Hello to all the good people of this forum.

I am a Joe Abercrombie admirer, and in a video where he showed his bookshelf he recommended Shelby Foote's Civil War as a work about the US civil war he had enjoyed a lot because it was written from a novelist perspective but with historical rigour.

I didn't know almost nothing about the US Civil War, it was a setting I was never interested in, I don't know why, but since Abercrombie said it was good I designated it as my non-fiction read for this year. Also I had seen a video from Montemayor (great youtube channel about maritime war in WWII) where he talked about Jackson's campaing in the Shenandoah Valley and I was hoping to give it some context.

When I finsihed the first volume I noticed a lot of similarities between Foote's account of the conflict and Abercrombie´s First Law books, so I made a post in /r/Fantasy to share my thoughts.

I was surprised by the answers, because I felt people were trying to convince me to read something else. I mean, I wasn't there looking for recommendations of what to read about the Civil War, and the comments were critizicing my decision of reading that particular work.

I am not a history academic, but I know how to do a minimum ammount of research before I read a book. I am aware that author's view inevitably filters into the book, but good authors try to be aware of this and minimize it, or make it explicit so the reader can thread the facts from the opinion. I know that Foote was considered a southern gentleman, I know he was more a novelist than a historian, I know he spent 16 years of his life writing this.

But the people there argued that Foote's was a proponent of the Lost Cause narrative. I knew it was an intent of "glorify" the southern side, and to separate the war from the slavery. I searched a little more and it included treating southern militars as genious and northern as careless men that squandered the lives of their men. It proposed that the south was doomed from the beggining because of the huge northern advantage in industry and population. It tried to put northen generals as inmorals (Grant's supposed alcoholism and Sherman's savagery were mentioned often). It afirms that Lincoln motives for abolisihing slavery were only recruiting soldiers/weaken the south.

I thought the first Volume was nothing like this. I ended up being able to understand the complex mix that gave place to the conflict, and Foote treats the slavery issue as the main cause for secession. Also he shows the different political postures regarding the issue, from extreme abolitionist to extreme anti-abolitionist, and everything in between, and the joggling Lincoln had to do with all this different currents. He characterizes the generals from letters, papers, interviews and witness-accounts, so he give a nuanced picture of each one, from different perspectives. For example, Grant's alcoholism was mentioned as a rumour, because it was a rumour that was published in different papers. He doesn't show almost no account from a slave perspective, but I it's not a book about slavery, it's about a war and it's battles and it's generals and it's soldiers.

As a disclaimer, I am from Uruguay, so I understand the social issues, arguments and controversies of this period that are quite alive today, but I don't feel them, if you know what I mean. I didn't experience that stuff first hand, so my emotional response to the narrative won't be the same than yours (if you had).

The thing is, I want to start the second volume, as I enjoyed the first a lot, but I think those comments soured the anticipation a bit, so I reccur to you for an answer.

My concrete questions for you are (and TL/DR): A) beyond not being an academic work, with referenced sources and a historiographic analysis of the econmic, politic and social context of the time, has Shelby Foote's Civil War: A Narrative deep flaws in it's understanding or narrattive of the events of the American Civil War? B) Barring it length, would you recommend it for a first approach to the events of the Civil War? C) Where could I, in a future, find an accesible complementary read that could cover the blind spots in Foote's work?

Thanks to all.