TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/092490/0924250.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.7 KB | 81 lines

                                                                                VIDEO, Page 73

The Terrible Remedy


By RICHARD ZOGLIN

THE CIVIL WAR
PBS; Sept. 23-27, 8 p.m. on most stations


    Awful superlatives issue forth like cannon fire from PBS's
documentary series The Civil War. More than 620,000 Americans
died during the conflict, more than in World Wars I and II and
Vietnam combined. At the Battle of Antietam alone, 23,000 were
killed or wounded, the bloodiest single day of the war. By 1864
the Union Army was the largest in the world, and Washington the
most fortified city on earth. The Andersonville, Ga., prison
housed so many Union POWs that it ranked as the fifth most
populous city in the Confederacy.

    But the impact of The Civil War lies less in its bombardment
of fact than in its eloquence. Was it the gravity of the event
that inspired politicians, generals and common citizens alike
to such memorable words? "It is well that war is so terrible,"
said Robert E. Lee during the Battle of Fredericksburg. "We
should grow too fond of it." Abraham Lincoln was inspiring even
in his black moods ("If there is a worse place than hell, I am
in it," he said at one low point) and his caustic ones. "If
General McClellan does not want to use the Army," he complained
of his dithering military chief, "I would like to borrow it
for a time." William Tecumseh Sherman, preparing to march on
Atlanta, exhorted, "War is the remedy our enemies have chosen,
and I say let us give them all they want."

    Filmmaker Ken Burns, director of acclaimed documentaries on
Huey Long and the Brooklyn Bridge, has collected what seems
like every visual scrap from the period: photographs,
paintings, newspaper clippings, as well as present-day footage
of key battle sites. To them he has wedded excerpts from
contemporary diaries, letters and speeches, read by people as
diverse as Jason Robards, Jody Powell and George Plimpton. A
spare but evocative narration by David McCullough is
supplemented by commentary from historian Shelby Foote and
others. The result is not just fine history but a pensive epic
about the nation's great catastrophe.

    At 12 hours, all stuffed into one week, The Civil War may
be a daunting prospect for viewers, especially since the first
episode is a bit slow revving up. But the momentum builds. One
could hardly imagine a more comprehensive or artfully crafted
TV survey of the war. The series deals with social and
political ramifications as well as battlefield tactics; the
lives of common soldiers along with great generals. There are
segments on food and drink at the front lines, the participation
of blacks in the Union Army, the role of women and the use of
spies. The series has a special knack for resonant details and
lucid generalizations. The unprecedented number of casualties,
explains Foote, was due to the fact that war's technology had
outstripped tactics: bayonet charges were outmoded, but few
generals realized it. After its conquest by the Union Army on
the Fourth of July in 1863, the city of Vicksburg, Miss., did
not celebrate the holiday for another 81 years.

    Most impressively, The Civil War manages to convey the
horror of war in understated words. After the calamity of
George Pickett's charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, General
Lee asked the shaken commander to regroup his division to
repulse a possible counterattack. "General Lee," Pickett
replied, "I have no division now." Following one bloody battle,
a Massachusetts soldier's diary was discovered with this entry:
"June 3, 1864, Cold Harbor, Virginia. I was killed." With
American soldiers poised to fight once again, vignettes like
these strike the strongest chord of all.