The most famous and still among the best is one of the very first, the D.W. Griffiths spectacular production The Birth of a Nation. Controversial because of the view it takes on the Ku Klux Klan, Griffiths’ 1915 film conveys the particular horror of civil war in that family is pitted against family, friend against friend. The civil war ended in 1865 and people who were young at that time probably saw The Birth of a Nation – it was just 50 years later that it was made. How would you feel seeing the terrible things that happened when you were a child graphically brought life in the startling new technology of movies?

Historical reality has often given way to dramatic effect in civil war films, like so many other movie sub-genres. They terrible events of the time simply become a vehicle for an adventure or a romance, or they might be used to make a political or social statement.

Yet the war continues to grip the American nation’s imagination and attention, as witness just some of the movies that have been made about it.

Twelve years after Griffiths’ masterpiece, Buster Keaton starred in The General, a great film in its own right but pure fiction for which the war is a means to an end.

Louisa May Alcott’s famous book Little Women was first published in 1868, when the war was still very recent history. It has been turned into film at least four times, the first in 1933 starring Katherine Hepburn and Joan Bennett. This was a work of intense detail, striving to give audiences a hint of what everyday life was like in the mid-19th century as the women of a family coped alone while the men are away at war.

The all-time box office war winner has to be Gone With the Wind, the 1939 melodrama which makes up in romantic fiction what it lacks in historical realism. However, it perfectly catches the note of Southern confidence about their cause – and the misplaced belief on both sides that the war would only last a few months.

Since then there have been at least 34 movies based on the civil war, some much better than others. That’s about one every two years, which speaks volumes for Hollywood’s enduring interest in the conflict between North and South.

Two of the most enduring were both made in 1965 – Shenandoah and Major Dundee. But, again, neither is true to the events of the time. The closest movie to historical veracity is Gettysburg, released in 1993. It lasts a bum-numbing six hours, but if you want accuracy it’s a small price to pay. The battle lasted three days, so the movie could have been longer!

A personal favourite is Glory, the 1989 telling of the story of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first unit to be made up entirely of African-Americans, with white officers. It is partly based on the letters of the commanding officer and is much closer to the reality of the war than almost any other film. It is also gripping and intense, and rightly earned Denzel Washington an Oscar.

References
Only Good Movies, http://www.onlygoodmovies.com

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com

by Aaron Klass

Excerpted from “The Late Great Uunpleasantness”.

The American Civil War was fought from April 1861 to April 1865. It affected millions of people and cost more than 620,000 men their lives. Because of this Late Great Unpleasantness, the United States became not just a collection of sovereign states, but a unified country with a strong Federal government.

I have been a student of this war for almost fifteen years now. My research and expertise revolve mostly around the life of the common soldier as he marched, fought and, in many cases, died for his cause.

2011 was the 150th anniversary of the first year of the war, beginning, many argue, with the Confederate attack of Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor on the early morning of April 12, 1861. This attack was the result of a long tradition of political division between Northern and Southern politics. While the politics of the era are not my forte nor the focus of the blog, it is important to at least highlight the source of contention. The economy of the southern states was built on an agricultural engine that was driven by African slavery. The northern states were more industrialized in many ways, the population was more concentrated and more factories existed. Slavery, in many northern states, had already been outlawed. The steam engine had only recently become the most efficient way of transporting people and goods across the country, and 85% of the railroads in the whole of the United States were built and operating in the North. The rural lifestyles of many southerners meant that they felt it was their own prerogative to decide what laws governed them. They also saw the northern abolitionist movements as a threat to their livelihoods. If they slaves were freed, they feared, then their economy would collapse. The geographically tight knit population of the north tended to view the Federal Government as the sovereign power in the country. This disagreement over the sovereignty of the state governments or the federal government was as old as the country itself, but it took 84 years for that disagreement to erupt into war.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to presidency of the United States in November of 1860. A Republican from Illinois, a northern state, he was deeply mistrusted by southern Democrats and in December 1860 South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. Southern statesmen hated Lincoln enough to withdraw from the country, fearing that his Republican politics would force the states to submit to Washington. The rest of the Confederacy followed South Carolina’s example. By February 1, 1861 Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas had all withdrawn from the Union and the Confederate States of America was established on February 4, 1861.

Hostilities between the United and Confederate States opened, as I mentioned above, at Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Rebel guns under the command of Pierre Beauregard fired on the fort on the morning of April 12th, 1861. Though there were no casualties in this fight, it inaugurated an era of war that would last for five long, bloody years.

Following the attack on Sumter, the state assemblies of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina also voted to join the rebellion.

The standing army of the United States at the outbreak of the war was small, with no more than 20,000 men stretched from California and Oregon to Maine. Lincoln, at the opening of hostilities, called for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to put down the rebellion. 250,000 volunteers answered the call and the states set to work organizing regiments which could be sent south. General Winfield Scott, known affectionately as “Old Fuss and Feathers” was placed in command of the Union army of the Potomac even though he was too fat to sit a horse. A plan was made to blockade southern ports and march the army south to face the rebels on their own land. The assumption was that once the rebels saw how serious the Northern men were, that they would back down and rejoin the Union.

Southern men also swarmed to serve their country. They also thought that once the northerners saw how serious they were that they would back down. Neither side expected that the war would last longer than nine months.

All of the scrambling to organize and reorganize the country for war meant that much of the fighting of 1861 was small scale actions. July 21st, 1861 is one of the major exceptions. 35,000 troops under Union Commander Irving McDowell crossed the Potomac into Virginia with the intention of capturing Manassas Junction, a major rebel railroad hub. Confederate commanders Joseph Johnston and Pierre Beauregard met them there and the first major battle of the war began. It was fought throughout the day and earned Thomas J. Jackson the nickname “Stonewall”; a recognizable nickname even today. 5,000 men were killed, wounded, or went missing in that battle. It ended with the whole Union army running back north to Washington. While the decisive victory on the field lay in Rebel hands it became shockingly and painfully clear to both sides that the war would not end quickly.

More reorganizing and organizing followed the carnage at Manassas (called Bull Run by Union men). McDowell was replaced by the dashing George B. McClellan and Beauregard was promoted to General in the rebel army. The end of 1861 was characterized by everyone in the country buckling down for the storm to come.

December 31, 2011 marked last day of the 150th anniversary of this important year in American history. Starting January 1, I will be updating the blog with postings to mark the 150th anniversaries of events during the war. I apologize that I could not go into more detail as far as the first year of conflict was concerned, as I only came up with the idea to do this the other day. I hope that you will forgive me and that you enjoy what will henceforth be a day to day account of the Civil War.

http://lategreatunpleasantness.wordpress.com/

The Civil War was a time of immense horror and destruction. The weaponry of the Civil War era was devastatingly accurate, a technological advance that would reshape the way wars were fought well into the 20th century. The wanton destruction which was fostered by these weapons was juxtaposed by the intense compassion of the participants, who, even in the face of hellish battlefield landscapes retained their humanity and performed acts of courage and generosity under unimaginable circumstances.

I have been a student of the Civil War for most of my life. I have forgotten more about this war than many are likely ever to learn. Even so, I have no reasonable explanation for what draws me to this period of turmoil.

The 150th anniversary of the secession of South Carolina passed on December 20th, 2010. This date marked the beginning, at least for me, of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. I marked the passing of other important dates from the first year of the war, the anniversaries of the attack on Ft. Sumter, the establishment of the Confederacy, the First Battle of Bull Run, mostly by letting my friends know what the date was. By the end of 2011 I realized that I would like to do more to commemorate the passing of dates which hold so much meaning for me, and I wanted to be able to share that meaning with strangers, as well as friends and loved ones.

I decided, with lots of help from friends and family, that I would undertake a large writing project. A project that would act as a real-time news feed on the events of 150 years earlier, and also as a repository for the knowledge of the period that I do have, as it’s only doing me any good if that information only lives in my head. The result is “The Late Great Unpleasantness”, titled after a lesser known name for the war used by Americans after the cessation of hostilities.

By using mostly primary sources annotated from my own knowledge, I hope to paint a picture of life during the Civil War that is engaging, horrifying, and inspiring. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’m enjoying writing it.

Even though I’ll be writing this piece for some time, there is no way that I’ll be able to discuss everything that I know about the American Civil War. If any of my readers should desire more information about any of the potentially millions of topics that I could be discussing pertaining to this war, please feel free to get in touch with me. I love talking about this stuff.

Thank you for your interest, and enjoy “The Late Great Unpleasantness”!

http://lategreatunpleasantness.wordpress.com/

I was born and raised up North.  Well, that depends on your definition of the North.  The “North” is broken up into three different parts, the Northwest, the Mid-West, and the Northeast.  So for me the North is not the same as it is for someone in New York or Massachusetts.  In any event, my Midwestern upbringing talked about slavery in the most abstract terms; the South was fully invested into slavery, had no other economic recourse, and the Civil War was all about the South holding onto their backwards way of life and succeeding from America, which probably should have happened.

Yet when you speak about the South, which South are you really talking about?  The Southwest, which is as close to the West coast that you can get, the Southeast, which is what people are typically referring to when they say the South, or the Mid-Atlantic, of which people still, to this day, debate which parts are more “Northern” or “Southern”?  The state of Virginia, or should I say, the Commonwealth of Virginia, is in an interesting place now, and it was back then.  Virginia did not succeed when the rest of the South did, but afterwards, and was not really interested in getting involved into the Civil War initially.  Virginia was also the largest slave state; more Blacks were slaves in Virginia than in any other state.

Ignorance is one thing, but refusing to learn from the lessons of history is quite another.  The country had been divided into this Yankee/Confederate mindset, when the truth is often a lot more complicated than that.  The South did not have a backwards society, it had more of an independent, isolationist way of doing things.  For all of the wonder of technological advances up North, and the industrial society, the South still brought in more money, off of free labor, and the industrial revolution could never match the profits of free labor.  At least it could not back then, but it could it do so right now?

What would the South look like today if slavery still persisted?  Better yet, what would America look like if we were still enslaved?  Would technology from the North be brought in to make the slaves more efficient?  Would being whipped, and life in slave quarters of the masters house be replaced by guns and more sophisticated, systematic, forces of intimidation, and large housing projects?

Would it be possible for Black people to work the same jobs that Blacks initially fled the South to work in the North, in the South for free?  Think about the jobs that a lot of us do for minimum wage, or at best, twice what we can make for minimum wage and then think about a society in which we were forced to do the labor for free without compensation.  In the forties this would have meant being a secretary for free, in the sixties and seventies working in a factory for free, in the nineties and the last decade it could have meant working in a call center for free.  We think that the South would have went without any technological progress, without electricity, without modern civilization because of slavery but we really do not know this to be the case.

What is more likely, is that despite the morally reprehensible environment of slavery, that some companies would have been okay with it because they could get free labor whereas they could not in the North.  Companies could simply operate under different names in order to prevent themselves from being attached to slavery.  Another consideration, is that the South could have established their own corporations, whose headquarters were in the South, that had nothing to do with the North.  If the South had won the war, and then succeeded from the North and created their own county, this reality could be sustainable.

Why would the South continue to live in the seventeenth century when the technology exists for a modern existence?  The only thing that was primitive about the South, were race relations.  It is arguable whether the development of the North; high rises, living close together, mass public transportation, was actually progressive.  This is an ongoing debate that continues today, it really depends on who you ask, as to what answer you will receive.

It should also be noted that there are smaller (physically), Southern cities that are built out in the same fashion as Northern cities are.  Miami, Roanoke, Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, and Charlotte come to mind.  Were Blacks necessarily treated any better in any of these towns, or are the towns the way that they are because of the contributions of African-Americans?

Just how resilient is Black America?  Without the war, without the Emancipation Proclamation, without the economic considerations, without the morally reprehensible climate of slavery could we have brought about the end of slavery on our own, or did we need assistance in doing so?  Was it all inevitable, or was the saving grace of God our only way out of such evil?

Whereas I had initially told myself that I would never move to the South, that I did not want to hear anything about the Civil War, and that I would get angry to watch something about slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow, or the Civil Rights movement I see things a bit differently now.  The anger does not accomplish anything.  Part of who we are is because of slavery, and part is in spite of it.  At the same time, when Blacks accomplished so much, with so little, where are we now when there are more tools and resources at our disposal than ever before?  Why do we continue to stay on welfare, why are we staying in poorly built Section 8 housing, why are we looking to Habitat for Humanity to help us out why are we still in housing projects.  None of these were built with love, none of it was built with residents in mind.  All were built to house us as prisoners.  A prison that you can freely walk out of, but one that you willingly walk back into.  We do not need the taxpayers to do anything for us, we want the taxpayers to do something for us because we feel entitled, that it is the civic duty of taxpayers to support us, because of what happened to us 400 years ago.  The ironic thing about it is, none of them wanted a handout, because they knew the power that was given to the one that was giving the handout.

They got free clothing and shelter, was forced to work, and was beat in the process just to stand by and watch someone get raped, and someone else get lynched.  We get free clothing and shelter, are forced to do a minimum of work, and get locked up and beat in prisons, just to stand by and watch people get raped, and someone else killed by the State.  Nothing has changed.  They were divided by skin color, we are divided socioeconomically, intellectually; and of course we choose to divide ourselves by skin color.   Some of you are still searching for something, written somewhere, to prove that life is better for light skinned people.  You will continue searching until you die.

Things are done on a level that none of us can prove anything, and we just look stupid, and we come come across as though we are crazy.  The whips are invisible, so where do we go from here?  Slavery would not benefit anyone in this day and age, and a better system has been put in its place, one in which African-Americans oppress each other.  So why do we continue to do it; are we institutionalized, is it the only thing that we know, is it something that we will ever rise from?

                Throughout the south, the idea of slavery was accepted, and slaves were used by rich farm owners for manual labor.  On the other hand, the northern states had banned slavery almost completely.  The argument of slavery came to a head when the case of Dred Scott was decided and it was ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that slaves were allowed to be anywhere throughout the north and south.  Adding to the problem, the now heavily populated California enters as a free state, and the Fugitive Slave Act comes into play.  The act declared that northern people must capture runaway slaves that escape from the hands of the south.  This infuriated the north, and lead to extremely high tensions between them and the south.

                Tying in with the beliefs on slavery, another very influential reason that pushed for war was the dispute on whether slavery should spread west to states such as California.  The United States acquired a very large amount of land from the Mexican-American war, and whether or not the states formed from this territory should be free was a big idea.  A temporary solution to this was the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery north of a certain line in the United States.  This was repealed in what is known as the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854 and brought the start of what is now known as ‘Bleeding Kansas,’  and was a preview of what was to come in the war ahead. 

                The last push that probably made the start of the Civil War most inevitable was the propaganda against slavery and the attacks on it.  Pieces of work such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped the northerners that did not have a strong feel on either side of the dispute move towards the side of abolition. The book depicted the life of a black slave who is in the end beaten to death by his cruel owner.  The southern people also started to feel that their way of life was in danger when the abolitionist John Brown attempted to raid a weapon arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia.  His plan was to lead an armed rebellion with slaves after he had seized the weapons from the store.  Southern people felt that this was an attack on their way of life and were furthermore pushed to secede and start the war.

                Many things contributed to the start of the Civil War.  The most apparent reasons include the beliefs on slavery, the westward movement of slaves, as well as propaganda against slavery.  These things made the war inevitable.  The United States was in so much of a downward spiral that not even a great compromiser, such as Henry Clay, could fix its problems. 

Image by ♪_Lisa_♪ via Flickr

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Image by 0ccam via Flickr

nks!

Image via Wikipedia