The film is a comprehensive and definitive history of the American Civil War, and the recipient of 40 ... Southern novelist Shelby Foote is the series' eloquent principal on-camera interview.

Foote (Texas A&M), examines the Union’s campaign ... This reviewer highly recommends Rites of Retaliation, which the Organization of American Historians declared the best book on the Civil War and ...

"The Civil War was the most important event in American history ... Maybe it’s Bruce Catton’s or Shelby Foote’s extraordinary accounts of the essential Battle of Gettysburg.