User Reviews

In this, the penultimate episode, Sherman marches to the sea and then north through the Carolinas, while Grant lays siege to Petersburg, Virginia, and finally occupies a devastated Richmond. Lee's depleted army is surrendered a short distance away.

It's at least as well planned and executed as any of the other segments of this outstanding series, but a couple of observations might be in order.

One is that an important attempt to break through Lee's lines around Petersburg, called the Battle of the Crater, is dealt with rather quickly. The Union troops had engineered a potential victory by digging under the Confederate fortifications but the attempt was blown off by upper-echelon ignorance, carelessness, and outright cowardice. Of course, not every battle can be covered in detail but consider that an hour or so passed while the Union troops shivered and waited for the big explosion. Nothing. Finally, Lt. Jacob Douty and Sgt. Harry Reese crawled some 450 feet into the tunnel, located the break in the fuse, relit it, and had to scramble back out before it blew. The incident isn't mentioned in the film but if anyone is looking for a soldier's point of view, they only need to put themselves in the shoes of Douty or Reese.

Another point is that the quotes, here and elsewhere, from General Sherman present an impression of procellous temperament and hate-filled warmongering. He was probably given to some excess in his enthusiasm by a severe affective disorder. At the same time he must have had Southern friends, having taught before the war at the college that was to become Louisiana State University. And it should be kept in mind that his mission in the South was identical to that of the U. S. Air Force's strategic bombing campaign in World War II -- not to inflict the maximum casualties on troops or civilians but to damage or destroy their ability to wage war.

A final point, illustrated in the moving description of Lee's surrender to Lee at Appomatox Court House, is that throughout the war, Southern values reflected what's been called the culture of honor, while the North generally did not. "Culture of honor" isn't just a catch phrase. It's been measured and demonstrated in experiments by social psychologists. Boiled down, it means a sensitivity to slights, a willingness to respond with manly violence, and a deep respect for ritual. So many of Jefferson Davis's officers had issued challenges that he was at pains to see that they were posted at a distance from each other. At their meeting, Lee appeared in immaculate full-dress uniform, while Grant wore a mud-spattered Private's coat. In a sense, the defeat in the Civil War itself was an insult to Southern honor and, to some extent, it's still felt. It's possible to buy bath towels at tourist stops with patterns showing an old Confederate soldier trudging along carrying the Stars and Bars with the caption, "Hell, no, we won't forget." That's been changing recently, especially in the cities. The upside of the culture of honor is that people tend to be very polite to one another, and for good reason.

None of this affects the quality of the series itself, which can't be too highly recommended.