As regards Shelby Foote, there are excellent answers from these threads by u/borimi, u/erictotalitarian, and u/meesus.

I have recently completed a re-read of Shelby Foot's three-volume history, so I'll put in my oar as well by paraphrasing a review I wrote on the subject.

On the plus side, Foote's prose and organization are masterful. He manages to cover almost every detail of the war without getting lost in the weeds, with one or two notable exceptions. That in itself would make this an exceptional piece of work, but Foote goes one step beyond, by making gorgeous use of language, in a tone that varies from sharp and witty to slow and melancholy, capturing the comic absurdity of the New Mexico campaign, the tragedy of Sedgwick's death at Spotslyvania, the pathos of Lee's surrender at Appomatox. The most effective part of Foote's writing is his compelling portraits of the wide cast of characters, showing them as both the larger-than-life figures they are viewed as today and the flawed humans they were at the time. Reading Foote is an enjoyable and pleasurable experience.

On the "meh" side, Foote's work is sometimes of dubious historical accuracy. As many have pointed out, Foote was a novelist, not a professional historian. He relied almost entirely on secondary sources written decades to a century after the war was finished. Thus, a lot of his work is colored by the opinions and presuppositions of previous writers rather than historical judgements. In addition, Foote is occasionally driven by the story he wants to tell, rather than the supporting evidence. To give one example, Foote wanted to present U.S. Grant as a flawed and fractured semi-hero. Thus, he gives credence to tenuous sources discussing Grant's alcoholism, which a professional historian certainly would have commented upon as rumor rather than fact.

On the bad side, Foote's books are interlaced with a troubling depiction of race and a support for the discredited Lost Cause ideology. Whenever a black character appears, it's like watching Song of the South on a bad acid trip. Enslaved people and refugees are presented as befuddled, jolly fellows who wander about until guided or taken in by the good ol' Army of the Potomac. This is a gross disservice to the men and women who endured abuse, deprivation, and bloodshed to earn their freedom. Foote was writing in Memphis during desegregation; he knew better than this if he ever looked out his front door. And finally, his bias toward the South borders on the unreasonable. He thoroughly condemns Northern inquities, such as the ravaging of Georgia and the Shenandoah, going so far as to refer to Sherman's troops as "gorillas." Yet he justifies and plays down the much-worse atrocities committed by the Confederacy at Fort Pillow and Andersonville. Foote doesn't even address the horrific and routine enslavement and murder of black POWs, although his comments on the breakdown of the prisoner exchange system make it clear that he was aware of the issue, but chose to ignore it.

Overall, I found reading Shelby Foote to be an interesting and enlightening experience, since it helped me see the Civil War through the eyes of people with whom I strongly disagree. If you're willing to invest the time, I think his books are worth the read. If you're not, then there are perfectly fine Civil War narratives from other writers.

Instead of trying to find an over-arching text, maybe you could tackle different battles or even armies to get the kind of military detail you're looking for? For example, I found Stephen Sears' 'Gettysburg' to be a wonderful, well-researched and cited exploration of that battle (and with a more modern, nuanced interpretation of J.E.B. Stuart's role, which I appreciated).

I'm also a big fan of Bruce Catton's work for this reason, though he takes a broader approach with his Army of the Potomac trilogy, and his two-volume set on U.S. Grant. Both are wonderful reads, and provide more detail on specific battles and military campaigns that more conflict-specific texts have to summarize. Check out 'Mr. Lincoln's Army' to start - you'll know after about 10 pages if it is what you're looking for.

I’m teaching an upper level American Civil War course in the fall and wished something like that existed. For the in-depth narrative of battles you really need a monograph for that battle, since most larger works have to cover more nuanced topics like guerrilla warfare, self-emancipation, political dissent in the home front, and etc. I just finished re-reading Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West by William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess and you find a better model for a battle study that also covers environmental history and issues of ethnicity in the U. S. Army.

However, there some oldies that still manage to weave together he’d topics with traditional battle narratives. Bruce Catton is an excellent example. Though he wrote in the 1950s and 60s, he was remarkably forward thinking on race for his time (though he also had some bias as well), and he tells his story in beautiful prose that are extremely poetic and captivating. He does not have a single large volume better several good books, like Stillness at Appomattox. Though they may be hard to find unless there is a good used book store nearby.