Customer Reviews

Civil War: America Divided

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an extremely in-depth look at the Civil War and covers many topics quite thoroughly. A minor gripe I had: while the use of reenactments of battles is not necessarily a bad thing (I'm a reenactor myself), when they use the same scenes over & over & over for many different battles it can get tiresome after a while! 3 1/2 stars.

Extremely in-depth look at the major battles of the Civil War. I would say this 10-part, 3 DVD set is worth the $5 I paid for it at the big box store. It is not well produced. Lots of use of re-enactment footage, but the same clips of footage are used over & over to coincide with descriptions of battles. I believe that ALL of the footage in these DVDs actually came from one re-enactment.... from the Perryville Reenactment, when it was the major reenactment of the year, a few years ago.

I purchased this set for $5 at a major chain store. I must say it's barely worth what I paid. It's poorly produced and the editing is shotty at best. The voicover and historical value is the only redeeming quality this set offers.

The re-enactments are not to my liking, but they're tolerable (when the same scenes aren't being repeated and repeated!)

Here's the kick...The credit segments at the end of each episode are over 2 minutes...what's up with that! So many credited people couldn't spin a decent product? This will never be shown on anything but some public access channel. Buy at your own risk.

Ken Burns this is NOT

I started out liking this series, the pre-war material is interesting and contains some factual material not typically mentioned in most Civil War coverage. As the war raged on, however, I became more and more lost in trivia. Not that trivia's bad. As a live-long civil war buff, I thrive on it, but in this series the details, particularly the tactical details of battles, quickly dominate the narrative. Battle maneuvers are covered in great detail, with only the briefest of introductions and summaries to put the battle into perspective of the whole war. And the tactical reportage of battles,without useful battlefield maps to enable the viewer to comprehend what's going on, is particularly annoying. That's less a problem with major battles most of us are familiar with, like Gettysburg or Vicksburg, but with the many lesser engagements in Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. that are covered in some detail in this series, one gets lost in the re-enactment trivia. When the narrator tells me that so-and-so "led his command to the top of the hill cheering wildly" and I have no visual idea of where the hill is, who's occupying it, or why it's important, it's just tedious. Others' comments about the re-enactments are apropos, too.

Was not real impressed with this one on the civil war. Not too well put together although the info in it is good.

THIS 10 PART, 3 DVD SET THOROUGHLY CAPTURES "THE BLOODIEST WAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY" FROM THE FIRING ON FORT SUMTER TO THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX.

The American Civil War pitted brother against brother, and in the end, it created a nation. Discover the issues in the unprecedented election of 1860, an election that tore a young nation apart.

Civil War: America Divided is a breathtaking 10-part journey into the bloodiest war in American history, and more than a retelling of history, it brings history to life. Through historical photos and masterfully crafted battlefield re-enactments, experience the war through the soldier's point-of-view. Civil War: America Divided takes you into the battlefields on American soil and explores the events that led to the Firing on Fort Sumter and on through to the surrender at the Appomattox Court House.

Episodes:

1. Two Nations
2. Shifting Fortunes
3. Advance and Retreat
4. Scales of War
5. It is Well That War is So Terrible
6. Give Them Cold Steel
7. Season of Change
8. If It Takes All Summer
9. Marching Through Georgia
10. Lost Cause

Bonus features include historic Civil War photo slide show.