- Author: Shelby Foote and Nell Dickerson
- Hardcover: 120 pages
- Publisher: BelleBooks, Inc. (April 15, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1611940036
- ISBN-13: 978-1611940039
Product Description
"The words I remembered were those of the mad woman on the lawn. "Calling yourself soldiers," she said. "Burners is all you is."
Photographer and architect Nell Dickerson began her exploration of antebellum homesteads with encouragement from her cousin-in-law—renowned Civil War historian and novelist Shelby Foote. Her passion for forgotten and neglected buildings became a plea for preservation.
Gone is a unique pairing of modern photographs and historical novella. Foote offers a heartbreaking look at one man's loss as Union troops burn his home in the last days of the Civil War. Dickerson shares fascinating and haunting photographs, shining a poignant light on the buildings which survived Sherman's burning rampage across the Confederacy, only to fall victim to neglect, apathy and poverty.
GONE is a powerfully moving volume that will change how you see the forgotten buildings that hide in obscurity across the Southern landscape.
The words I remembered were those of the mad woman on the lawn. "Calling yourself soldiers," she said. "Burners is all you is."
The Civil War had been over for exactly ninety years in 1954, when my cousin, Shelby Foote, published "Pillar of Fire" as part of his novel, Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative. The book's stories painted a vivid picture of a fictitious Mississippi county steeped in Southern culture.
"Pillar of Fire" took readers into a heartbreaking and commonplace scene late in the Civil War, when Union troops moved through the civilian South destroying not only plantations but also ordinary homes and cabins. Those troops, battle-hardened and bitter from the loss of their own brethren, shared the tragic effects of war.
In "Pillar of Fire" they take no joy in burning a home in front of its dying, elderly owner and his frail servants. The cruelty of the circumstances is as much a given for them as the dying man's grief over all the memories that burn with his house.
Now, on the eve of the Civil War's 150th commemoration, my mission is to draw attention not only to the architectural heritage devastated by the war but also the heritage we've lost since then: to neglect, to poverty, and to shame, as the war's infamy colored the attitudes of later generations and tainted the homes those generations inherited. What the war didn't take, time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homes—whether mansion or cabin—deserve our reverence and protection.
From the photographer:
The Civil War had been over for exactly ninety years in 1954, when my cousin, Shelby Foote, published--PILLAR OF FIRE--as part of his novel, Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative. The book's stories painted a vivid picture of a fictitious Mississippi county steeped in Southern culture.
PILLAR OF FIRE took readers into a heartbreaking and commonplace scene late in the Civil War, when Union troops moved through the civilian South destroying not only plantations but also ordinary homes and cabins. Those troops, battle-hardened and bitter from the loss of their own brethren, shared the tragic effects of war.
In PILLAR OF FIRE, they take no joy in burning a home in front of its dying, elderly owner and his frail servants. The cruelty of the circumstances is as much a given for them as the dying man's grief over all the memories that burn with his house.
Now, on the eve of the Civil War's 150th commemoration, my mission is to draw attention not only to the architectural heritage devastated by the war but also the heritage we've lost since then: to neglect, to poverty, and to shame, as the war's infamy colored the attitudes of later generations and tainted the homes those generations inherited. What the war didn't take, time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homes whether mansion or cabin deserve our reverence and protection.
Photographer and architect Nell Dickerson began her exploration of antebellum homesteads with encouragement from her cousin-in-law—renowned Civil War historian and novelist Shelby Foote. Her passion for forgotten and neglected buildings became a plea for preservation.
Gone is a unique pairing of modern photographs and historical novella. Foote offers a heartbreaking look at one man's loss as Union troops burn his home in the last days of the Civil War. Dickerson shares fascinating and haunting photographs, shining a poignant light on the buildings which survived Sherman's burning rampage across the Confederacy, only to fall victim to neglect, apathy and poverty.
GONE is a powerfully moving volume that will change how you see the forgotten buildings that hide in obscurity across the Southern landscape.
The words I remembered were those of the mad woman on the lawn. "Calling yourself soldiers," she said. "Burners is all you is."
The Civil War had been over for exactly ninety years in 1954, when my cousin, Shelby Foote, published "Pillar of Fire" as part of his novel, Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative. The book's stories painted a vivid picture of a fictitious Mississippi county steeped in Southern culture.
"Pillar of Fire" took readers into a heartbreaking and commonplace scene late in the Civil War, when Union troops moved through the civilian South destroying not only plantations but also ordinary homes and cabins. Those troops, battle-hardened and bitter from the loss of their own brethren, shared the tragic effects of war.
In "Pillar of Fire" they take no joy in burning a home in front of its dying, elderly owner and his frail servants. The cruelty of the circumstances is as much a given for them as the dying man's grief over all the memories that burn with his house.
Now, on the eve of the Civil War's 150th commemoration, my mission is to draw attention not only to the architectural heritage devastated by the war but also the heritage we've lost since then: to neglect, to poverty, and to shame, as the war's infamy colored the attitudes of later generations and tainted the homes those generations inherited. What the war didn't take, time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homes—whether mansion or cabin—deserve our reverence and protection.
From the photographer:
The Civil War had been over for exactly ninety years in 1954, when my cousin, Shelby Foote, published--PILLAR OF FIRE--as part of his novel, Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative. The book's stories painted a vivid picture of a fictitious Mississippi county steeped in Southern culture.
PILLAR OF FIRE took readers into a heartbreaking and commonplace scene late in the Civil War, when Union troops moved through the civilian South destroying not only plantations but also ordinary homes and cabins. Those troops, battle-hardened and bitter from the loss of their own brethren, shared the tragic effects of war.
In PILLAR OF FIRE, they take no joy in burning a home in front of its dying, elderly owner and his frail servants. The cruelty of the circumstances is as much a given for them as the dying man's grief over all the memories that burn with his house.
Now, on the eve of the Civil War's 150th commemoration, my mission is to draw attention not only to the architectural heritage devastated by the war but also the heritage we've lost since then: to neglect, to poverty, and to shame, as the war's infamy colored the attitudes of later generations and tainted the homes those generations inherited. What the war didn't take, time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homes whether mansion or cabin deserve our reverence and protection.
About the Author
Nell Dickerson is an architect, a Hollywood set designer and a fourth-generation cotton farmer with ties to her family's ancestral land in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Nell conducted building assessments of some of the region's most historic structures for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Her seminal experience and photos of that tragedy were published in a photo essay, a call-to-arms for conservation of the South's rich architectural traditions.
Nell's photographs have been included in juried and gallery shows around the country. She continues to collaborate with several agencies to preserve, protect, and rebuild the rich culture of the South.
Shelby Foote 1917-2005
In 1954, Shelby Foote launched a twenty-year project in which he hand wrote (with a quill-tip dip pen) the 1.5 million-word, 2,934-page history The Civil War: A Narrative.
Although Foote had previously written six novels, including the one from which PILLAR OF FIRE is excerpted, it was his epic history of the Civil War that made him famous. In 1990, acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns featured Foote's insightful and eloquent commentary in Burn's eleven-hour-long PBS series, The Civil War.
Foote appeared eighty-nine times in Burn's The Civil War, dissecting the nation's most complex story for an audience of fourteen million people over five nights.
In the course of his long career Foote received three Guggenheim fellowships, a Ford Foundation grant, and a National Book Award.
My Review:
What hauntingly gorgeous photographs depicting an era lost to us. How appropriate for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in the United States. I love the area of the state of Mississippi along the great river of the same name. A few years ago as I rode up Highway 61 just north of Vicksburg through mist shrouded fields at dawn I imagined I was communing with the souls of the civil war soldiers as they woke to the dawn thinking of the battles ahead. And yes I felt a great loss as these beautiful photographs portray.
And while the photographs are startling yet beautiful, the novella by Shelby Foote that accompanies the photographs while fiction still resonates with truth. Your house has been selected to burn, you have twenty minutes, Edward is told by a Union officer on Page 91. While many homes and buildings were burnt by the Union soldiers as they triumphantly marched through the South that they had beaten down, many of the homes and buildings such as churches that did remain standing are now falling into ruin and are beyond restoration. This book vividly captures those images. This book will haunt my thoughts for some time.
Highly recommend this book.
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