The Civil War

First aired

September 23, 1990

Ended

Avg. episode: 76m

EnglishDocumentaryWar & Politics

A documentary on the American Civil War narrated by Ken Burns, covering the secession of the Confederacy to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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Cast

David McCullough
Narrator (voice)
Sam Waterston
Abraham Lincoln (voice)
Julie Harris
Mary Chestnut (voice)
Jason Robards
Ulysses S. Grant (voice)
Morgan Freeman
Frederick Douglass / John Boston (voice)
Paul Roebling
Joshua Chamberlain (voice)
Garrison Keillor
Walt Whitman (voice)
GB
George Black
Robert E. Lee (voice)
Arthur Miller
William Tecumseh Sherman (voice)
Christopher Murney
Elisha Hunt Rhodes (voice)
CM
Charles McDowell
Samuel R. Watkins (voice)
Horton Foote
Jefferson Davis (voice)
George Plimpton
George Templeton Strong (voice)
Philip Bosco
Horace Greeley (voice)
TC
Terry Courier
George B. McClellan (voice)
JP
Jody Powell
Stonewall Jackson / Various (voice)
Studs Terkel
Benjamin Butler / Various
Hoyt Axton
Various (voice)

Media

Seasons 2

Specials

15 Episodes

Miniseries

19909 Episodes

Photographs, period paintings, lithographs and headlines of the Civil War are combined with moving newsreel footage of Civil War veterans, interviews with distinguished historians and first-person accounts in this award-winning documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns. The miniseries vividly embraces the entire sweep of the war: the complex causes and lasting effects of America's greatest and most moving calamity, the battles and the homefronts, the generals and the private soldiers, the anguish of death in battle and the grief of families at home.