The Making of "Gods and Generals" - Civil War Movie Documentary 

Being in this movie was great as Being Gettysburg I can't believe it's been 20 years

They couldn’t have been very selective. I knew many folks that participated and let’s just say that their impressions were less than stellar.

@@DouglasLyons-yg3lvWhat an unnecessarily nasty thing to write. Dreadful. Why people such as you ALWAYS have to appear , it simply mystifies me. And others. Delights you, does it, to be ‘ that awful idiot ‘ in the room, seething with jealous, an intolerable ‘ back seat driver ‘ know it all ‘wisdom ‘ ? I wonder how many times you’ve reveled in, say, telling a child “ There’s no such thing as Father Christmas “ ? Anyway, you can be proud that it’s people such as yourself that both wreck & spoil things for others,..as you can do little to nothing else,…and are ALWAYS the sort of wretches who make the world the place it is.

I like Edelman's score. I own it. I do not own Gettysburg. So there.

Thanks for tuning in!

I was a wardrobe person and had a great time.

The producers ruined it. It strayed too far from Shaaras book

Thank you for visiting!

Awesome, thanks!

Thank YOU!

Agreed!

Thanks for tuning in!

smoke detectors do save lives

Some critics actually said comparable things.

The movie was Confederacy Lost Cause propaganda and was generally paned by critics for that reason, among others.

Yes...the battle scenes are outstanding in this short film. I haven't seen the movie *Gods & Generals* since it came out, but from what I remember of the movie the battle scenes shown there did not capture what this short film was able to convey to the audience even when including the sound men and others not to be seen onscreen in the movie itself. The same problem was there is *Gettysburg.* Some of the battle scenes were very intense especially the sequence of attacks against Little Round Top featuring Jeff Daniels, but others did not have the camera positioned to capture the energy of the battle. The battles were staged well, but somehow the cinematography did not pick up with full force the magnitude of the action.

@@rickden8362 Well it was the truth if that’s what you can’t handle?

@@thomaswiseman1171 Google Lost Cause myth of the confederacy, that will explain it.

Hopefully this summer!

Jeff Shaara told us himself that there are no plans to film Last Full Measure.

Ted Turner bankrolled both Gettysburg and G&G. G&G lost money so Turner indicted he won’t fund the third in the trilogy. Also with all things Confederate not being vary popular nowadays with statues being torn down etc, I don’t think it would be made for that reason as well. Finally it would be extremely expensive although with modern CGI, they could use just a few hundred reenactors instead of thousands.

@@lowellwhite1603 yeah, it’s a shame that showing pride in being from the south is offensive to some people. it’s ridiculous.

@@gothard5 I was a Civil War reenactor for May years and was in the mini series North and South II, Glory and Gettysburg. During Pickett’s Charge week for three of the five days of shooting, if you wanted to participate, you had to go Confederate. I had no problem putting on the gray as did most of my friends although that was the last time I did. There were quite a few Federal reenactors who didn’t want to and just sat around camp or toured the battlefield until they finally used the Federals on Thursday. However, there are many reenactors in the South who refuse to do Union so at many re-enactments in the south, Rebels outnumber yanks by a large number. At 125 Chickamauga, we Yankees were outnumbered three to one. I went to an event at Champion Hill MS in the 80’s where 40 Yankee infantry were against 150 Confederate Infantry, 17 mounted cavalry and two cannon. We won the battle because the script called for it.

@@lowellwhite1603Confederacy lost, there’s no reason to support them.

Hi Erich, That cover belonged to my grandfather, a forty-year Navy man who loved the Navy with all his heart! His casket flag and some personal mementos stand next to the cover. This is him: navylog.navymemorial.org/frederick-david-0

Andy (producer for Reel History) Here, Just a cool piece of history. Jared's Grandfather was present on his ship for the invasion of Iwo Jima!

@@ReelHistory professor Jared, you look a lot like gramps. I bet you and your father look like twins.

@@ReelHistory That is beyond awesome!! I love how you keep his memory alive like that. We keep mementos in our CPO Mess with people that have gone before us so that we keep their legacy alive. There was a Navy Chief by the name of Christian Pike who was killed as a result of his wounds in Afghanistan in 2013 who was from Arizona. When he came home, our Mess adopted his mom and we were able to dedicate the door of our Chiefs Mess to Christian. It's an honor for us to keep his memory alive so he will never suffer that third death - we will not forget his name. Navy Chiefs are rooted in heritage, so any piece of history we can learn about is fascinating. I really hope you and I can meet sometime, because I think there is a lot we could discuss about heritage and history.

@@andrewc6602 That is amazing!! I wonder if he knew at the time how pivotal that battle would be, not just for WWII, but for the legacy of the Marine Corps and our nation.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Sears's work is quite good, though I tend to more so enjoy the personal and cultural aspects of Civil War history rather than the tactics. Many Civil War writers get bogged down in battlefield minutiae.

I did not realize until I just watched this video that it was Stephen Lang playing Stonewall Jackson. I thought at the time that I first watched *Gods & Generals* when it came out that whoever that was playing Stonewall Jackson made him come alive as later Daniel Day-Lewis would do in his portrayal of Lincoln. Both Laing and Jeff Daniels should have been nominated for Academy Awards for their portrayals of Jackson in *Gods & Generals* and Joshua Chamberlain in *Gettysburg.*

Are you familiar with the Lost Cause Myth, any opinions.

Beyond falling for it with the rest of society, Hollywood loves an underdog story!

@@ReelHistory A lot of people know the Lost Cause ideology is a lie, confederacy propaganda to cover for their desire to keep slavery. Shame on you.

@@rickden8362, why shame on us? Have you watched our three-part analysis of this movie?!

So true.

We have something quite special in the works for that.

The movie was Confederacy Lost Cause propaganda.

@@rickden8362 Hollywood is knee deep in all sorts of propaganda.

@@rickden8362 It looks like the real history to me. Where are the inaccuracies?

@@christophergraves6725 Google Lost Cause myth of the confederacy, that will explain it.

@@rickden8362 No, I need a specific list of historical inaccuracies in the movie from you.

They never made it

@@ReelHistory thank you for letting me know it was mentioned at end of one ov the dvds so I won't spend time looking for it was their any reason given to why thankyou

Quite true.

Interesting observations!

True. He was a heavily religious man.

Jeff is a Yankee

@@thomaswiseman1171 No, REALLY???

Please change your name to Thomas Weisenheimer.

Maybe he was praying that the editors would save it. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Yes, the reenactors in this were a special breeed.

That would be nice!

Great points. The Booth scenes are indeed incredibly pointless.

How is the movie "pro-South" exactly? It does focus on key battles that the South won overwhelmingly as it presents the background to both Joshua Chamberlain's involvement in the war and Jackson's. Jackson does carry the weight of the movie because he carried much of the weight in key battles, most notably Chancellorsville. That's what happened.

@@christophergraves6725 Really? The movie should be called “ The Stonewall Jackson Story” as the lions share of the movie focuses on him and his life and death. The extended version adds a pointless, and sympathetic, subplot about John Wilkes Booth. The 20th Maine scenes and Joshua Chamberlain seems to be an afterthought and some of that was cut in the theater version but added in the Director’s cut. “Gettysburg” was 60% Confederate while G&G was at least 75% or more. That lopsided southern slant, in my opinion is one reason why the third movie of the trilogy was never made and most likely won’t.

@@lowellwhite1603 Again, Jackson was a critical figure in the war and an admirable person along with his brilliance as a tactician. I do agree that the Northern side should have been presented more with scenes involving Burnside and Hooker. But let's face it, if they had it would hardly have looked good for the North.

@@christophergraves6725 All African-American persons in the film are portrayed as loyal and dedicated to their white southern brethren and are treated as members of the family, while the only racial slur in the film comes out of the mouth of a Union soldier. The pro-Southern agenda could not be more blatant and ahistorical.

We'll never know sadly!

Nope

It was very preachy--literally.

@@ReelHistory 100% agree. This movie was as bad as Gettysburg was great. Just a shame we don't get to see another solid Civil War movie.

A very memorable Ebert line!

Of course, a lot of slaves did have good relationships with the families who owned them. The slaves generally were treated not bad or pretty well. About a third of them were treated more roughly. Consider the extensive interviews with slaves after the war.

Sheen had a way better script to work with!

I concur! This movie super glorifies the slave holding south and Happy “servants” …. Very little pro-union scenes. Slavery is just not talked about. In 2001, Civil War reenacting (I started in 1988, still doing it in 2023 as a Federal Paymaster (Staff Major)), so Reenacting was slowly going down. It really started to drop in 2019 and COVID placed a hard punch. Cold Mountain and others are far more accurate.

I suppose!

And accurate history

I agree with most of your comments, but slavery was hardly the motive for most soldiers on Southern or Northern side. Lee and Jackson both opposed slavery, so the topic would not reasonably come up in their scenes. There is a scene with Jackson and a slave in which Jackson is critical of slavery, but it was inserted unnecessarily I suspect to simply point out Jackson's opposition to slavery anticipating a comment like your's. Yes slavery was the hot button issue that set off the war. But most Southern soldiers were not fighting for slavery since they did not own or hope to own slaves. Most Northern soldiers only later considered slavery much at all and even then their interest depended on how the battles were going. Their main motivation for fighting was to preserve the Union.

@Christopher Graves There is no evidence that either Lee or Jackson opposed slavery in any meaningful way. Lee is sometimes misrepresented as antislavery because of an 1856 letter in which he acknowledged the institution to be an evil but also described the "painful discipline" as necessary for blacks and said the end of slavery should be left in God's hands rather than be effected through "controversy". As for Jackson, a fictional conversation with Jim Lewis doesn't meet the burden of proof either. I would further argue that no one who willingly threw in their lot with the Confederacy could truly be considered opposed to slavery. It was not simply a "hot button issue," but the very cause for which the Confederate states seceded, something they made abundantly clear in their declarations of secession. Regardless of the individual motives of soldiers, the fact remained that they were fighting for a government established for the explicit purpose of preserving the institution, and they would have all known it. Similarly, the individual motives of Union soldiers didn't change the fundamental ideology of the Confederacy either. Their desire to fight for the Union and not necessarily against slavery shouldn't distract us from why the seceded states left said Union in the first place.

@@rielleyduckworth6066 I might also point out that Lee and Jackson also opposed secession. They did oppose slavery in principle. Lee inherited a couple of slaves from his mother at her death whom he cared for in their old age. A similar situation unfolded for Jackson. Later Lee inherited his father-in-law's slaves and refused to free them after being promised that they would be freed by the father-in-law at his death. So, Lee like Jefferson needed the labor and did not act according to his beliefs. Lee was in fact in favor of freeing the slaves and then repatriating them back to Africa. He thought they were better off having been raised in a much more developed society, but believed them to be too different and too resentful to ever be fully assimilated into American society as equals. Jackson at some danger to himself educated slaves and set up Sunday schools with Bible reading for them. Jackson saw slaves as moral equals given his devout Presbyterian faith. There is a big difference on why Mississippi and Georgia left the union due to the influence of "Fire Eaters," who were as fanatical as many of the Abolitionists in the North who had run Southern abolitionists out their movement in the 1840's, and the rest of the South as well as average Southerners. In the 1830's, there were more abolition societies following Jefferson in the South than in the North. The fanaticism that led to continual attacks on anything Southern turned any hope of phasing out slavery nearly impossible. As H.W. Brands has observed, "The Abolitionists gave the South no where to go." Notice that in the Mississippi resolution that enacted secession that slavery and "the world economy" were given as reasons for secession. If slavery had been abolished suddenly, which it was five years later, then the Southern economy would have been devastated as it was not only by the war but by the sudden change in the labor force. Slavery should have been gradually abolished over time by negotiation and allowances to move to other sources of labor. This is still a problem today with the need for cheap labor in agriculture to support the broader population. That is why there are controversies over mass immigration. It's not such an easy issue. I certainly agree though that slavery is immoral. The economic issues here also went beyond slavery. The key issue was whether to have a Hamiltonian urban industrial society or a Jeffersonian rural/small town agrarian society. Slavery was the hot button issue in this broader disagreement that included tariffs. The main motivation again for most Southerners was not to preserve slavery. The upper band of Southern states went out of the Union because Lincoln raised an army against the South. Lincoln grossly misplayed the time before the war. He should not have antagonized the states that seceded later and should have been more willing to work something out with the states that had seceded after the Fire Eaters influence had wained. This episode shows how a small minority can influence political policy. Average soldiers were quite aware of slavery, but that was not their motive for fighting in most cases. Again, the vast majority did not own slaves. They were fighting primarily because their homeland was being invaded and their way of life threatened. They were correct that their well-being would be harmed by an aggressive invasion by the Federal government.

Thank you for a very thoughtful and knowledgeable answer to these difficult issues. You are a true scholar of the Civil War and the events and personalities surrounding it.

@@Redwhiteblue-gr5em I'm not sure who you're replying to, if it was to Mr. Graves, his diatribe was standard Lost Cause Myth, a rationale to hide the South's desire to retain slavery as the true cause of the CW. Don't be fooled by the wordy verboseness for real logic. FACT: The South started preparing for secession/war the minute Lincoln was elected President.

9/11.

A missed opportunity indeed.

@@ReelHistory @twinsboy_3410 Why won't someone make this movie for mature audiences in the theater? The history is truly being misrepresented by sticking to this G rating safe for TV context. Lee gives an iconic line while watching Fredericksburg, "It is well that war is so horrible; or we should grow too fond of it", then cutting to the tamest example of 19th century infantry receiving fire from 19th century artillery. As a young teen I made a flip book movie of stick figure men taking a round of canister that was more accurate. The action shown after Lee delivers that line makes it appear like Lee doesn't know what the horror of a civil war battlefield looks like, and neither shall anyone who watches this movie. Matthew Brady's exhibit, "The Dead of Antietam" was reviewed by the NYT, who wrote: “Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war.” 150-some years later Ron Maxwell has obscured and masked that reality for a TV rating. This must be rectified. There should be no further talk of 'honoring' our past and their sacrifice until it is.

At what point did the script "blame" anyone for slavery?? The Chamberian Bros and the AoP weren't at war with any of the countries you mentioned. Why would they come up in conversation, except to say they all once HAD slqvery but had since abolished it? Also of the countries you mentioned, which ones had slavery in 1863? I think the answer is none. Therefore if you added the confederacy to that group of geographic regions, how is it hypocrisy to say that of the group ONLY the confederacy had slavery? I think you're holding onto your lost cause too tightly

A simple search in Google shows that while Britain as a country abolished slavery in the 1830's, slavery was still practiced in its colonies and protectorates for a long time afterward. India, for example, still showed slaves in its 1891 census. That's well after the CW.

We agree!

I don't agree. God's and Generals was much better. Including the family life of Stonewall was very interesting. I'm glad he was focused on in this movie. Robert Duval was a much better Lee, and because I'm related to Lee, that was important to me.

@@dianawalker1622 To each their own.

We invite you to check out our three-part review of the film to hear our thoughts on the movie.

It perhaps shouldn't have even been made then, at least as it was written.