Publication in November, 1974, of the third and final volume of Shelby Foote's magnificent history of the Civil War makes me. think back to the time when he first began it. It was early in 1955, I think, that Random House announced its contract with Foote, who until then had written only fiction. These were the years prior to the Centennial of the war, and the book industry was getting ready for it. Since the 1930s, with the publication of Douglas Southall Freeman's fourvolume biography, R. E. Lee, and then his three-volume sequel, Lee's Lieutenants, there had been a rising demand for Civil War military history, and by the early 1950s, with the Centennial less than ten years away, not only publishers but historians both amateur and professional saw a veritable bonanza in sight. The old saw, to the effect that the ideal recipe for a best-seller would be one entitled “Lincoln's Doctor's Dog,” was being revised; interest in the Great Emancipator was turning into interest in the military events of the war.