Gone: A Photographic Plea For Preservation

About this book

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 books 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 mans grief over all the memories that burn with his house.Now on the eve of the Civil Wars 150th commemoration my mission is to draw attention not only to the architectural heritage devastated by the war but also the heritage weve lost since then: to neglect to poverty and to shame as the wars infamy colored the attitudes of later generations and tainted the homes those generations inherited. What the war didnt take time and apathy did. And yet those grand old homeswhether mansion or cabindeserve our reverence and protection.REVIEW: There is great irony to be found in her powerful images of such fragile places. Robert Hicks author of THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH