A Nation Mired in Grief: Documentary from 2012 Explores the Enormous Losses During this Bloody Conflict
DIRECTED BY RIC BURNS FOR PBS’ AMERICAN EXPERIENCE SERIES/2012
In the spring of 1864, Allen V. Montgomery of Camden, Mississippi, hoped to hear encouraging news from his son in Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia.
But the news was not good. In fact, he encountered a parent’s worst nightmare.
James R. Montgomery, a 26-year-old serving in the Army of Northern Virgina on behalf of the Confederacy, wrote to his father on May 10, 1864, to bid him farewell. His own blood had stained portions of his letter, which detailed the mortal wound he received during a battle that day near Talley’s Mill.
“Dear Father: This is my last letter to you. I went into battle this evening as courier for Gen. [Henry] Heth. I have been struck by a piece of shell, and my right shoulder is horribly mangled & I know death is inevitable. I am very weak, but I wrote to you because I know you would be delighted to read a word from your dying son. I know death is near, that I will die far from home and friends of my early youth, but I have friends here too who are kind to me. My friend Fairfax will write you at my request and give you the particulars of my death. My grave will be marked so that you may visit it if you desire to do so, but is optionary with you whether you let my remains rest here or in Miss. I would like to rest in the graveyard with my dear mother and brothers, but it’s a matter of minor importance. Let us all try to reunite in heaven. I pray my God to forgive my sins, & I feel that his promises are true that he will forgive me and save me. Give my love to all my friends. My strength fails me … My horse & my equipments will be left for you. Again, a long farewell to you. May we meet in heaven. Your dying son, J.R. Montgomery.”
It’s inconceivable that any individual would have to read such a letter from a loved one. However, this became all too common during the Civil War.
Mourning the deaths of husbands, father, sons, brothers and friends was not new to Americans when the Civil War broke out. They had endured such losses in all our nation’s conflicts up to that point.
What they didn’t expect was to witness so many deaths. No conflict before or since produced the horrific casualty statistics that Americans had to bear during the Civil War.
Documentarian Ric Burns provides a moving story of this toll in Death and the Civil War, broadcast in September 2012 as an episode of “American Experience” on PBS. The film was inspired by the 2008 book “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” written by then-Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust. The film can be viewed on Amazon Prime Video with a subscription to PBS Documentaries.
“With the coming of the Civil War — the first modern war, the first mass war of the modern age — death would enter the experience of the American people, the body politic of the American nation as it never had before on a scale and in a manner no one had ever imagined possible and under circumstances for which the nation would prove completely unprepared,” actor Oliver Platt, who narrated the film, said in demonstrating the enormous challenges awaiting our nation. “Before the Civil War, there were no national cemeteries in America, no provisions for identifying the dead or for notifying next of kin or for providing aid to the suffering families of dead veterans.”
The issue of slavery had torn the country apart. But if the Northern and Southern states began to fight each other, few people thought it would amount to much.
And, in fact, the first several months of the war seemed to prove these predictions correct. The only death to take place during the first battle of the war — when Southern troops fired upon the U.S. Army at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, on April 12 and April 13, 1861 — was that of a Southern horse. One soldier died while another one was injured when a cannon fired prematurely as Union troops carried out a 100-gun salute during a surrender ceremony just before they vacated Fort Sumter.
By mid-June, deaths on both sides totaled about 20 troops. Maybe the two sides will resolve their differences without too much violence.
Then again, maybe not. The fighting between the North and South grew much deadlier as the months dragged on.
In July 1861, the Battle of Bull Run/Battle of Manassas resulted in 900 deaths. In April 1862, more than 3,400 soldiers died at the Battle of Shiloh.
And then Americans grappled with the horror from the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. With more than 23,000 casualties (dead, wounded and missing combined), it remains the bloodiest day in the nation’s history. The battle resulted in the deaths of 6,500 soldiers.
Antietam was a turning point in how members of the public perceived the Civil War. After obtaining graphic images from the battlefield, renowned photographer Mathew Brady offered an exhibition in New York City called “The Dead of Antietam.” It shocked people to see how many soldiers died in the battle and the condition of their bodies as they lie across the bloody grounds.
And then came the battle of Gettysburg. From July 1 to July 3, Confederate and Union armies clashed in Pennsylvania about 80 miles from the nation’s capital. The three-day conflict resulted in 51,000 casualties, including 7,786 dead.
While it became increasingly obvious that the South would lose the war, the deaths didn’t let up. In 1864 alone, an estimated 150,000 troops were killed.
Deaths from both the North and South totaled about 750,000 when the war ended. This represented an alarming 2.5% of the country’s 35 million residents — and two out of every three of these deaths resulted from diseases that spread through camps.
Interviewed periodically throughout the documentary, Faust commented on how such a loss of life would look like in modern America. A death total of 2.5% of our population today would equal about 7 million people, she said.
The massive losses compelled the government to do what it could to identify those who died and provide proper burials for them. This has never been done in previous wars, and it took significant persuasion for the government to act.
Clara Barton, who served as a nurse at camps during the war, implored officials to take whatever measures were necessary to document as many deaths as possible. She wrote: “The true patriot willingly loses his life for his country. These poor men lost not only their lives but the very record of their death. Common humanity would plead that an effort be made to restore their identity. The wife released her husband and the mother sent forth her son, and they were nobly given to their country for its necessities. But never has wife or mother agreed that for the destruction of her treasures, no account should be rendered her. I hold these men in the light of government property unaccounted for.”
A large-scale reinterment program resulted in more than 303,000 Union soldiers being reburied in national cemeteries, 54% of them being identified. This left about 140,000 Union troops who had to be placed in graves that were simply marked “Unknown”; the government has since accepted the responsibility to document the death of every service member and provide care for the families who have lost loved ones.
Many families from the South were angered that these same courtesies were not extended to their deceased troops. Private organizations, overseen largely by Southern women, took it upon themselves to provide proper burials for Confederate soldiers.
Death and the Civil War provides glimpses into the sadness that gripped our nation during this period due to the amount of loss. An outpouring of grief led to Americans holding Decoration Day ceremonies throughout the nation, which eventually became Memorial Day.
Focusing on the Civil War over this Memorial Day is fitting as 2025 marks the 160th anniversary of the war’s end. Many of us continue to feel humbled knowing that so many of our fellow citizens have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our enduring freedom. This superb documentary by Burns shows us just how immense this loss has been at critical moments of our history.