One of my favorite documentaries, Ken Burns' Civil War was both moving and educational. After I watched this documentary, I became determined to watch every documentary by Burns. It'll take a while, but I've already watched over 100 hours of Burns' and I still can't get enough.

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Lee fought for confederates because he felt he owed it to Virginia, his home state. He had been offered to lead the Union army.

New York almost succeeded, because of anti black resentment mainly by the Irish.

Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday by Lincoln near the end.

Lee was a very impressive general.

The union established Arlington National Cemetery, a hugely important cemetery, in the front yard of Lee. To stick it to him.

Lincoln at first really was trying to keep the union together, at first.

It was important to the confederacy to get international recognition as a nation. They never got it.

A group of 60,000 union men went through Georgia and burned and destroyed everything in their path. It was very destructive. They wanted to destroy the supplies for the confederates, and to destroy the desire of the southerners to continue the war. He did the same thing to South Carolina. This was General Sherman.

The confederates essentially had a concentration camp where 33,000 union prisoners were starving. Looks like holocaust victims.

Blacks were not allowed to fight for the union for quite some time.

The war started at Fort Sumpter off South Carolina.

Near the end, the confederacy armed slaves and promised to set them free after the war.

Before the civil war, people used to say “the United States are” now they say “the United stats is”. It used to be thought of as a collection of independent states. That’s what the war changed.

Lincoln was killed just after the war. Days. First president to be murdered.

Technically, the war ended in Durham, NC, with the largest surrender of confederates. Not in Appomattox court house.

Booth was executed on July 7th.

For every 1 person who died of battle, 2 died of disease.

From West Wing. Apparently after the Civil War in order for veterans to get their pension, they had to travel all the way to DC personally and someone would have to go through all the civil records to find them in order to confirm that they are due a pension. The records were bound with red tape and that’s where the term comes from.