shelby foote , author of the acclaimed three volume history of the american civil war , the civil period : a dialogue , killed in memphis on june 27 at age 88 . foote also wrote historical fiction , including follow me down and donelson . he may be best known for his appearance in historian evan burns ' pbs pilot , the civil war . the modern library ranked foote ' s the civil war : a fiction as number 15 on its ranked of 100 great non - novel books . he was commissioned to write a short description of the civil war by random house and took more than 20 year on the work eventually releasing the new volumes .
The Civil War: A Narrative is a book written by Shelby Foote.