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Shelby Dade Foote, Jr., was born in Greenville, Mississippi, on November 17, 1916, While in high school, he served as editor of, The Pica. Less formally, Foote came under the tutelage of William Alexander Percy. Through Percy, Foote befriended Percy’s nephew, Walker Percy.  At Percy’s house, Foote would also meet literati including Sherwood Anderson and Langston Hughes. Moreover, Percy influenced Foote’s interest in James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, and William Faulkner.

Shelby Foote attended the University of North Carolina from 1935 to 1937. He was drafted into the army in 1940, and rose to the rank of captain before he was dismissed by court-martial in Ireland in 1944 for traveling two miles beyond the official limit to see his girlfriend (who later would become his first wife). One year later, he joined the Marines.

Foote published his first novel, Tournament, in 1949. This was followed by three other works — Follow Me Down, published in 1950, Love in a Dry Season which came out in 1951, and Shiloh, published the very next year,1952.  Foote created realistic, rich portrayals of the Civil War events– factually accurate, powerfully detailed, and complex.  He narrated from the minds of the men on both sides of the war. Twenty years later, Foote produced his three-volume history of the war — Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958), Fredericksburg to Meridian (1963), and Red River to Appomattox (1974).

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A three-time Guggenheim Fellow, Foote has served as a lecturer at the University of Virginia and Memphis State. Shelby Foote lived with his third wife in Memphis, Tennessee, until his death in 2005.