Todos los episodios

Comenzando con una acusación mordaz de la esclavitud, este primer episodio evoca dramáticamente las causas de la guerra, desde el Reino del Algodón del Sur hasta los abolicionistas del norte que se opusieron a ella. Aquí están las cuestiones candentes de los derechos de la Unión y los Estados, John Brown en Harper's Ferry, la elección de Abraham Lincoln en 1860, el tiroteo en Fort Sumter y la jubilosa carrera a las armas en ambos lados. En el camino se presentan las principales figuras de la serie: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant y una gran cantidad de personajes menos conocidos pero igualmente vívidos. El episodio llega a su clímax con la desastrosa derrota de la Unión en Manassas, Virginia, donde ambos bandos ahora se enteran de que va a ser una guerra muy larga.

1862 vio el nacimiento de la guerra moderna y la transformación de la guerra de Lincoln para preservar la Unión en una guerra para emancipar a los esclavos. El segundo episodio comienza con las luchas políticas internas que amenazaron con inundar la administración de Lincoln y luego sigue la desafortunada campaña del general de la Unión George McClellan en la península de Virginia, donde su enorme ejército se encuentra con una fuerza confederada más pequeña pero infinitamente más ingeniosa. Durante este episodio somos testigos de la batalla de barcos acorazados, participamos de la vida en el campamento y vemos cómo la esclavitud comienza a desmoronarse. Conocemos a Ulysses S. Grant, cuyas hazañas llegan a un clímax sangriento en la Batalla de Shiloh en Tennessee. El episodio termina con rumores de la disposición de Europa a reconocer a la Confederación.

Este episodio traza los dramáticos eventos que llevaron a la decisión de Lincoln de liberar a los esclavos. Convencido en julio de 1862 de que la emancipación era ahora moral y militarmente crucial para el futuro de la Unión, Lincoln debía esperar una victoria para emitir su proclamación. Pero a medida que avanza el año, no hay victorias del Union, gracias a la brillantez de Stonewall Jackson y Robert E. Lee. El episodio llega a su clímax en septiembre de 1862 con la invasión de Maryland por parte de Lee. A orillas del arroyo Antietam tiene lugar el día más sangriento de la guerra, seguido poco después por el más brillante: la emancipación de los esclavos.

The nightmarish Union disaster at Fredericksburg comes to two climaxes that spring: at Chancellorsville in May, where Lee wins his most brilliant victory but loses Stonewall Jackson; and at Vicksburg, where Grant's attempts to take the city by siege are stopped. During the episode we learn of fierce Northern opposition to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the miseries of regimental life and the increasing desperation of the Confederate homefront. As the episode ends, Lee decides to invade the North again to draw Grant's forces away from Vicksburg.

This episode opens with a dramatic account of the turning point of war: the Battle of Gettysburg, the greatest ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. For three days 150,000 men will fight to the death in the Pennsylvania countryside, culminating in Pickett's legendary charge. This extended episode then goes on to chronicle the fall of Vicksburg, the New York draft riots, the first use of black troops, and the western battles at Chickamauga, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The episode closes with the dedication of a new Union cemetery at Gettysburg in November, where Abraham Lincoln struggles to put into words what is happening to his people.

Episode six begins with a biographical comparison of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and then chronicles the extraordinary series of battles that pitted the two generals against each other from the wilderness to Petersburg in Virginia. In 30 days, the two armies lose more men than both sides have lost in three years of war. With Grant and Lee finally deadlocked at Petersburg, we visit the ghastly hospitals north and south and follow General Sherman's Atlanta campaign through the mountains of north Georgia. As the horrendous casualty lists increase, Lincoln's chances for re-election begin to dim, and with them the possibility of Union victory.

The episode begins with the presidential election of 1864 that sets Abraham Lincoln against his old commanding general, George McClellan. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the Union itself: with Grant and Sherman stalled at Petersburg and Atlanta, opinion in the North has turned strongly against the war. But 11th-hour victories at Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and the Shenandoah Valley tilt the election to Lincoln and the Confederacy's last hope for independence dies. In an ironic twist, poignantly typical of the Civil War, Lee's Arlington mansion is turned into a Union military hospital and the estate becomes Arlington National Cemetery, the Union's most hallowed ground.

The episode begins with William Tecumseh Sherman's brilliant march to the sea, which brings the war to the heart of Georgia and the Carolinas and spells the end of the Confederacy. In March, following Lincoln's second inauguration, first Petersburg and then Richmond finally fall to Grant's army. Lee's tattered Army of Northern Virginia flees westward towards a tiny crossroads town called Appomattox Court House. There the dramatic and deeply moving surrender of Lee to Grant takes place. The episode ends in Washington where John Wilkes Booth begins to dream of vengeance for the South.

This extraordinary final episode of The Civil War begins in the bittersweet aftermath of Lee's surrender and then goes on to narrate the horrendous events of five days later when, on April 14, Lincoln is assassinated. After chronicling Lincoln's poignant funeral, the series recounts the final days of the war, the capture of John Wilkes Booth and the fates of the Civil War's major protagonists. The episode then considers the consequences and meaning of a war that transformed the country from a collection of states to the nation we are today.