Fiction as Fact: "The Horse Soldiers" and Popular Memory - Softcover

York, Neil Longley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0873386884 ISBN 13: 9780873386883

Publisher: The Kent State University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Colonel Benjamin Henry Grierson led a cavalry expedition that General Ulysses S. Grant hoped would distract Confederate forces while the Union Army made its move toward Vicksburg. In the spring of 1863, setting out from LaGrange, Tennessee, Grierson took a column of Yankee troopers south the length of Mississippi, destroying rail lines and rolling stock, torching supply depots, and disrupting Confederate communications. Fiction as Fact: “The Horse Soldiers” and Popular Memory is a thorough examination of this famous military action through three genres―Dee Brown’s 1954 historical account, Grierson’s Raid; Harold Sinclair’s 1956 novel The Horse Soldiers; and John Ford’s 1959 film of the same name. Neil Longley York demonstrates how historical “truths” are often omitted, fragmented, and altered before being assimilated into popular culture and how the events of our past are often molded to fit the constraints of the present.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0873386884
• ISBN 13: 9780873386883
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200