As a student of the Civil War with a degree specializing in The Civil War / Postbellum, I've always found this to be a pretty good documentary.

I always wished that I could have been there.

Been repeatedly watching this documentary for years. I love Ken Burns' work! <3 Ashokan Farewell iykyk beautiful song

THAT BEING SAID - @ the some of the folks in this comment section - If you want a documentary that aligns with your (legitimately terrifying) confederate beliefs then maybe next time don't go looking for your nonsense on a free version of a PBS documentary from like 20 years ago on internet archive?? Lmao

The United States and Democracy today?
Two old men. Confused in their words. They forget to take their medicine in the morning. They lie to the rest of the world and to themselves. And the American gets to choose the president? In Russia, the president chooses himself. He´s attacking tyrant and kill`s anyone he wants. Even russians.
Democracy globally is at risk.
Thank You for this series.

...or our constitutional republic will be.

Who would the Southern Slave Plantation owners support if they were alive today?

President Obama or Trump?

A vanilla wiped account of events.
In my opinion Lincoln was operating far beyond the boundaries of Executive Power at many times throughout the conflict. Were it not for his over inflated self image, he might not have dragged the entire country into a civil war, but instead have used politics and diplomacy to cool off an intense situation. Indeed, a situation that his own political stance had been central in bringing to a boiling point.
Emancipation. Sounds like a grand, enlightening term.
But setting the slaves free all at once, instead of by a more ordered plan, set up a condition of chaos that has never really ended for whites or for blacks, has it? Nor did Lincoln stick around to help sort out the mess. He gets assassinated, of course, making it impossible for him to have any input from that point forward.
I wouldn't name Lincoln as a great US president.
At best, he was prone to bad judgement and a grossly overindulged self image.
At worst, it's easy to see him as a calculating, narcissistic war monger and certainly a tyrant.
Probably both views are accurate.

Don't believe anything you see that relates this documentary to current politics. It could only be considered "progressive" if you live in the 1860s and unironically think slavery is/was good somehow. On the flipside, only the most Godless of commies would consider it "conservative", simply for approaching the subject from the perspective that many of the people who participated in the war had, on both sides of it, from all avenues of activity, which is that God was personally involved with the conflict. It is respectful of every subject and person it deals with, be they Yank or Confederate. If you can't handle the fact that history is full of examples of good people fighting for Evil causes, and that everyone involved in the war, whatever their ideology, was a human-- the same as you or I-- you are going to have a bad time.

Interesting, that at the end of the last episode a caption appears saying 'to be continued'. I know that Americans cannot leave things alone, but at least leave this alone.

I enjoyed watching this program. The old photos and the story behind them, i can get a better understanding of what was going on at that time.

Trumpists and their older incarnations can't cope when history isn't what they want it to be. Ignore them.. Ignore everybody... just watch it.

By far one of the most comprehensive depictions of the Civil War. I have watched this series a few times and have learned more than I did in high school. It documents both sides of the conflict. Over 600k men died during the war and we owe it to them all to watch this in its entirety. It gives a greater understanding of the personal lives and their stories.

skewed left