NF What Civil War story do you think would make a fantastic movie?

Non-Fiction
Sam Hildebrand or Archie Clements

But I love westerns of the arch hero who settles scores.

Sam himself said “I make no apology to mankind for my acts of retaliation; I make no whining appeal to the world for sympathy. I sought revenge and I found it; the key of hell was not suffered to rust in the lock while I was on the war path.”
 
I really enjoyed this, it is a good read.

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The book below contains the best adventure story I've read about the Civil War. Not only does it include daring raids and disguised warships but also has a prison escape from Fort Warren in Boston harbor that was inspired after the prisoner read Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo.

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I've just finished watching John Boorman's Excalibur from 1981, and the ethereal, dreamlike look of the film made an impression on me (and the nicely bloody fight scenes). It made me think of how a movie about the Overland Campaign might use a similar style, to a more limited extent. Boorman uses that dreamlike, surreal feel, and incredibly jarring pacing, to give his film a distinct unreality. That slow, hypnotic kind of pacing would obviously have to be tightened for a film like this one, but I think the other aspects would do it credit. The bright red blood spurting from the knights could be translated quite well to the mounds of jelly piled on the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania, I think.

Also, go watch Excalibur, it's great. Very much not for kids though, so keep that in mind. King Arthur and Wagner go so well together (and young Liam Neeson).

I'm also an admirer of Excalibur. The short film An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962) has a similar unreal quality. It's based on a story by CW veteran Ambrose Bierce.

View it here:
 
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