Action ProjectThe War of the Union

Joshua Ott

Documentary Description The documentary I chose to watch

for this assignment was a three-part mini-series on Netflix, and produced by the Smithsonian Channel, titled Civil War 360. Each of the three 50 minute episodes showed the history of the entire civil war , start to finish, from a different point of view. One being from the Union, one the Confederacy, and another from the women, children and slaves.

This really helped me see why each side fought for the side they did and how each side saw the war, as was the purpose of the documentary. In regards the intended audience due to it showing all 3 perspectives, I feel that it really targeted and sympathized with everyone. That is, everyone that would want to watch a documentary about the civil war.

Documentary Validations Although almost everything in the

book was covered in the documentary, A few Validations of the documentary would be where they explained the secession of seven states following President Lincoln winning the election. Five weeks following his inauguration, South Carolina troops attack Fort Sumter and four more states leave the union within weeks, including Virginia. Another thing explained was the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation which although didn’t technically free all slaves in the south, since the confederates claimed that Lincoln had no right to do so, still allowed people in the south to disregard their duty to capture any slave not chaperoned by their master without proof of freedom.

With these choices, I really didn’t have any discrepancies. There were times I thought I found something here and there but as stated above, it was more my own assumptions that were disproved.

Movie Description The fictional movie I chose to watch for this

assignment was Gods and Generals. Although barely fictional, the selection for this title was not an easy decision, as there were so many others out there, that were more highly recommended; however, although I didn’t see any of the others, I don’t think any could have hit as many details and facts as this one. Right as I thought I found a mess-up or a liberty taken, I only shortly after realized, that it was me that had my info wrong. I had never seen a movie about the Civil War before, so it was interesting to see everything played out and really helped me get all my dates in order.

As for the purpose of the film, I would say probably partly the above, and partly the purpose for making any film, to entertain the viewer and to make money. The intended audience, although, could really be anyone that likes war movies, would probably have to be people that have a pretty good understanding of the Civil War. The reason I say this is because, other than private conversations that would not have been exactly documented, pretty much everything in this movie was side by side with the events that happened in real life.

Historical Events In the Movie The only Liberties that I can really

point out were the closed-door conversations that took place, as most of them were never fully documented. All other events in the movie seemed to match up with the content in our book or in the documentary.

The movie was barely considered fiction, so I was able to point out two historical events for this assignment in the first 15 minutes or so. One being that in the battle of Bull Run, other than it simply taking place, there was no standard uniform, nor definitive establishment of gray vs blue, as it wasn’t till after this war did they learn this lesson, due to multiple counts of friendly fire. A second being the battle of Fredericksburg and General Ambrose Burnside being relieved of duty.

RecommendationBoth the documentary and the movie were

very informative and I would recommend them to anyone that would want to learn more and have a better understanding about the civil war and the actions that took place.