Foote moved to Memphis in 1952. Upon completion of "Jordan County: A Landscape in Narrative", he resumed work on what he thought would be his magnum opus, "Two Gates to the City", an epic work he'd had in mind for years and in outline form since the spring of 1951. He had trouble making progress and felt he was plunging toward crisis with the "dark, horrible novel." Unexpectedly, he received a letter from Bennett Cerf of Random House asking him to write a short history of the Civil War to appear for the conflict's centennial. According to Foote, Cerf contacted him based on the factual accuracy and rich detail he found in "Shiloh", but Walker Percy's wife Bunt recalled that Walker had contacted Random House to approach Foote. Although the novelist had no experience writing serious history, Cerf offered him a contract for a work of approximately 200,000 words.