Robert Hicks (American author)
Encyclopedia
Robert Hicks is the author of The New York Times Bestseller The Widow of the South and has played a major role in preserving the historic Carnton
mansion, a focal point in the Battle of Franklin
(November 30, 1864).
in 1974 and lives near the Bingham Community at "Labor in Vain," his late-eighteenth-century log cabin.
Working over the years as a music publisher and in artist management in both country and alternative-rock music, Hicks’s interests have remained varied. A partner in the B. B. King’s Blues Clubs in Nashville
, Memphis
, Orlando
and Los Angeles
, Hicks serves as ‘Curator of Vibe’ of the corporation.
A lifelong collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean to be listed among Art & Antiques’ Top 100 Collectors in America –- his collection focuses on Outsider Art, Tennesseana, and Southern Material Culture. He served as curator on the exhibition, Art of Tennessee, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts
in Nashville. The exhibition was a seven-year endeavor from conception at his kitchen table to its opening, September 2003. He was co-editor of the exhibition’s award winning and critically acclaimed catalog, Art of Tennessee (University of Tennessee Press, September 2003).
, The Williamson County Historical Society, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
. He presently serves on the board of directors of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
in New Orleans and of Historic Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee
.
In December 1997, after a third term as President of the Carnton board, and in light of his years of service to the site, Hicks was named by board resolution: “the driving force in the restoration and preservation of Historic Carnton Plantation.”
He is founding chairman emeritus of Franklin’s Charge: A Vision and Campaign for the Preservation of Historic Open Space in the fight to secure and preserve both battlefield and other historic open space in Williamson County. Franklin’s Charge took on the massive mission of saving what remains of the eastern flank of the battlefield at Franklin -– the largest remaining undeveloped fragment of the battlefield -– and turning it into a public battlefield park. The American Battlefield Protection Program
has called this endeavor “the largest battlefield reclamation in North American history.” By the end of 2005, Franklin’s Charge had already raised over 5 million dollars toward this goal, surpassing anything ever done within any other community in America to preserve battlefield open space. As Jim Lighthizer, President of the Civil War Preservation Trust
has said, “There is no ‘close second’ in any community in America, to what Robert Hicks and Franklin’s Charge has done in Franklin.” The Governor named Hicks as a commissioner to plan out the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War in Tennessee.
, Tennessee, a major battle which occurred in the final months of the Civil War
. During his many years working at Carnton, he began to develop a book idea, and during an accidental meeting with civil war historian and author Shelby Foote
, he received further encouragement to complete a historic novel about the battle.
The result was Hicks' first novel, The Widow of the South (Warner Books, NY, 2005). In writing the novel, he hoped to bring national attention back to this moment in our nation’s history, the impact those five bloody hours played in making us a nation, and in the preservation of the sites tied to the story. The Widow of the South was launched September 1, 2005 to overwhelming critical success, entering the New York Times Bestseller List after only one week out.
The novel is centered around the Carnton Plantation and mansion which was commandeered by officers of the Confederate States Army
as a hospital during the Battle of Franklin II. Hicks creates a cast of characters including the Madame of the mansion and soldiers wounded during this monumental battle. The novel has been critically acclaimed as comparable to other literary works on the Civil War including "Gone with the Wind
," and "The Killer Angels
."
In December 2005, the (Nashville) Tennessean
named him ‘Tennessean of the Year’ for the impact The Widow of the South had on Tennessee, heritage tourism and preservation.
The novel is set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War. It is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood
, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army—and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee
promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam
. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga
, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever
.
on contemporary politics in the South.
He travels, throughout the nation, speaking on a variety of topics ranging from Why The South Matters to The Importance of Fiction in Preserving History to Southern Material Culture to A Model for the Preservation of Historic Open Space for Every Community and a host of other topics.
Hicks' first book, a collaboration with French-American photographer Michel Arnaud, came out in 2000: Nashville: the Pilgrims of Guitar Town (Stewart, Tabori & Chang).
He is co-editor (with Justin Stelter and John Bohlinger) of a collection of short stories, A Guitar and A Pen: Short Stories and Story-Songs By Nashville Songwriters (Center Street Books/Hachette, North America) was released in April, 2008.
Carnton
Carnton is a historic plantation house and museum in Franklin in Williamson County, Tennessee. Carnton is the setting for the novel The Widow of the South, by author Robert Hicks...
mansion, a focal point in the Battle of Franklin
Battle of Franklin II
The Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, at Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted...
(November 30, 1864).
Early Life and Arts Background
Robert Hicks was born and raised in South Florida. He moved to Williamson County, TennesseeWilliamson County, Tennessee
Williamson County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010 US Census, the population was 183,182. The County's seat is Franklin, and it is part of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is named after Hugh Williamson, a...
in 1974 and lives near the Bingham Community at "Labor in Vain," his late-eighteenth-century log cabin.
Working over the years as a music publisher and in artist management in both country and alternative-rock music, Hicks’s interests have remained varied. A partner in the B. B. King’s Blues Clubs in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, Orlando
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
and Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, Hicks serves as ‘Curator of Vibe’ of the corporation.
A lifelong collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean to be listed among Art & Antiques’ Top 100 Collectors in America –- his collection focuses on Outsider Art, Tennesseana, and Southern Material Culture. He served as curator on the exhibition, Art of Tennessee, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts
Frist Center for the Visual Arts
-History:The museum is housed in what used to be the main post office designed by Marr & Holman Architects for the city of Nashville, which had been built in 1933-34 near Union Station, since most mail at that time was moved by train. As the city grew, the need for a more up-to-date main facility...
in Nashville. The exhibition was a seven-year endeavor from conception at his kitchen table to its opening, September 2003. He was co-editor of the exhibition’s award winning and critically acclaimed catalog, Art of Tennessee (University of Tennessee Press, September 2003).
Historic Preservation
In the field of historic preservation, he has served on the boards of the Tennessee State MuseumTennessee State Museum
Tennessee State Museum is a large museum in Nashville depicting the history of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Starting from pre-colonization and going all the way to the 20th century, the museum describes the American Civil War, the Frontier, and the Age of Jackson. The museum includes an area of...
, The Williamson County Historical Society, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to...
. He presently serves on the board of directors of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is located in New Orleans, within the Central Business District adjacent to Lee Circle. It is associated with the University of New Orleans...
in New Orleans and of Historic Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee
Franklin, Tennessee
Franklin is a city within and the county seat of Williamson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 62,487 as of the 2010 census Franklin is located approximately south of downtown Nashville.-History:...
.
In December 1997, after a third term as President of the Carnton board, and in light of his years of service to the site, Hicks was named by board resolution: “the driving force in the restoration and preservation of Historic Carnton Plantation.”
He is founding chairman emeritus of Franklin’s Charge: A Vision and Campaign for the Preservation of Historic Open Space in the fight to secure and preserve both battlefield and other historic open space in Williamson County. Franklin’s Charge took on the massive mission of saving what remains of the eastern flank of the battlefield at Franklin -– the largest remaining undeveloped fragment of the battlefield -– and turning it into a public battlefield park. The American Battlefield Protection Program
American Battlefield Protection Program
The American Battlefield Protection Program is a US federal government program implemented by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior with the aim of preserving historic battlefields in the United States through land management, site preservation, and public education...
has called this endeavor “the largest battlefield reclamation in North American history.” By the end of 2005, Franklin’s Charge had already raised over 5 million dollars toward this goal, surpassing anything ever done within any other community in America to preserve battlefield open space. As Jim Lighthizer, President of the Civil War Preservation Trust
Civil War Preservation Trust
The Civil War Trust is a charitable organization whose primary focus is in the preservation of American Civil War battlefields. The Civil War Trust also promotes educational programs and heritage tourism initiatives to inform the public of the war's history and the fundamental conflicts that...
has said, “There is no ‘close second’ in any community in America, to what Robert Hicks and Franklin’s Charge has done in Franklin.” The Governor named Hicks as a commissioner to plan out the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War in Tennessee.
The Widow of the South
Hicks became fascinated by the Battle of FranklinBattle of Franklin II
The Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, at Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted...
, Tennessee, a major battle which occurred in the final months of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. During his many years working at Carnton, he began to develop a book idea, and during an accidental meeting with civil war historian and author Shelby Foote
Shelby Foote
Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. was an American historian and novelist who wrote The Civil War: A Narrative, a massive, three-volume history of the war. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the...
, he received further encouragement to complete a historic novel about the battle.
The result was Hicks' first novel, The Widow of the South (Warner Books, NY, 2005). In writing the novel, he hoped to bring national attention back to this moment in our nation’s history, the impact those five bloody hours played in making us a nation, and in the preservation of the sites tied to the story. The Widow of the South was launched September 1, 2005 to overwhelming critical success, entering the New York Times Bestseller List after only one week out.
The novel is centered around the Carnton Plantation and mansion which was commandeered by officers of the Confederate States Army
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
as a hospital during the Battle of Franklin II. Hicks creates a cast of characters including the Madame of the mansion and soldiers wounded during this monumental battle. The novel has been critically acclaimed as comparable to other literary works on the Civil War including "Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
," and "The Killer Angels
The Killer Angels
The Killer Angels is a historical novel by Michael Shaara that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. The book tells the story of four days of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War: June 30, 1863, as the troops of both the Union and the Confederacy move into battle around...
."
In December 2005, the (Nashville) Tennessean
Tennessean
Tennessean can refer to:* The Tennessean newspaper* Tennessean * person or object from TennesseeTennishawn...
named him ‘Tennessean of the Year’ for the impact The Widow of the South had on Tennessee, heritage tourism and preservation.
A Separate Country
Hicks' second novel, A Separate Country (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette/North America) was released on September 23, 2009.The novel is set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War. It is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood
John Bell Hood
John Bell Hood was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. Hood had a reputation for bravery and aggressiveness that sometimes bordered on recklessness...
, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army—and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam , fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000...
. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga
Battle of Chickamauga
The Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19–20, 1863, marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia called the Chickamauga Campaign...
, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
.
Other Writings and Presentations
Hicks' essays on regional history, southern material culture, furniture and music have appeared in numerous publications over the years. Hicks now writes op-eds for The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on contemporary politics in the South.
He travels, throughout the nation, speaking on a variety of topics ranging from Why The South Matters to The Importance of Fiction in Preserving History to Southern Material Culture to A Model for the Preservation of Historic Open Space for Every Community and a host of other topics.
Hicks' first book, a collaboration with French-American photographer Michel Arnaud, came out in 2000: Nashville: the Pilgrims of Guitar Town (Stewart, Tabori & Chang).
He is co-editor (with Justin Stelter and John Bohlinger) of a collection of short stories, A Guitar and A Pen: Short Stories and Story-Songs By Nashville Songwriters (Center Street Books/Hachette, North America) was released in April, 2008.
Outside References
- The Carnton Plantation website, http://www.carnton.org/
- Brief Bio on Robert Hicks, http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-hicks-robert.asp
- Hatchett Book Group website for "A Separate Country", http://www.aseparatecountry.com/
- Robert Hicks website, http://www.robert-hicks.com
- Franklin's Charge website, http://www.franklinscharge.com/
- B. B. Kings Blues Clubs website, http://www.bbkingclubs.com
- Review in the Chattanoogan newspaper dated 12/01/2005 about Robert Hicks: http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_76699.asp
See also
- Battle of Franklin IIBattle of Franklin IIThe Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, at Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted...
- Shelby FooteShelby FooteShelby Dade Foote, Jr. was an American historian and novelist who wrote The Civil War: A Narrative, a massive, three-volume history of the war. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the...
- The McGavock Confederate Cemetery at Franklin