![]() Southerners on the other hand, or so the theory went, were the hereditary offspring of Cromwell’s enemies, the “gay cavaliers” of King Charles II and his glorious Restoration, who had imbued the South with their easygoing, chivalrous and honest ways. It is unclear who first put forth this curious interpretation of American history, but just as the great schism burst upon the scene it was subscribed to by no lesser Confederate luminaries than President Jefferson Davis himself and Admiral Raphael Semmes, of CSS Alabama fame, who asserted that the North was populated by descendants of the cold Puritan Roundheads of Oliver Cromwell-who had overthrown and executed the king of England in 1649-while others of the class were forced to flee to Holland, where they also caused trouble, before finally settling at Plymouth Rock, Mass. For instance, by the eve of the Civil War the sectional argument had become so far advanced that a significant number of Southerners were convinced that Yankees, like Negroes, constituted an entirely different race of people from themselves. It took nearly 250 eventful years longer for it to boil into a war, but that Dutchman’s boatload was at the bottom of it-a fact that needs to be fixed in the reader’s mind from the start. It is probably safe to say that the original impetus of the Civil War was set in motion when a Dutch trader offloaded a cargo of African slaves at Jamestown, Va., in 1619. “The worst are full of passionate intensity” Yeats wrote his short poem immediately following the catastrophe of World War I, but his thesis of a great, cataclysmic event is universal and timeless. Having acknowledged that, let me also say I have long believed there is no more concise or stirring accounting for the war than the sentiments propounded by Irish poet William Butler Yeats in “The Second Coming,” some lines of which are included in this essay. His book “Conversations with the Enemy,” which followed a Marine during the Vietnam War, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction in 1984.Simmering animosities between North and South signaled an American apocalypseĪny man who takes it upon himself to explain the causes of the Civil War deserves whatever grief comes his way, regardless of his good intentions. In addition to his work with “Forrest Gump,” Groom also wrote nonfiction works on various subjects, including on the American Civil War. Our hearts & prayers are extended to his family,” she wrote. “While he will be remembered for creating Forrest Gump, Winston Groom was a talented journalist & noted author of American history. ![]() In 1995, Groom published a sequel titled “Gump and Co.”Īlabama Governor Kay Ivey tweeted about Groom’s death on Thursday, calling him one of the state’s “most gifted writers.” ![]() ![]() The novel was turned into the 1994 film starring Tom Hanks and won six Academy Awards. After he returned stateside, Groom was a reporter for the Washington Star before he focused on writing novels, according to the university. Groom graduated from the University of Alabama in 1965 and then served four years in the US Army, including a tour in the Vietnam War. “I don’t have any details right now, but he did die (Wednesday) night,” Wilson said. Karin Wilson, mayor of his hometown of Fairhope, Alabama, told CNN that Groom’s family shared the news of the death with her office. Winston Groom, the American novelist and author of “Forrest Gump,” has died. ![]()
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