The Civil War
The Civil War mainly talks about the characters and background of civil war, the cause, and the real story that happened at that time. The audience for this documentary is students, African Americans and Americans, because this is a great documentary that shows the pictures during the time of civil war and explanations by authoritative historians, so it is very helpful for students to organize the timeline and story when they study. Also, it is very important for people get to know better of what happened during that period and have a deeper understanding of society.
This documentary records the civil war, the director wants to pass to the audience the idea of civil war, the issue of different factions and races, it has many different factors that lead to civil war. People can improve society as they know it, we can learn from the experience, and learn from the mistakes, we should promote the development of the culture, therefore we can improve the society. Before I watched this film, I learned about the topic of civil war in high school, I was curious about the life during the war. In this documentary, I saw the details of their life from the pictures, and it is very painful.
The battle started between Northern and Southern. Lincoln was the president during the period, he promised not to interfere in slavery, but he didn’t want any states to secede. Civil war started at 4:30 a.m. in April 1861, General Pierre Gustare Toutant Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter, and southern won with no one hurt. Later, Virginia seceded on April 15. Then Lincoln calling for volunteers and making war on secession then on July 9. first war began, 5000 soldiers’ casualties, the southern won the battle at Manassas. although they lose the fight, the gov leaders still refuse to receive the slaves as soldiers.
I really like the interview, sound effects, camera work and special effects in this video because it makes me feel like I was in the situation when I hear those sounds. But due to technical problems at the time, the pictures are a little blurred. From the interview, I feel like we are very lucky that live in a peaceful world, and we should respect everyone.
“Senator William H. Seward of New York famously described what he called an ‘irrepressible’ conflict between opposing and enduring forces that could only end once the United States became ‘entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free labor nation.’”(Earle, 2011) I agree with this opinion very much. I think the civil war was inevitable, because it is very difficult to have a unified opinion for a country. When the opinions of two opposite sides are strongly inconsistent, war usually begins. It is the way to make the other people obey, so I think the civil war was hard to avoid. It was very difficult to have a unified opinion of slavery. “Civil War combat was a thoroughly terrifying experience for inexperienced volunteer soldiers, a violent assault on all the senses that promised injury or death at any moment.”(Davis, 2021) This shows the impact by the civil war on people are unprecedented. The sudden war caused the soldiers on the pain of mental and physical. The unstable life made them panic and fear their own destiny.
I was surprised when I saw pictures of slaves’ daily lives and injured skin. The most impressive part for me is when I saw the letter that Sullivan Ballou, who is a soldier of the civil war, sent for his wife: “Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing, but omnipotence can break, and yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.” I saw his love for his wife and the responsibility for the country. He loved his wife deeply, but he had to shoulder his mission to the battlefield, it reveals that the cruelty of war, death and parting, pain and sickness, there were many families broken by the war.
I would recommend this film to my friends, because it introduced the civil war very clearly, and I can see the details from those pictures and feel the pain of them, but I think the disadvantage of the documentary is that the photos are not clear, it doesn’t give much information.
Works cited
Earle, J. (2011, April). The Political Origins of the Civil War. OAH Magazine of History, (2), 8-13.
Burns, K., Ward, G. C., & Burns, R. (Producer). (1990), & McCullough, D. G. (Writers). The civil war: A film by Ken Burns [Motion picture]. United States: PBS.
Davis, A., James ‘THE BRASS MOUNTED ARMY’: CIVIL WAR BANDSMEN AND HUMOR.” 2021, web-b-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=a78b8eae-cc5d-4927-b809-eed8cd5e6fcb%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=149428035&db=a9h.
