Monday, May 26, 2014

Death and the Civil War—PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/death/

The greatest loss of life of any U.S. war was the Civil War, where 1 in 5 Americans experienced the loss of someone they knew.  There was no system for burying the dead at that time as a responsibility of the government.  This film is fascinating history.  It is also on-line.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Death and the Civil War is an extraordinary documentary. My great grandfather fought in that war, and my grandmother talked about it often. Thank you so much for giving me so much insight into their lives.

Anonymous said...

This documentary is very bias in my opinion. It is all about pro- northern views. Always remember there are two sides to every story. I respect the documentary for the loss of men on both sides but it portrays the southern people and soldiers in more of a negative light. I had 3 Great great grandfathers fight and die as proud confederate soldiers. I AM HONORED BY THERE SACRIFICE!!! I AM NOT ASHAMED AT ALL OF MY HERITAGE AND FAMILY!!! I know the next post will bring up slavery. So with that said 1st off a large part of southern soldiers including my Grandfathers were too poor to to afford slaves so the purpose of there WAR was not slavery but a simple fact of STATES RIGHTS, and the fact that thousands of troops marched from the North in to there back yard and guess what... They defended themselves wouldn't you. I will say slavery was wrong 100% but lets not get caught up on the South. Lets talk about the American government who had slavery for 100yrs before the civil war under the American flag not Confederate!!! If the south had won the war, slavery would have ended due to the new uses of factories. Thats a fact! My last statement to all who read this is: "The History books are written by those who win wars not by the people or ones who lost it" Think about that!!!!!

Norma said...

I actually agree with most of your points. In libraries we say to the victors belong the archives. One thing left out of most history books is that free blacks owned more slaves proportionately than whites, especially in the south. I blogged about that a few months ago. That said, most of the documentary was about how before the Civil War there was little involvement in the federal government on how to take care of the outcomes of war, like illness, injury and death on a massive scale. Every Memorial Day we have services at the Confederate cemetery on Johnson's Island on Lake Erie.