Tune in Thursday, June 12 at 8:00 p.m., for a two-hour American Experience special on the Civil War and its impact for generation of Americans that survived it, then watch the fourth episode of Civil War: The Untold Story.
Death and the Civil War: American Experience (8:00 PM)
With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before -- permanently altering the character of the republic and the psyche of the American people. Contending with death on an unprecedented scale posed challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began. Americans worked to improvise new solutions, new institutions, and new ways of coping with death on an unimaginable scale.
Civil War: The Untold Story "Death Knell of the Confederacy"(10:00 PM)
September 19, 1863. The first day of the Battle of Chickamauga ends in a bloody draw. On the next day, the battle is determined by one of the biggest blunders of the Civil War. Miscommunication, confusion, and fatigue with Union General William Rosecrans and his generals have left a gap in the Union line more than a quarter mile wide. James Longstreet’s force of 11,000 from the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, pour through the gap and split the Union army in two. Rosecrans and his beaten army escape to Chattanooga. Chickamauga’s combined casualties of 34,000 are only topped by the carnage at Gettysburg. In October, Rosecrans is replaced by U.S. Grant, who immediately plans an offensive. In November 1863, Grant routes the Confederate stronghold just outside Chattanooga. As they escape southward into Georgia, a Confederate officer calls the devastating defeat: “the death knell of the Confederacy.”
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