The Civil War - History of Warfare

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending on when you are reading this blog and doing your planning.  Time to move on from the Napoleon documentary and the disappointment of that documentary.  It was another reminder that I watch these documentaries so you, the teacher do not have to.  Now let’s flash forward a bit and have a change of pace.  I am going to look at a documentary on the American Civil War.  This documentary was part of the History of War Series and it is the Complete Story of the American Civil War.  This documentary has a run time of 54:40.  Will this turn out like the Napoleon documentary, feel free to read on.

The American Civil War was fought less than a century after the Revolutionary War.  It was a nation that would come to blows and it was torn apart by Civil War.  The southern states fought the union states for four years over slavery and state rights.  Northern politicians were pushing for slavery’s abolition and with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the descent into the Civil War would begin.  The Civil War started with shots fired on Fort Sumter.  This war would tear the nation for four years.

The documentary kicks off with a long recap of the American Revolution and what led up to the American Revolution.  Then there was a short comment on the Articles of Confederation and then a comment on the Constitution.  I do not believe that such a long recap was necessary to kick off the documentary.  I was confused as to when the introduction was finished and when the actual documentary began.  It was a challenge to write the summary for the documentary because of the length of the introduction.

When the Civil War started both sides thought that the war would be short.  The capitals were one hundred miles apart and so it would take one big battle to decide the war.  However Bull Run would change that and both sides had to find more troops.  Alfred Bellard was one of those soldiers and a re-creator reads his words.  This was rather nice to hear a soldier's perspective.  The soldiers needed to be trained, and many did not have experience in battle.  They were trained in the British way, however with new immigrants coming in they were trained in the French way.  Many officers would imitate Napoleon.

Technology also had an impact on the war.  Railroads could transport soldiers quickly.  The telegraph could spread the news of the battle quickly.  Even the guns were different and there is a long discussion on the evolution of guns.  Old-style guns were used at the start of the Civil War with disastrous results.  Eventually, new guns were brought in and the style of fighting changed.  Fixed positions and trenches were used, much like the fronts in World War I.

Then there was a discussion on the life of a soldier, what weapons he used, and the lifestyle of the soldier.  There was a discussion on the soldiers on both sides of the Civil War.  One of the historians mentioned World War I again.  I do not know how appropriate it was to mention World War I in a documentary about the Civil War.  If you want to know more about war tactics during the Civil War then you can finish this documentary.  However, if you want a good documentary on the Civil War, then feel free to stop watching this documentary.

This documentary is another old-school type of documentary, nothing fancy and pretty straightforward.  The introduction to the lead-up to the Civil War just went on forever for such a short documentary.  I found myself drifting and when I say I was drifting I mean I went to work on a family history project while playing the documentary.  Sometimes I had to pause and take a break from it because it was so boring.  It did not get better as the documentary progressed.  As I watched I started to conclude that it was a documentary more about tactics and not the Civil War itself.  Over all, this was a very disappointing documentary and something I would not be showing to a history classroom.