So how accurately did the Ken Burns documentary get the history of the war

Lastcat, you are definitely doing yourself a disservice by not reading up on the war. Yes the internet is good, yes, Ken Burns series is ok. Personally, I liked Danny Glover's Civil War Journal better. He went into much greater detail. I'm not crazy about his politics today. But he did a good job moderating the episodes when they were published.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Shelby Foote. I do like James I. Roberston and Bruce Catton. James McPherson is ok but he can get kind of snobby. Personally, I like to read the journals that were published by the men who fought the war. Some of the time worn classics are:

Minutae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia
by Carlton McCarthy - A bit romantic but good vignettes of camp & on the march.

Hard Tack & Coffee by John D. Billings Not as romantic as McCarthy but very good in the average life department.

Memoirs of Service Afloat by Raphael Semmes. A good read by the Caotain of the Alabama.

U.S. Grant autobiography 4 volumes.

Gone For a soldier Alfred Bellard 2nd NJ Light Artillery.

13 Months in the Rebel Army by William G. Stephenson. Excellent account by an impressed New Yorker who served in the CSA in the western theater

Passing of the Armies by Joshua L. Chamberlain

Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade by John O. Casler. This is a great memoir by a misfit of a soldier. Not a typical memoir at all.

Four Years with General Lee by Walter Taylor an intimate account of Taylor's staffing duties with General Lee.

But my favorite book of all that sets the stage for all these guys is a really really good read called The Class of 1846 by John Waugh. He follows the pre Civil War careers of this class and lays the foundation of the struggle of 1861. Studys the officers on both sides before they became famous Civil War personalities.

Memphis
 
Foote is a excellent writer and I would recommend both his novels and a collection of letters he wrote to fellow writer and friend Walker Percy. Unlike the folksy way he comes across in the Ken Burns series, he had a highly educated, cold, sometimes somewhat cynical, intelligence.

His narrative of the CW is worth reading, IMO. He covers the Western Theater completely, and Jefferson Davis plays more of a role than he usually does. Foote makes a real attempt to understand Davis's circumstances and decisions.

On the politics around the war, the role of blacks in the war, the role of slavery is bringing it about, I disagree with him, as do most recent scholars.

I thought the Ken Burns' series was very good. Nitpicking aside, it emphasized the military aspects pretty well, told the story vividly, and made fighting the war a d****** dirty, ugly business. It set up comparsions between a Southern town and Northern town(Deer Isle, Maine, near where my mother grew up), but never really went into the homefront on either side. Compared to other attempts to dramatize the war, its far, far ahead. It's decisions: not to use re enactors, to pick individuals and follow them through the war, all "worked."
 
It's been way too long since I've watched that series, and a lot of water has passed over the dam. One thing it did do (and I'm reasonably certain it affected many of you the same way), it rekindled my interest. At the time, I had about a hundred neglected CW books, and was wasting my time with enjoyable novels.

My impression now of what I had seen these many years ago, is that the series was a touchy/feely overview with no intent to be history, but to rekindle an interest in that era (which, in my case, was certainly successful). Kinda like, we went through a time where different sections of the country had different ideas about the way things ought to be run; so then some considerable bumbling went on and the sides took to duking it out over their differences.

The series was exceptionally well done with some ground-breaking techniques and motion created with the pan/zoom on stills. Whatever fault one may assign to it -- be it inaccurate, not detailed enough, not really history, smarmy -- it did effect a change in my perspective of the time, and apparently in the interest of many others. The series will remain a significant turning point in my life. A personal classic.

ole
 
I'm not a seasoned enough student of the Civil War yet to comment if it was accurate or not, but it serves as a great jumping off point to learn more about the war.

I've started watching the documentary as well as reading the companion book along with it, to see if I can get more facts and lessons from one or the other. If one misses something, I figure the other will pick up on it.

I guess it's our job as "students" to seperate the facts from the fiction-but the documentary, and other movies like Gettysburg, do the basic job of garnering interest in the subject in the time alloted for the telling of their tales...but I'm learning, and you all know this, that you can spend your life studying this war and not know everything. (But it's sure fun to try!):smile:

Laz
 
Dear Lazmataz,

I agree with your statement, that in summary, it is the job of students to seperate the facts from fiction. Even 'masters' on the subject, must continue to keep up with any scrap of history that may surface. At times, nuggets of information surface when a family dies out and their relatives who fought in the Civil War are public domain.

As we are generations past those times in the Civil War--they created the history to study and for years to come.

I join with you in agreement, that no matter how much one studies the Civil War or in any other area; one will never know it all --that is the lesson of life. Yet, it is the pleasure and the luxury of being able to sit and explore through maps, books, official battle reports and the inter-Army correspondences; as to achieve some appreciation for those who have fought these wars.

Just some thoughts.

Respectfully submitted for consideration,
M. E. Wolf
 
The problem with film history

Film has the "slows" and one cannot detail incidents most times, to get something absolutely accurate. It's a lot of high points with film. Look how slow the network news is compared to getting news off the internet. If you doubt that, just check off how many "news stories" are in a half- hour news show.

Of course, I believe any modern book or film is limited by the acceptable history that has grown up around the Civil War. I recall traveling through areas of the South that had strong unionist support during the war. You wouldn't know it by all the rebel stickers on the pickup trucks and vehicles of the youngins'.

I think most Civil War history is strong on Union failures and command, but seems to ignore the real incredible weaknesses of the Confederacy and their infrastructure.
If more truth were published, someone might start wondering why the South seceded and started a war.

How do you lose a war to a McClellan, a Burnside, a Pope, and a Hooker? And the Confederacy never found a general, or an army, to push the Union armies out of Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, western Virginia and Missouri. But by most accounts, the war ended at Appomattox. The Confederacy didn't start losing the war until then. No use in telling a lot of people that the war was lost, long before Appomattox.
 
I tend to agree with Whitworth, that history emphasizes the failures of the Union forces and ignores the weaknesses of the Confederacy. Yet it's true that the Army of the Potomac had some pretty flawed commanders who were responsible for losses that should have been wins, given the size of the Army of the Potomac compared to the Army of Northern Virginia.

I've never found a biography of George McClellan...the closest I've come is Stephen Sears book, "Confederacies and Commanders," which is quite critical of McClellan, but who, in my opinion, earned that criticism and more.

And to Lastcat, I'd like to add a couple of books to the list that Memphis posted.

"The Sword of Lincoln," by Jeffrey Wert, and

"Look Away: A History of the Confederate States of America," by William C. Davis.
 
I've never found a biography of George McClellan...the closest I've come is Stephen Sears book, "Confederacies and Commanders," which is quite critical of McClellan, but who, in my opinion, earned that criticism and more.

I just picked up, at the local used book store, Stephen Sears George B. McClellan: The Young Napolean. They also had a copy of Sears' The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan but I was not interested enough in Little Mac to pick that one up as well. I like Sears' writing so I am looking forward to the former, once it works its way to the top of my rather large stack of "to be read."
 
Timewalker, there will come a day when you will wish that you picked up that copy. I've missed a great many books that I passed on and wished I'd have gotten at the time. You won't be right all the time, but if it's cheap, pick it up.

ole
 
I tend to agree with Whitworth, that history emphasizes the failures of the Union forces and ignores the weaknesses of the Confederacy. Yet it's true that the Army of the Potomac had some pretty flawed commanders who were responsible for losses that should have been wins, given the size of the Army of the Potomac compared to the Army of Northern Virginia.
I do not entirely get the gist of this post, Jules. "History" is what was. Now I don't know what you've been reading, but I like the guys who state the facts, or guess with some reasonable basis for guessing.

Guess I ought to go back and read it all over. Again.

ole
 
An Explanation....of sorts

I do not entirely get the gist of this post, Jules. "History" is what was. Now I don't know what you've been reading, but I like the guys who state the facts, or guess with some reasonable basis for guessing.

Guess I ought to go back and read it all over. Again.

ole

We may be in the same fix, because I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but I don't think you want a list of the books I've been reading. For the sake of brevity, let me just say that I'm heavy on pro-Union.

But I guess what I was trying to say, Ole, is that the books I have read which focus on the battles in the East have sometimes stressed mistakes and/or poor decisions made by commanders of the Army of the Potomac much more often than on the errors in judgment by Confederate officers, and this has perhaps colored my opinions somewhat.

As a result, it seems to me that Northern commanders have, in some cases, come across the years as being far less skilled in battle than, for example, Generals Lee or Jackson. And in some cases, I think they were. How else does one explain George McClellan? The man may have been a great organizer and administrator, but he dropped the ball in battle so many times he couldn't have qualified for a high school football team. Overall, my impression of him is that he was a puffed-up, self-absorbed braggart who, much like the housewife who trails around after her guests, plumping up the pillows on the sofa whenever a guest changes position, McClellan was loathe to have his tidy army mussed up, but I never thought of him as being a coward until I read "Confederacies and Commanders," and "The Sword of Lincoln," and for the first time learned that on at least two occasions he abandoned his army in the field.

Joe Hooker and Daniel Sickles have been painted as little more than drunken, womanizing sods. I've never read much that excuses Sickles, but do you disagree that Hooker's loss of nerve at Chancellorsville, while perhaps understandable and certainly not representative of his whole career, was largely responsible for what turned into a disaster for the Federals? Since I fully support the Union position, I'd be happy to be disabused of this notion.

Even today, people who should know better, portray Ulysses Grant as having lurched through the war with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, and frequently dismiss his successes as being almost wholly a result of having a bigger army and the North having more resources. In some battles in the east, the greater numbers should have been an advantage, but apparently were not, but where Grant is concerned, his dogged tenacity, his clarity of thought and ability to visualize (as someone on this forum has said) the whole picture, and his understanding that the goal was not, in most cases, to plant his feet on an acre of ground, but rather to destroy the enemy to whatever degree it took to end the war, is what eventually led him to Appomattox Courthouse. I think Vicksburg would be an exception to that since taking control of the Mississippi clamped down on the ability of the Confederates to get supplies to their armies.

Poor Ambrose Burnside, who warned Lincoln at least twice that he was not qualified to lead the Army of the Potomac, was pretty much pushed into that command, and fulfilled his own prophecy. The only thing I've ever read about Burnside that has been relentlessly complimentary of him was "Military Reminiscences of the Civil War," by Jacob Dolson Cox who ignored (mostly) the mistakes Burnside made and focused on his loyalty, his cheerful personality and unflagging determination to do as well as he could in a job he never wanted. I like Burnside.

The only book I have about Pope is "John Pope: A Life for the Nation," by Peter Cozzens, and it's been several years since I read it, but the thing that stands out about him in my memory is his stubborn insistence that Jackson was retreating when in fact Jackson was getting ready to pounce. Perhaps I should re-read that one.

Now, having said all that, let me say that I have the utmost respect for the likes of Meade, Chamberlain, Sherman, Thomas, Reynolds, Doubleday, Schofield, Sheridan and too many others to mention here. If I could somehow morph myself back to the 1860s, the first hand I would want to shake would be U.S. Grant's, although I'd more likely fling myself on his neck and babble out my "thank you's," and he, of course, would be properly horrified, although I would never ask him to climb up on the sofa so he could be better viewed by the masses.

To wrap this up, I'm still learning, and part of the reason I started reading this forum was to get the perspective of the people who read rather than forever confining myself to people who write. On this thread, for the first time I'm reading that Shelby Foote was not always accurate about the war. I didn't know that, and I'm simple enough to be disappointed because I've admired him.

I should perhaps add that my loyalty to the North, my unfettered belief that secession was inappropriate and that slavery could not be shrugged off in hopes it would die a natural death, and that the North was forced into war, has affected my choice of reading material. But bear with me. I'll get up to speed eventually.
 
Dear Lastcat, the Ken Burns documentary got a LOT of people started on in depth study of the ACW, including me. Historically, he did OK -- he has the right people in the right places at the right time.

This board is a great source of information. I'll leave it to others to give a good basic list of general books about the Civil War. My interest is 19th century medicine -- I'm not a battle wonk except for Chickamauga. :D

Welcome aboard,

Zou
I concur. I am in the middle of watching The Civil War by Ken Burns and I must say that as far as Civil War documentaries go, it is by far the best I have seen. The voice acting in the series is superb and the series covers ever important event of the war.
 
I really didn't mind Shelby Foote (he told a great yarn and had an engaging personality) even though there are lots of inaccuracies in both his pronouncements in the Ken Burns film and his 3-volume The Civil War. Worse, there is no documentation for the latter, so when he said something that appears inaccurate, there's no way to find out where he got his information.

Ken Burns' documentary is a good place to start, to kindle interest. I like @ole's description of it as a "touchy-feely overview." The best thing about it is Burns' marvelous technique of using period photographs and shifting perspective. (When I've rewatched it, I kept pausing it to examine the photos.) It is definitely not a good place to continue learning about the Civil War, because of its superficiality. Try curling up with a few good books!

@Jules362, if you read more about the war in the west, you'll find somewhat the opposite true: More good US commanders (think Grant, Thomas, Sherman) and more lousy Confederate commanders (think Braxton Bragg).
 
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The owl said hooooo, and the young confederate soldier, trembling with fear, replied, 'its me John Albert, a friend of yours'.
 
I will finish the documentary when so get off of work in the morning. I have found it enlightening, though so gather some of Foote's speak may be fluff designed to entertain.
 
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