smarter Choice Paperback, Confederates in the Attic:... In this eloquent and shrewdly observed travelogue, a Pulitzer Prize winner ushers readers through a South where the...	23,982 reviews *smarter certified	$7.51 Coupon 1 coupon available Code: Detail: Take $5 OFF the purchase of $100 or more at Buy.com Expires:Nov-30-2009 Restriction:New Customers Only. Coupons are not valid on Marketplace items	See it
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Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches... When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a...	24 reviews	$5.28 Free Shipping Coupon 1 coupon available Code: Detail: Free shipping on the first item you order at HotBookSale.com Expires:Nov-22-2010 Restriction:Unknow	See it
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Recent Reviews

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Jul-15-2009; Page-turning, Entertaining Travelogue; I enjoyed this book in the same way I enjoy Bill Bryson's books which this one reminded me of. Horwitz lets his interest in the Civil War lead him on a tour of battlefields and historic sites, and he narrates his encounters with humor...; read full review | report as inappropriate

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Jul-14-2009; Today's Confederates; This book, while it is not really about the Civil War itself, gives, at time, more history of that great conflagration than many of the books whose sole theme is the war. Here we see the war through the eyes of a man whose ancestry is...; read full review | report as inappropriate

5/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Apr-10-2009; "Our Homeric Period" (Robert Penn Warren); I read Tony Horwitz's reporting on Civil War reenactors in "The New Yorker" many years ago and carried around the impression that the book that grew out of the article was more of the same. I thought it would be about the reenactors...; read full review | report as inappropriate

5/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Apr-02-2009; Savvy, gifted; With a plucky and flavorful writing style for digging into the sincerity of the Civil War years, Horowitz' rambles throughout the South are stunning, humorous and most of all educational of these turbulent years. Tony shadows locals,...; read full review | report as inappropriate

Selected Reviews

4/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Jul-15-2009; Page-turning, Entertaining Travelogue; I enjoyed this book in the same way I enjoy Bill Bryson's books which this one reminded me of. Horwitz lets his interest in the Civil War lead him on a tour of battlefields and historic sites, and he narrates his encounters with humor...; read full review | report as inappropriate

3/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Jul-25-2008; The War seen through the Prism of the Civil Rights Movement; In the beginning of his work, Tony lays down the question that the reader expects will guide the course of the book: why does the War remain so important and prominent in the consciousness of Americans, even, and especially, amongst...; read full review | report as inappropriate

1/5: From: Amazon; Posted: Mar-06-2009; Biased...Mean Spirited...Insulting View of The South.; Thanks alot Horwitz. You accomplished another distorted view of the south and it's people that bad TV shows and Jerry Springer have been pumping out for decades. The book starts off innocently enough and at first seems as if it will be...; read full review | report as inappropriate