Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #21: Gods and Generals (2003) part 2 of 2

 

Here is the second part of my Gods and Generals review, going through the film to look at the battles as well as a few other points I wanted to discuss.

First Bull Run

The movie begins with Lee meeting Francis Preston Blair, a major political figure at the time, to discuss an offer to command the Union Army. Lee refuses, citing that his primary loyalty is to Virginia and the if it secedes he will join it. It’s funny how all these Civil War films and shows always have Lee starting the war with his gray hair and beard. Actually, he had dark hair and just a mustache, and was even considered handsome for a man in his fifties. The stress of the war is what changed his look into the one familiar to us today.

Most of the first act focuses on Jackson, and outside of the Lee and Booth scenes this could have been the first part of a Jackson biopic. Now, I hadn’t seen Gods and Generals in ten years, so I was hit with a few fresh observations, and one is that there is actual no explanation for what exactly is going on militarily. Jackson’s brigade does a little training and then marches off for a battle. We don’t get any exposition about why the armies are clashing at Manassas Junction because everyone is too busy delivering speeches. They just go to a battle and start fighting.

The Battle of First Bull Run itself is done well in the context of a story that needs to squeeze in two years. It’s probably the most filmed battle (I know at least five on-screen portrayals across film and television), as it can’t be ignored as the first major one. The real battle was a true cluster**** for several reasons. Most American generals at the time had no experience managing large forces, most of the soldiers were inexperienced and not fully trained, and there was such a hodge-podge of uniforms that people often mistook friend for foe and vice versa.

https://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2011/02/two-great-historical-movies-you-should.html

Gods and Generals only has a limited time to show the battle, but does a good job showing how confused and amateurish the armies are while ensuring the onscreen action makes sense. Jackson’s own brigade has gray-clad, blue-clad, and Revolutionary War-clad troops, and the Union army has red shirted Zouaves fighting alongside regular Army blue. Some soldiers fire when they’re supposed to wait, and at one point the some young officers start a charge without orders, resulting in a bloody repulse.

A Union counterattack; Notice the red-clad Zouaves

The specific scene is Jackson’s stand on Henry House Hill. General Barnard Bee delivers his famous “There stands Jackson like a stone wall” quote. Because Bee was killed quickly afterwards, historians debate whether he was admiring Jackson’s firm positioning or making a crack about how he didn’t move his brigade up to help him earlier. The movie definitely takes the more heroic view. The real struggle lasted quite a while with seesawing action, but the movie wisely condenses the action, climaxing with a Confederate bayonet charge supported by Stuart’s cavalry.

Antietam

Joshua discusses going off to war
with his wife Fanny (Mira Sorvino

One major problem with the theatrical cut is that aside from the 20^th Maine’s training scenes, it goes straight from First Bull Run to Fredericksburg, roughly an entire year and a half. The extended cut somewhat rectifies this issue by including Antietam, albeit in much less detail. The section is really about the 20^th Maine, with a quarter of an hour given to the entire Maryland campaign. Lee finally reappears, citing recent successes (the Peninsula Campaign and Second Bull Run) and proposing that the Confederates take the army into northern territory. The result was the bloodiest day in history, a battle in Maryland.

The battle is shown in slapdash fashion, but what we get is pretty good. We see Confederate artillery taking heavy casualties near the Dunker Church and troops mowing each other down in the infamous cornfield. The 20^th Maine is pressed forward, but fails to get into action, giving Chamberlain and friends a delay in their baptism of fire. The Antietam act ends with Booth delivering a Shakespearean speech while the camera pans over a dead-strewn battlefield. While Antietam is given much less attention, I’m glad that it got a mention due to its importance to the direction of the war.

Fredericksburg

The third act is where the movie gets closest to being as good as Gettysburg. There are some flaws, such as an overlong prayer scene and the Corbin matriarch’s melodramatic acting, but the movie actually takes the time to explain the military situation and why the battle unfolds the way it does.

The Battle of Fredericksburg often makes the top ten lists of American military disasters, and for good reason. Despite the onset of winter, General Ambrose Burnside was pressured by Lincoln into a major campaign. To his credit he actually stole a march from Lee and arrived at Fredericksburg with virtually no opposition. His plan was to cross there at the Rappahannock River and then go further south to threaten the Confederate capital of Richmond. Doing this would have pressured Lee into fighting him on ground of his own choosing.

However, the pontoon bridges failed to arrive in time, and the Confederates entrenched Marye’s Heights south of town. Burnside compensated with an attack plan wherein he would engage the entire Confederate line, but put most of his power into his left flank. The left flank actually broke through, but the main commander there inexplicably failed to reinforce success. Overwhelmed and not knowing what to do, Burnside kept ordering attacks on the rest of the enemy line, resulting in a meat grinder.

The movie has the initial town battle, where the Federals crossed the river under fire, then engaged in a running street battle. It’s a fairly chaotic scene, with civilians also trying to get out of the way. Then the main show begins. Gods and Generals puts a lot of focus on Hancock’s division, showing each of his three brigades try and fail to take the stone wall on Marye’s Heights.

This includes the Irish Brigade scene, which even many detractors liked. The Irish Brigade was made up of northern Irish immigrants who hoped to one day fight against the British and liberate their original country. When they charge the stone wall, they come up against an Irish confederate unit. The Irish Brigade in reality got the closest to the stone wall and are the only ones in the movie to inflict significant casualties on the defenders. There’s a real tearjerker where the Confederate Irish officers actually break down in tears over killing their fellow Celts and then give out an admiring Gaelic cry when the Federals finally fall back.

St. Clair Mulholland leads the Irish Brigade into battle

It’s a powerful scene, aided greatly by Frizzell’s use of uilleann pipes. Too bad it didn’t actually happen. Maxwell credulously accepted the account of St. Clair Mulholland (who leads the charge in the film). In his regimental history, Mulholland claimed that Confederates they faced were also Irish, and could be heard expressing their dismay at the situation. Many histories of the time invented such tales for dramatic effect. This story was so accepted that it even made it into Ken Burns’ famous multi-part documentary. In reality Cobb’s 24^th Georgia had barely any Irish in it, and it was just as eager to slaughter the Irish Brigade as any other Federal unit that attacked. Maxwell takes Mulholland’s fiction further, giving the 24^th an “Irish Regiment” moniker and a fictional flag with a harp to match the famed green banner of the Irish Brigade.

The stone wall at Marye's Heights. Notice the harp flag given to Cobb's Georgians.

The 20^th Maine gets it baptism in fire in the movie’s most one-sided battle. I think they only take out two Confederates onscreen while they get absolutely mauled. It’s a very bitter battle scene, with the Union officers struggling just to keep their line in order as their men are massacred. When the scene ends the screen fades into shots of all the dead and wounded Union troops in front of Marye’s Heights, then has Lee deliver his famous line, “It’s good that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.”

Moss Neck

For people who attempt to watch the movie in one sitting, the fourth act is where they start to feel aggravated. Really, the opening of the act is a continuation of Fredericksburg, with the 20^th Maine trapped on the slope of Marye’s Heights. The only action is their skirmishing with the Confederates behind the stone wall. The rest of the act is a bunch of scenes of people hanging around. We get folks celebrating Christmas, discussing the Emancipation Proclamation, Jackson’s relationship with the Corbins, and the desertion scene.

Stonewall Jackson hangs out with Jane Corbin

Jackson infamously took the hardest line with deserters, executing each one he had in his custody. This matched his firm belief that God instructed obedience to authorities. Other Confederate leaders were often inclined to find alternate punishments or grant pardons due to the South’s manpower shortages.

I don’t have much to add on this part. I do argue that this act is the reason the movie really dragged for audience. Because of it, we get literally ten minutes of action for the last two hours of a near five hour war movie.

Chancellorsville

The last act brings us to the most famous Confederate victory. Lee was facings odds of 2 to 1 because Longstreet and the better part of his Corps was off in North Carolina, and the Army of the Potomac under General Hooker had maneuvered him into a dicey situation. The movie jumps right into this situation without buildup, but does take the time to briefly explain what’s happening. The problem is that the last two hours showed the Union being clobbered into a state of despair, so it’s hard to feel the David vs. Goliath scenario (the biblical tale is alluded to by Reverend Lacey, yet another recurring character in this movie).

Confederates burst from the forest

Jackson famously used a back route through the dense forest to launch a surprise flank attack that humiliated the Union 11^th Corps and is said by some to have shattered the nerves of Hooker (I’d argue the concussion from a shell blast is what disabled his thinking). The movie shows this part of the battle and it’s well done (though it is a bit goofy how Jackson and his staff ride with pistols drawn like the Magnificent Seven). The soldiers sneakily emerge from the woods, then shock the encamped Federals. A running fight ensues, and while the Confederates are definitely winning, the Union gets a few good licks in so it’s one as one-sided as Fredericksburg. With a bigger budget, Maxwell could have included the detail of the forest animals literally running into the Union camp. That’s how tight the Confederate formations were.

The movie gives the sense that the flank attack was a decisive moment for the battle, but the Union managed to stabilize its line (albeit in an awkward triangular shape) and could have still pulled out a victory thanks to superior numbers, but between Hooker’s concussion and some effective artillery work on the part of the Confederates, the Federals withdrew after another day of fighting. Understandably, the movie didn’t have time to get into all the details, so it looks like Jackson delivered the winning blow.

A few Federal soldiers struggle to mount a defense in their stormed camp.

The final battle scene is the infamous shooting of Stonewall Jackson. Like many Civil War generals, he liked to personally reconnoiter. This got many generals killed, with two examples being Confederate Ben McCulloch at Pea Ridge and Union Phil Kearny at Ox Hill. In Jackson’s case, he was shot by his own men. The shooting alerted Union artillery, which bombarded the area and forced a desperate escape. The scene is well done, the music in particular underscoring that this might be a fatal moment for the Confederacy as a whole. Jackson lost his left arm, but actually would have survived if he wasn’t hit with pneumonia. The movie ends with his funeral at VMI, the Virginia Military Institute where he taught at the outbreak of the war.

Conclusion

Gods and Generals is a better experience if you watch it over two or three days, but I still can’t call it a good movie because of the questionable historical interpretations, some goofy writing and performances, and the decision to cram so much history into one movie. It’s a shame, because there’s actually a lot of good stuff. It just isn’t put together well. This needed to be an 8-to-12 hour mini-series. But it is one of the few pieces of Civil War media to have a good amount of full-fledged battle scenes.

Rating: (Theatrical Cut) 2/10 (Director’s Cut) 4/10