Mini-Series Review: Death by Lightning (2025)

 

As far as the general public is concerned, one of the most least known parts of American history is what occurred in the eastern part of the nation between the Civil War and the rise of Theodore Roosevelt. This is ironic, because the most filmed part of American history is probably the Old West of the same period. So imagine my pleasant surprise when, just a week before its release, I learned there was a four-part Netflix series on President James Garfield and his assassin Charles Guiteau!

James Garfield is one of the most fascinating and over-looked figures in American political history. Born into a poor Ohioan family and raised for most of his childhood and youth by a single mother, He became a voracious reader and was noted for his vast knowledge as an adult. Initially a teacher, he entered politics as a Republican and an Abolitionist. In the Civil War Garfield joined the Union Army and, with quite a bit of good fortune, rose to the rank of brigadier-general before leaving the army to become a US Representative as well as a lawyer. In 1880 he went to the Republican Convention in New York to support John Sherman as presidential candidate, but surprisingly found himself nominated after he gave a rousing speech defending certain delegates from expulsion (the speech is one of the more historically altered moments in the show).

Series Review: Hell on Wheels

 

Hell on Wheels is a highly fictionalized version of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad that ran on AMC from 2011 to 2016. Americans had long envisioned a railroad line from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This would go a long way in connecting the East and West coasts and speed up settlement out west. For years the construction of such a railroad was held up by sectional disputes. Predictably Southerners wanted to go south and Northerners vice versa. When the Civil War broke out the absence of Southern clout in Congress removed any obstacles to beginning the railroad. The undertaking was so daunting that the government felt it had to support the Union Pacific, going west from Omaha, and the Central Pacific, going east from San Francisco. The two railroad companies also took much longer than planned to start as they sought further financial backing. Construction was rough, with obstacles ranging from high mountains to deserts to hostile American Indians. The railroad was completed, but both companies soon went bankrupt for their troubles, and practiced unethical shortcuts as they raced each other. The title of the show comes from the name for the Union Pacific’s traveling town, Hell on Wheels.

History is dramatic enough, but the show understandably takes it to another level. Foremost there are a lot more shootouts and murders (the latter was not unheard of). Let’s just say that certain happenings in the show would have been legendary fixtures of American memory if they really happened. The cast of characters is also quite colorful. Most are fictional and they explore all the different perspectives of western life. There are Irish immigrants, pimps, hookers, Mormon settlers, preachers, scheming businessmen and politicians, black laborers, American Indians, Chinese immigrants, etc.