Shelby Foote was an American novelist, historian, and author. He grew up during the era of Great Depression. He saw several changes in his life that influenced his writings. He lived in Southern America among the cotton plantations, where depression hit hard. There was always an air of uncertainty and a looming prospect of war. He is widely known for his three-volume historical account called "The Civil War: A Narrative”. While he was well known among his peers, he gained popularity when he appeared in Ken Burn's PBS documentary 'The Civil War in 1990'. He was an ardent Confederate supporter and even mentioned in an interview that he would have fought for the Confederacy and believed that they fought for good things. He negated slavery and felt that there was a lot of misunderstanding associated with the Confederate flag and slavery. His biographers have mentioned that his writing mostly hyperbolized the tensions of the war and portrayed the social prescriptions of Southern paternalism.