The Civil War — Miniseries
Ken Burns’s acclaimed documentary weaves together a powerful tapestry of Civil War history. Through evocative photographs, period artwork, historical newsreels featuring veterans, insightful interviews with leading historians, and deeply personal accounts, the miniseries offers an immersive journey through America's defining crisis. It explores not only the major battles and experiences on both sides, but also delves into the war’s profound origins, its enduring consequences, and the human cost—the soldiers who fought, the families left behind, and the nation forever changed.
The series begins with a stark condemnation of slavery, powerfully recreating the origins of the conflict—from the South’s sprawling cotton plantations to the fervent abolitionists in the North who stood against them. The fundamental issues…
The year 1862 marked the emergence of modern warfare and fundamentally altered Lincoln’s struggle to preserve the Union into a fight for the emancipation of slaves. Episode Two opens with the bitter political divisions that nearly overwhelm…
This episode follows the unfolding events that culminated in Lincoln’s momentous decision to emancipate the enslaved. By July 1862, he had become convinced that emancipation was both a moral imperative and a military necessity for the survi…
The calamitous string of Union defeats culminated that spring in two pivotal moments: at Chancellorsville in May, where Lee achieved his most dazzling victory but suffered the grievous loss of Stonewall Jackson; and at Vicksburg, where Gran…
The episode begins with a vivid depiction of a pivotal moment: the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest ever waged in the Western Hemisphere. For three days, some 150,000 men clashed fiercely across the Pennsylvania landscape, their struggle r…
The sixth episode opens by drawing a parallel between the lives of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee before detailing the remarkable succession of battles that saw these two commanders face off, from the Wilderness to Petersburg in Virgini…
The story opens with the presidential election of 1864, pitting Abraham Lincoln against his former general, George McClellan. The very existence of the Union hung in the balance: as Grant and Sherman found themselves bogged down at Petersbu…
The narrative opens with William Tecumseh Sherman’s masterful advance, carrying the war deep into Georgia and the Carolinas and effectively sealing the Confederacy's fate. In March, coinciding with Lincoln’s second inauguration, Petersburg …
This remarkable concluding episode of *The Civil War* opens in the poignant quiet following Lee’s surrender, before moving swiftly to recount the terrible events that unfolded just five days later, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on A…
