The Civil War

3 million Americans fought in it, 600,000 men died in it, the nation became a divided union just before it began, and a whole people won the first major battle on the long road to freedom because of it. Five years in the making, this monumental epic from noted filmmaker Ken Burns traces the cause, events, and outcome of the Civil War. We watched the opening segment The Cause, which sets the stage with its examination of slavery and the rising voice of abolitionism in the north. With the election of Lincoln (who initially sought the compromise of containment rather than abolition of slavery), several southern states seceded and the Confederacy was born. One of the great accomplishments of the program is to point out numerous ironies: the war begins and ends at one farmer's house; Robert E. Lee is asked by Lincoln to head up the Union Army, and later becomes the military leader of the Confederacy; both sides expect a short, relatively bloodless battle (historian Shelby Foote reports that one congressman is reported to have said that a pocket handkerchief would be sufficient to wipe up the blood from the entire war), but the war rages on for four long years. Mixing interviews with historians, archival photographs from the period, and the reading of letters from key figures and common soldiers--by such personalities as Jason Robards, Sam Waterston, Claire Bloom, Kurt Vonnegut, Garrison Keillor, and others--The Civil War takes a multi-layered approach to defining what may have been the key episode in our history. A great achievement. Highly recommended. Other titles in the series include: A Very Bloody Affair, Forever Free, Simply Murder, War Is All Hell, and The Better Angels of Our Nature. (See THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: ROOTS OF RESISTANCE for availability.)