Blue vs. Gray: Killing Fields (2002)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Features:

• 1938 Gettysburg Reunion newsreel
  
• Interview with Jeff Shaara
  
• Biographies of Shaara and Bearss
  
• Civil War timeline
  
• Organization of forces for Battle of the Wilderness
  
• Medal of Honor recipients from Battle of the Wilderness
  
• Photo gallery
  

Released by: BFS Entertainment
Region: 1
Rating: NR, suitable for most audiences
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Rental for general history buffs, own it if you’re a long-time student of the Civil War

In the spring of 1864, Union forces led by newly-appointed commander General Ulysses S. Grant clashed with the forces of Robert E. Lee in the wilds of northern Virginia. The Battle of the Wilderness, as it would come to be called, marked the bloodiest weeks of fighting in the history of American warfare. In the first day of fighting, the Union and Confederate losses combined to crest forty thousand men, nearly eighty percent of all Americans killed in the ten years of the Vietnam War.

Before the battles in Virginia ended, the Union would beat the Vietnam total, and the Confederate losses were no less considerable, though numerically much smaller--they simply had fewer troops to begin with. Between skirmishes, snipers, and straight-up battles, the Grant’s Army of the Potomac and Lee’s forces would clash nearly every day during the month of May, and every encounter left thousands dead and wounded.

Blue vs. Gray: Killing Fields employs more than ten thousand Confederate war re-enactors, two thousand horses, and fifty cannons to depict the horrors of this bloody month of fighting, along with a huge gallery of period photographs and a collection of letters home from soldiers of both sides. Loaded with historical detail and opinions and commentary from Jeff Shaara (author of Gods & Generals) and National Parks Service Historian Emeritus Edwin C. Bearss, this documentary explores each and every smallest nuance of the movement of troops, command decisions, supply problems, and bickering among the officers, and how each of these details affected the outcome of the fighting.

While some of the re-enactment shots are a bit half-hearted (with soldiers jogging easily across bloodied fields, looking perfectly at ease while masses of enemy troops open fire on them) and Bearss is occasionally a bit TOO enthusiastic about his subject matter, this is still a high-quality Civil War program. The insight into the tactical and strategic decisions and how those played out on the field of battle is enlightening.

The disc also has a nice selection of extras, including newsreel footage of the Gettysburg Reunion of 1938, an interview with John Shaara, a timeline, orders of battle for both sides, and a photo gallery. The extras are straightforward facts to supplement the information presented in the program (except the 1938 newsreel, as Gettysburg isn’t addressed in the documentary), and serve to add a great deal of educational value to an already informative disc.

This is an excellent video for the Civil War or military history buff in your life, though even if there isn’t one, this merits a rental just to raise your own awareness of what is arguably the darkest chapter in American history. It veers away from the political debate over the reasons for the war, and confines itself to the fighting alone, which is a welcome shift from the emotional diatribes (one way or the other) so common to more broad documentaries on the period.