THE CIVIL WAR: Gettysburg

This epic recounting of America’s Civil War has been hailed as a landmark in documentary film-making and incorporates more than 16,000 archival photographs, innumerable period paintings, lithographs and newspaper headlines.


These are combined with old newsreels of veterans, contemporary scenes of the battle sites and first-person quotes read by a chorus of extraordinary voices including Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons, Morgan Freeman and many more.


The series tells the dramatic story of America’s struggle to preserve the Union and erase the stain of slavery - at the cost of 620,000 lives. What began as a bitter dispute over Federalism and state rights ended as a profound struggle over the meaning of freedom itself.

This episode looks at the epic battle at Gettysburg which took place at the beginning of July in 1863. 150,000 Americans fought each other for three bloody days and almost a third of all the men engaged in the battle were lost: 51,000 in total.