The Civil War
7.9·1990 - 1990·1h 16m·1S·ended
A documentary on the American Civil War narrated by Ken Burns, covering the secession of the Confederacy to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A documentary on the American Civil War narrated by Ken Burns, covering the secession of the Confederacy to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A documentary on the American Civil War narrated by Ken Burns, covering the secession of the Confederacy to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
6.4
Avg Rating
9
Rated Episodes
6.7
Best: S1E8
5.9
Worst: S1E2
War Is All Hell: 1865
S1 E8
Forever Free: 1862
S1 E3
Simply Murder: 1863
S1 E4
A Very Bloody Affair: 1862
S1 E2
The Cause: 1861
S1 E1
The Better Angels of Our Nature: 1865
S1 E9
David McCullough
Narrator
Sam Waterston
Abraham Lincoln
Julie Harris
Mary Chestnut
Jason Robards
Ulysses S. Grant
Morgan Freeman
Frederick Douglass
Paul Roebling
Joshua Chamberlain
Garrison Keillor
Walt Whitman
George Black
Robert E. Lee
Arthur Miller
William Tecumseh Sherman
Christopher Murney
Elisha Hunt Rhodes
Charles McDowell
Samuel R. Watkins
Horton Foote
Jefferson Davis
George Plimpton
George Templeton Strong
Philip Bosco
Horace Greeley
Terry Courier
George B. McClellan
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Photographs, period paintings, lithographs and headlines of the Civil War are combined with moving newsreel footage of Civil War veterans, interviews with distinguished historians and first-person accounts in this award-winning documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns. The miniseries vividly embraces the entire sweep of the war: the complex causes and lasting effects of America's greatest and most moving calamity, the battles and the homefronts, the generals and the private soldiers, the anguish of death in battle and the grief of families at home.
Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, this first episode dramatically evokes the causes of the war, from the Cotton Kingdom of the South to the northern abolitionists who opposed it. Here ar…
1862 saw the birth of modern warfare and the transformation of Lincoln's war to preserve the Union into a war to emancipate the slaves. Episode Two begins with the political infighting that threatened…
This episode charts the dramatic events that led to Lincoln's decision to set the slaves free. Convinced by July 1862 that emancipation was now morally and militarily crucial to the future of the Unio…
The nightmarish Union disaster at Fredericksburg comes to two climaxes that spring: at Chancellorsville in May, where Lee wins his most brilliant victory but loses Stonewall Jackson; and at Vicksburg,…
This episode opens with a dramatic account of the turning point of war: the Battle of Gettysburg, the greatest ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. For three days 150,000 men will fight to the death…
Episode six begins with a biographical comparison of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and then chronicles the extraordinary series of battles that pitted the two generals against each other from the…
The episode begins with the presidential election of 1864 that sets Abraham Lincoln against his old commanding general, George McClellan. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the Union its…
The episode begins with William Tecumseh Sherman's brilliant march to the sea, which brings the war to the heart of Georgia and the Carolinas and spells the end of the Confederacy. In March, following…
This extraordinary final episode of The Civil War begins in the bittersweet aftermath of Lee's surrender and then goes on to narrate the horrendous events of five days later when, on April 14, Lincoln…
