Key battles of the American Civil War, as seen through the eyes of soldiers from either side.A novel idea, very badly executed. Most war documentaries give the strategic view - this give's the everyman's view. Just not an interesting, accurate or compelling one. The characters are generally well chosen but the dramatisations are quite weak and don't really give that much of an insight into the battle. Due to the narrow focus, much of the detail is lost. For example, if you watched the episode on the Battle of Antietam you would think that the entire battle occurred in the cornfield. Burnside's Bridge is not mentioned, or Bloody Lane. Similarly, Gettysburg covers only Big and Little Round Tops. Pickett's Charge isn't even mentioned by name.To make it worse, you have the worst line-up of historians-for-hire ever. More salesmen than historians, their job seems to be to talk up, through shouting and talking fast, the importance of each battle and these characters parts in it. The Battle of Nashville, which was much more a coup de grace than a pivotal battle, gets turned into something vital to the survival of Sherman's Army and the Union. The hyperbole on display is quite ridiculous.Not even a series for Civil War beginners, this is that dumbed down and inaccurate.Do yourself a favour: watch Ken Burns's The Civil War instead. Surely the greatest documentary series ever made, on any subject.

..this show sucks, but so do the reviewers on this site, Sovereign Citizens one and all don't let the patriots lie to you americas civil war was 100% about the States Right to keep other human beings as slave labour and then to count those slaves as population for purposes of Representation in the House, even when those slaves had no Rights to be Represented look at the Secession documents ALL OF THEM cite the free state/slave state "problem" as the reason for Secession Robert E Lee was a traitor who should have been hanged the South had no black soldiers except those that served under duress "freeing" the slaves wasn't done until 1864 in order to prevent the wholesale slaughter of blacks in the SOuth how many black Union soldiers were EVER taken prisoner? NONE. because the racist Southerners killed them all as they often said they would read a book not written in the South, where people only teach northern aggression but they don't teach WHY slavery WAS/IS WRONG because Southerners think owning slaves is a CHOICE

I'm no historian, but I love history and especially civil war history. My love of civil war history stems from my relation to Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson. I have visited many battlefields at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Lookout Mt., Signal Mt., Shilo, etc... and have attended a few reenactments and have been to MANY museums about the war featuring uniforms and guns. Like the other reviews ( which might be the same person because the main complaint was uniform inaccuracies. The uniforms are bad, yes, the acting really bad, yes... My expectations weren't extremely high, though, because it is very low budget. My main complaint is how unbelievably inaccurate and misconstrued the actual history is. I could lay all of them out from the first 20 minutes, but you wouldn't want to read all of them. One example - this documentary makes it seem as if the southern states had seceded out of fear of Abe abolishing slavery! Not only was abolishing slavery among the first things the confederacy was going to do after the war, but Abe wanted to send every African American to Panama! You've got to show every side of the secession because non of it is cut and dry. How would you like to be taxed "exporting" goods to your own country because you lived and worked in the south? Study up on state inequalities as the country grew to understand more fully what was going on. Slavery was NOT an issue at the beginning of the war, but was turned into THE cause the union soldiers were given to boost morale because they were being slaughtered and were giving up! The confederate soldiers nor their generals were villains, but land owners protecting their property and families. This documentary implies the south was going to invade the north, but Abe from the beginning wanted to quickly squash, through war, the rebelling states and restore the union by force. General Lee was even visited personally by Abe and was asked to lead the army of the union, but Lee declined saying he never thought his country would invade itself and his duty was to his home and his state- not because he wanted to save the institution of slavery. The civil war is very complicated and not cut and dry like this documentary portrays. In fact, the south had blacks fighting in their ranks. I have an adopted black brother who is even more a history buff than I and has even participated in reenactments as a confederate. When he arrived the historians were beside themselves telling him his knowledge of the war exceeded some of their peers who some just didn't know, but even those who deliberately leave those details out because it taints the history they want to show. He even dressed as a confederate to tour Gettysburg and was met with tons of compliments from experts and fellow reenactment participants. I really wanted to enjoy this show because I'm always trying to watch civil war documentaries when they're available. Here's my suggestion. If you want to learn about our civil war, go on a trip and visit museums and battlefields when you can. If you can't, watch the most historically accurate films ever made in Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. The books these films are based on are even better. If you read this far into this review, thanks. My parting words- visit the sites as the truth is preserved in most cases and don't watch this show.

The show lacks the proper representation of civil war battles. The soldiers seem to move like they're in some sort of Vietnam movie drama. There is no proper representation of civil war tactics. The civil war "uniforms" if you can call them such, are also terrible, deplorable even. They're not even close to looking like civil war soldiers. Was there even a historical consultant to work on the production? The acting is just a bad. The acting was similar to that of a low cost production high school class feature film. There was no consideration for the men who went through that conflict. It made the war look like a bunch of children playing soldier.