Confderates in the Attic

(In Sept. 2002 issue of my school paper)

The Civil War is always a touchy subject.  Besides its racial aspects, it’s the only war where American citizens have both won and lost the same war.  While most of us in the West and North have moved on, some in the South view the Civil War as a part of their every day life.  Tony Horwitz, after living in Australia and Egypt for many years, returns to his native Virginia and is compelled to search out the  battle grounds where the Civil War is still being fought every day.

Horwitz’s travels in the modern South take him from Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy meetings to the house of a man who considers himself a citizen of the Confederate States of America, a nation that he says has been under foreign occupation for 140 years.  Along the way he meets people like Robert Lee Hodge (pictured on the cover) a “hard-core” Civil War battle re-enactor who constantly hired to be an extra in war films, based on his uncanny ability to bloat as if dead.

Horwitz tackles serious issues, like racism and the use of the Confederate Flag, while never copping out with easy answers.  Never once does he show one side of an issue.  No ones opinions are too outrageous, or their stances more off-center to be profiled.  Horwitz also has the astonishing ability to bring to light the odd and humorous aspects of things.  His ability to find the in off-kilter is only surpassed by his skill for describing it.