Amid the discussion about BLM, "woke" society, and white supremacy that has arisen over the last couple of years, one of the more controversial topics has been about removal (or not) of statues of Confederate "heroes" across the South. O'Neill looks at one particular "hero" -- Nathan Bedford Forrest -- examining his story, those who still revere him, and those who want his name and statues removed from pedestals (both literal and figurative).

This is a look at history and a look at what seems to be a growing movement to not only recall the history of the War Between the States, but reassert the dominance of the white race. O'Neill looks at Forrest's life (he made a fortune through his slave auctions and was the first Grand Wizard of the KKK) and at the movements to remove the statues, but also incidents like those in Charlottesville. This is a difficult book to read sometimes -- there are some pretty graphic passages -- but an important one. This could be the book that convinces many that the statues and plaques revering these "heroes" should go.

Admittedly, the narrative is sometimes a bit random and even disjointed. O'Neill freely moves back and forth in time and place and there are many stories running parallel throughout. However, as a whole, it's a very readable and clearly well-researched book.

In Down Along with That Devil’s Bones, Connor Towne O’Neill examines the history of white supremacy as it relates to the Confederate monuments still present through the United States. While reporting on a story, he observed a gathering of people around the Confederate monument of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Seeing how passionate these southerners were for a statue of Forrest—the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan—but neglected to see the racism and injustice that he represented started O'Neill on a path to understand the place of Confederate monuments in today's America.
O'Neill's knowledge and analysis of the proliferation of Confederate monuments and memorials over 150 years after the Confederacy fell further convinced me of the constant presence of white supremacy that I was so willfully ignorant of for many years. I recommend this book as a great addition for those to trying to understand the legacy the Confederacy has for southerners.

Interesting book. Down Along With That Devil’s Bones by Connor Towne O’Neil tells the story of Nathan Bedford Forest a very controversial Civil War figure. Forest was not known for his tact and had very strong beliefs that still resonate to some today. O’Neil learns about Forest through a chance meeting with a group that is invested in keeping Forest’s name alive. O’Neil researches Forest by traveling the south visiting monuments and other areas that bear the name of probably one of the most polarizing generals of the Civil War. He was not a nice person, but O’Neil portrays him from both sides, those pro and con on his story so you can make up your own mind about him. I struggled some with this book, but it does give good insight into Forest. Those looking to understand the monument issue would probably befit from checking out this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book for an honest opinion.

A great idea, and definitely of interest for southern studies and especially with recent renewed interest in, and protests around, public monuments.

Down Along With That Devil’s Bones By Connor Towne O’Neill
Publisher - Algonquin Books
Publish Date- 29 September 2020
Rating - 4/5 Stars
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***Thank you to Netgalley, Algonquin Books, and of course, Connor Towne O’Neill, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Down Along With That Devil’s Bones focuses on Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, and the monuments which honor him. The biography of Forrest is mixed with his impact on the present day, especially after the events in Charlottesville, Virginia. His moments in Alabama and Tennessee were called for removal and O’Neill does a great job of painting ALL views of supporters and opponents related to these removals. Devil’s Bones is incredibly well written and shines a light on a dark topic. It has hope but also sadness and offers a frightening view on topics we do not want to discuss but need to.

I really struggled with the rating of this book. On one side, O‘Neill provides a raw and comprehensive look at the Confederate monument debate, as portrayed in his exploration of the symbolism surrounding Nathan Bedford Forrest. If you do not know US history, Forrest plays a very dark part, the first leader of what later became the KKK and a Confederate general known not to show mercy. Not a nice guy. Period.

O‘Neill‘s several year examination and reporting on the monument topic leads to discussions of history and memory and racism and anti-racism, along with self reflection. It makes you uncomfortable, and that‘s the point. As he takes a step back and examines his own persona and feelings, you as the reader are compelled to do the same. Reading parts of this brought to mind the first time I read Tony Horowitz‘s Confederates in the Attic - feelings of shock and discomfort, not to mention twinges of fear. For a book to move the reader this much is such an important book. And yet, I struggled with his at times oversimplification of historical facts and sometimes misinterpretation of them. My background is in history, and I know a tad bit more about aspects of the Civil War Era than most. He didn‘t quite get everything right. For me, it took away from the impact, which is a bit of a downer. I really wanted to love this and the topic is so timely and vital. If I didn‘t know the history, this would be a much higher rating for sure. I do recommend this; it will give you chills.

Across the United States, you can find statues, streets, and schools named after slaveowners. Those monuments have faced protests and vandalism, but also have their staunch defenders. Journalist Connor Towne O’Neill closely studied four such monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest, a southern everyman with military savvy who served as a Confederate general in the Civil War and later went on to be the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. We learn about who Forrest was and how he came to be so revered in the South, but what O'Neill makes truly fascinating is why and when these various Forrest memorials were erected. As he states early on, monuments are "a reflection of the times in which they are erected as much as they are a reflection of the times they seek to commemorate." O'Neill gets personal and acknowledges his own place as a white Northerner and how the legacy of slavery is still part of his story, our American story. Like Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped From the Beginning and Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, this is an accessible read recommended for those who want to broaden their historical understanding of today's racial and civil unrest.

An essential read for all to understand how white supremacy has continued throughout our nations history. It takes a deep look into how ingrained white supremacy is in southern culture and the symbols we have instilled and installed to quell equality.

I have struggled to find narratives about race that I really resonate with - so many white people who write on it come very different backgrounds from me and obviously, as a white woman, books coming from the POC perspective, while necessary for me to read, I struggle to feel more than guilt and anger as the person shares their experiences, obviously I cannot relate. O'Neill is a white man from Lancaster, PA (very close to where I completed my undergraduate degree) and approaches his research into monuments as a Northern white man, someone who, like me, was taught that "we're from the North. Racism is a southern issue. We're the good guys." That is complete nonsense of course, but this was the first book I've found that dug into that type of background and what that experience brings to the conversation and when someone from that background starts to reckon with living in the South and today's climate overall. I appreciated the honesty of O'Neill as he learned and moved from one Forrest monument to the next and navigated the two sides in the monuments debate to investigate how white supremacy was created and encouraged and how we deal with that legacy today.

A timely investigation into confederate monuments that explores the legacy of white supremacy through the statues and imagery that elevate individuals like Nathan Bedford Forrest in spite of their known crimes.

This is an extensively researched work of nonfiction, and while it is a dense read for all the information it offers, it holds readers’ attention and is made approachable through the author’s personal stories of traveling to different monument sites and interacting with people who are both for and against keeping monuments to Forrest.

With all the Antiracism books available right now, I appreciate that this one comes at the issue of white supremacy from a different angle. "Down Along with That Devils Bones," forces readers to grapple with the question of how we as a nation choose to remember history and how our understanding of the past impacts our ability to shape a more equitable future. This book is a good pick for readers looking to understand the history and emotion behind calls to remove confederate (and other questionable historic figures) statues.

Thank you to Algonquin Books and Netgalley for an advance copy of this ebook.

Fascinating and timely narrative nonfiction on the topics of Confederate monuments, the legacy of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the deep-seated roots of white supremacy in the USA, and more.

Down Along with That Devil's Bones is a worthy addition to the antiracism titles that are so important at the moment. Well-written and researched, this book is highly readable (even though my review e-copy had typographical issues that removed numerals and often the first word(s) of starting paragraphs). Recommended for anyone interested in learning more about persistent racism in the Southern US.

Journalist Connor Towne O'Neill has been "chasing the story of Nathan Bedford Forrest" since 2015. It's a chase that led O'Neill not only deep into the history of American racism, Southern pride and the role that Confederate monuments play in both, but to his own "personal reckoning," coming to terms with the role of his whiteness in his understanding of the United States of the past--and the present.

Forrest was a Confederate Army general who fought not for states' rights, as many now romanticize the cause of the American South, but to protect the institution of slavery. An avowed white supremacist, Forrest, perhaps not surprisingly, went on to become the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan; what is surprising, given that historical context, is the sheer number of parks, buildings and statues that stand in his honor to this day. This is what O'Neill aims to unpack in Down Along with that Devil's Bones, using Forrest's physical legacy in the South as a lens to explore the ways in which white supremacy has often twisted and shifted the narrative of United States history. With enough historical detail to refresh even the most lackluster students of history, O'Neill's account is educational and eye-opening, exploring "race, memory and the legacy of the [Civil War]." The result is a work of narrative nonfiction that is part memoir, part history and part plea: only by understanding the history of racism in America, he argues, can we begin to dismantle it in the present. And it is impossible not to walk away from this book without a better understanding of that history. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Discover: In this excellent work of narrative nonfiction, a journalist uses the legacy of a Confederate Army general as a lens by which to explore race, memory and how we understand American history.

I annotated and highlighted so many things while reading this. I have so much to say, and no idea how to say it - but that's okay, because O'Neill says it so well.

Okay. Stepping back. Down Along with That Devil's Bones does what it says on the tin: by using monuments of Nathan Bedford Forrest - Confederate war monger, slave trader, and leader of the KKK - and people's relationships to them, the book asks us - specifically, asks white people - to reckon with the fact that that history is our history. O'Neill pulls no punches, not in his writing nor his interviewing, asking his subjects how they can defend the statues of Forrest. I won't be the first to tell you that the absolute leaps in logic there are stupendous. And in fact, that's what the statues themselves are about. He interviews Derek Alderman, the University of Tennessee expert on monuments and memorials, who says that though "...Confederate monuments are ostensibly about remembering the past, '[they] can also be about facilitating forgetting ... the public is encouraged to see the past in one way. So inherently it is being encouraged not to remember another part of the past.'" But while that cogent take definitely has a lot of truth in it, it neglects the "Heritage Not Hate" ignorance - the more willful kind of ignorance - that people like Lee Millar, the spokesman for the Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, profess, the kind that says, when confronted with a quote from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who said explicitly that slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy, would respond, "Yeah, I feel that opinion is wrong[.] He's just one man."

Yeah. Okay.

This book is a direct refutation of that kind of intentional forgetting. Through thorough research and miles on the road, traveling from memorial to memorial, O'Neill unpacks the part of history that begs to be seen - the violence, the racism, the fear - and outlines what we must do not to let that part slip away.

The first thing? Bring the monuments down.

The book is focused on Nathan Bedford Forrest – the monuments displaying his image, and his biography: founding grand wizard of the Klan, a confederate soldier, who quickly ran through the ranks from private to lieutenant general, a profiteer from slave trading. Modern times explains the history of the monuments after him, how they came to be, and torn down, some raised again. To many in the area Forrest is a hero, a white supremacist. The park named after him, streets, so many places are named after him. Also, why his name should not be remembered so well, and what it means to the people who are of color.

The book shows by this how racism is steeped into everyday life, particularly in the south, by this example of someone still strongly revered, yet justly being removed from memorials. A well written investigative book.

Everyone has heard that history is written by the victors. While the truth of the statement is debatable, the fact that history has been and actively is being rewritten is not. One of the most prevalent and divisive rewritings is the myth of the Lost Cause, where the racist aims of the Confederacy during the Civil War are replaced with the ideas of myth and heritage. In Down Along With That Devil’s Bones, O’Neill looks into the hagiography around Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, by providing the stories of monuments and memorials to Forrest. More than simple recitation of facts about the creation of the monuments, O’Neill covers the protests surrounding the monuments and their proper place in society while documenting the growth of his understanding about how Forrest and the racist history of our country has created the world he lives in as a white man.

This is a strong, antiracist memoir and history lesson. O’Neill does not shy away from the truth about Forrest and the racist framework of our country, and does so without ridiculing those who believe whole-heartedly in the myth of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause. As pointed out in the interviews he conducts with activists and his own reflections on his journey, getting rid of the symbols is the easy part, however hard we make that step. Creating systemic change, where not only the symbols are removed, but the structures that support the use and creation of those symbols are dismantled, is going to take more work. Occasionally the book goes too far into the details of the monuments, but overall it is a solid work, and belongs on reading lists of antiracist material as well as reading lists about cultural divides in the United States.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

This reads more like a travelogue than an analysis of the legacy of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the legacy of Confederate paraphernalia and monuments. The author’s travels and experiences traveling in the south and interviewing different sides of the view of Forrest’s legacy brings together a lot of what we have heard only secondhand in the recent surge of monument removals. In the process, he also pulls from the history books and combines current anthropology with historical facts and events.
Many of the topics were familiar, as I grew up and currently work in the south. I studied American History in a southern university, the alma mater of southern ancestors. I saw history through rose-tinted glasses until I decided to actually question what was being taught.
There will always be those who are against change, even for the better. The South, with a big ‘s,’ will never be forgotten because it’s a comforting history for many, despite morally wrong in other ways. As the history books tell us, the true details of the past and the legacy honored through time can be radically different stories.

Although this book is well written and makes some interesting points. It gets lost in its own rhetoric and loses its way.

A very interesting and informative look at how Civil War monuments are viewed both culturally and politically throughout the South. It's an extremely timely topic that seems like it will continue to be under discussion for years to come. O'Neill's book did a great job at describing the tension on both sides of the monument debate.

I wish that this book could have been ready for publication just a few months earlier than it was, because it would have gotten more attention then, during what appears to have been 2020’s high peak for the removal of Confederate statues monuments across the American south. That being said, it is still an important work that I hope a lot of people will read — and of course, many of these statues and monuments are still standing. Worse yet, the “thought monument” of post-Civil War white supremacy is still standing.

Connor Towne O’Neill tells the history of these monuments, and grapples with America’s history and present as a white supremacist country. As a white man, originally from Pennsylvania, he is open about his increasing awareness of his own privileged position as he dives deeper into the issues at hand, primary by focusing on many white Southerners’ continued veneration of Nathan Bedford Forrest. More and more, he shows how the arguments for and against taking these monuments down are really not equivalent. Not even close.

One thing that I wish the author had discussed more explicitly is the fact of America’s allowing monuments to Confederate “heroes” to be built in the first place. All throughout history, the winners of wars have destroyed the monuments of the losers. But America not only allowed former Confederates — essentially people who committed treason (in order to maintain slavery, it bears repeating!) — to gain position in US government and thereby enact harmful legislature against Black people and other marginalized groups, we allowed them to build state-sanctioned monuments as what the author would call “palliatives” to the underlying disease of white supremacy. I wish the author had gone further with contextualizing that, as it would have helped bolster the argument that America itself, and not just the old South (or today’s South), is a white supremacist country. Also, by focusing so narrowly on the cult of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the book can give Northern white readers a sort of easy out that they (we!) do not deserve.