The Civil War: A Film By Ken Burns

The stage is set for war as the nation begins to tear apart. Commanding center stage are towering figures--Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.

1862 saw the birth of modern warfare and the transformation of Lincoln's war to preserve the Union into a war to emancipate the slaves.

Defeat hovers over the Union Army as President Lincoln prepares the landmark Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves. Finally with a victory at Antietam Creek, the bloodiest day of the war gives way to the dawn of emancipation.

While life in the South becomes more desperate, Northern opposition to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation strengthens. The war is at a fever pitch, and both sides strain with the weariness of so many years under siege.

The turning point of the war is reached at the Battle of Gettysburg. At Gettysburg’s cemetery, President Lincoln articulates the poignant hope “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

The Union’s General Grant and the Confederacy’s General Lee are a study in contrasts as they vie for victory. In one month’s time, their armies suffer more casualties than in three years of war, but the impasse continues.

The presidential campaign of 1864 finds a nation truly divided against itself, and Lincoln seems doomed to defeat. Unexpectedly, eleventh-hour victories sway the votes Lincoln’s way, and the flame of Confederate independence flickers out.

In the stillness of Appomattox Court House, Lee’s dramatic surrender to Grant finally unfolds. As the news echoes through Washington, a plan for the South’s revenge is hatched in the angry mind of a man named John Wilkes Booth.

The Union’s triumph quickly turns to sorrow. Just five days after victory, President Lincoln dies by the hand of John Wilkes Booth. This final episode surveys the fates of the people who left their indelible marks on this remarkable era.