Anecdote about Wilmer McLean who "could rightfully say, 'the war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.'"

Introduction to the war and to the important characters in the series.

America in 1861 – most of the nation's 31 million people live peaceably on farms and in small towns.

The brutal reality of slavery and its importance to the Southern cotton economy; the invention of the cotton gin.

The abolitionist movement: William Lloyd Garrison starts publishing The Liberator in 1831. Rise of Harriet Tubman, Wendell Phillips, and Frederick Douglass. Growing rift between North and South over slavery. Death of Elija P. Lovejoy, white abolitionist. Introduction to John Brown.

Events leading up to secession: Uncle Tom's Cabin published in 1850; Supreme Court's Dred Scott Decision; political conflict over entry of new states in the Union. In 1858 Lincoln writes, "a house divided against itself cannot stand."

John Brown raids the arsenal at Harper's Ferry in 1859, and is captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee. The Southern militia now becomes a viable instrument; it is the beginning of the Confederate army.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected President. The South is horrified. Introduction to George Templeton Strong, New York lawyer, and diarist. Seven Southern states secede in the time between Lincoln's election and inauguration. The Confederacy inaugurates Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis as President. Introduction to Mary Chesnut, wife of a prominent Southern planter and diarist.

Southern artillery attack a battalion of Northern troops inside Fort Sumter, off the coast of South Carolina in the first battle of the Civil War. When Union forces surrender, the South is jubilant. Walt Whitman writes, "all the past we leave behind with Sumter."

Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers -- Davis asks for 100,000. Introductions to: Northern soldier (and diarist) Elisha Hunt Rhodes, Southern soldier (and diarist) Sam Watkins. U.S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Robert E. Lee.

The first Union troops arrive in Washington. Wherever the Union army goes in the South, slavery crumbles. Slaves fleeing their plantations for the Union lines are considered "contraband" of war and are not returned to their former owners.

When the Union army marches into Virginia, Confederate troops engage them at the Battle of Bull Run/Manassas. The battle, thanks in part to "Stonewall" Jackson, is a Southern victory with an unprecedented 5,000 casualties. Union troops limp back to Washington.

General George McClellan takes command of the Union army with an elaborate plan to destroy the Confederacy, but does nothing. U.S. Grant is assigned to desk duty; William T. Sherman resigns, close to suicide.

Sullivan Ballou, a Northern soldier, writes a letter home to his wife before the Battle of Bull Run.

Julia Ward Howe writes "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at the Willard Hotel in Washington.

"The war will be a struggle over the future of freedom in America."

The Union army is stuck in Washington. Northern soldier Elisha Hunt Rhodes is granted home leave to see his mother.

Lincoln contends with political infighting in his cabinet, General McClellan's inaction, and the tragic death of his favorite son, Willie.

The Confederacy builds the Merrimack, a new iron-plated ship, and the Union then constructs its own "ironclad," the Monitor. Off the coast of Virginia, the Merrimack attacks the Union navy, but the Monitor arrives just in time. All other navies on earth, after the epic battle of ironclads, are obsolete.

In Tennessee, U.S. Grant wins a victory at Fort Donelson, and Clarksville is occupied by the Union army.

McClellan cautiously moves the Union army towards Richmond and meets a much smaller band of Southern troops at Yorktown where he digs in and wires for reinforcements.

Description of the average soldier: Life in camp, North and South.

In Tennessee, U.S. Grant fights off a surprise attack by Confederates under General Albert Sidney Johnston at the Battle of Shiloh. Johnston is killed and Grant suffers huge losses – but eventually wins the battle when Union reinforcements arrive. More men die at Shiloh than in all previous American wars combined.

The relationship of military technology to the course of the war. U.S. Grant is relieved of command because of the losses at Shiloh. Frederick Douglass pressures Lincoln to free the slaves. The Union navy wins a major naval campaign when Admiral David Farragut takes New Orleans.

On the Southern home front the Confederacy institutes the first national draft, exempting men who own more than 20 slaves. Only half of the eligible men show up.

After a month outside Yorktown, McClellan finally attacks. But the Rebels had already moved on. McClellan cautiously moves to ward Richmond but refuses to attack the city. The Union's grand strategy is completely stalled.

Photography and the war.

Lincoln realizes that emancipation will be needed to win the war.

The Union army is stalled outside Richmond. Meanwhile, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson is on the attack in the Shenandoah Valley.

Stonewall Jackson, a "pious, blue-eyed killer" triumphs in his Valley Campaign, successfully keeping Union troops off the Peninsula. The South cuts cotton production to pressure England and France into recognizing the Confederacy. Lincoln has to find a way to keep Europe from coming in on the side of the Confederate government.

General Benjamin Butler is put in charge of the Union occupation of New Orleans. When local women insult his troops, he issues "General Order No. 28." Nearby, unrest grows among slaves on the plantations. Lincoln backs a plan to encourage freed slaves to return to Africa.

Union and Rebel troops clash outside Richmond. Confederate commander Joseph Johnston is seriously wounded and Robert E. Lee takes charge. When Lee and McClellan clash for seven days, every battle except one is a Union victory, but McClellan retreats down the Peninsula and all the way back to Washington.

When the Union army occupies the Southern coast, plantation owners flee, leaving behind 110,000 slaves. The pressure for emancipation grows. Deer Isle, Maine loses its first soldiers, and in Clarksville, Tennessee, tensions run high between occupying Northern troops and local citizens. Lincoln decides to emancipate slaves but his cabinet advises him to wait for a military victory.

Lincoln replaces McClellan with John Pope, who leads the army to the second Battle of Bull Run – another Union disaster. Lincoln reluctantly reinstates McClellan. Robert E. Lee decides to invade the North and, heading for the federal rail center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, takes up positions in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in front of Antietam creek. McClellan arrives with vastly superior forces.

The Battle of Antietam, a costly Union victory, is the bloodiest day in American history. The next day, Lee and his army slip back across the Potomac River. Introduction to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Union officer from Maine. Lincoln permanently removes McClellan from command. Photographer Mathew Brady opens a landmark exhibition in New York – "The Dead of Antietam."

U.S. Grant tries to conquer Vicksburg, Mississippi, but fails. Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862. "The war is ennobled, the object is higher."

Historian Shelby Foote explains the rebel yell.

Despite the Northern victory at Antietam, despite emancipation, and despite the Union's superiority in men and material, the North is coming close to fumbling all it has. But the fragile Confederate coalition is also coming apart.

In the Northern winter camp, "the Union's Valley Forge," morale is low as hundreds die from disease due to unsanitary conditions.

The Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 1862 - where entrenched rebel forces under Robert E. Lee kill or wound 12,600 Union soldiers under Ambrose Burnside - it is another debacle for the Union.

Humorous section on the food and drink of soldiers, North and South. Introduction to John Singleton Moseby, a brilliant Southern General. Frederick Douglass pressures the government to arm the free blacks and former slaves. In the North, soldiers desert over Emancipation, and the Copperhead movement tries to undermine Lincoln and the war effort.

On the home front, Southerners cope with terrible inflation and lack of basic consumer goods. In Richmond, women riot over the price of bread, and in the rebel army morale is very low. Interlude on the music of the war, North and South.

Lincoln appoints Joseph Hooker to lead the Union army. He faces Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia and loses 17,000 men to Lee's 13,000. But Lee's most brilliant victory is also his costliest; Stonewall Jackson dies from a battle wound on May 10th.

U. S. Grant daringly sneaks up from behind on the crucial Southern city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and settles in for a siege, trapping 31,000 Confederates. Lee decides to invade Union soil again to force Grant to move north to defend Washington.

Shelby Foote discusses an emblematic Civil War photograph - of three confederate prisoners at Gettysburg.

Lee, seeking to "conquer a peace" and take pressure off Vicksburg, leads his army north.

Lee marches into Pennsylvania. Union troops clash with Jeb Stuart at Brandy Station, Virginia in the biggest cavalry engagement of the war. The Union army Linder George Meade follows Lee into Pennsylvania.

Footsore Confederate forces enter Gettysburg in search of shoes and run headlong into the Union cavalry. All divisions in the area converge on Gettysburg. The Union takes the high ground and much to Lee's chagrin, Jeb Stuart arrives late.

The two armies amass overnight - by morning, 65,000 Confederate troops face 85,000 Union troops. The rebels try to take the crucial Big and Little Round Tops but the Union holds, thanks in part to the brilliance of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine. Lee pronounces the day a Confederate victory, and plans to attack the center of the Union line the next day.

Pickett's charge is Lee's greatest mistake and the turning point of the war. Entire Southern regiments disappear. The rebels suffer 28,000 casualties; almost a third of all the men engaged- 51,000 men-are lost. The South will never invade the North again. Lee offers to resign.

North and South, women find ways to participate in the war effort, forming Sanitary Commissions, nursing the wounded, running family farms, etc.

As Grant's siege drags on, conditions inside the city become unbearable. After 48 days, on July 4, 1863, the Confederates Surrender. "the Father of Waters," Lincoln says, "again goes unvexed to the sea."

Lincoln issues the first federal draft call, but for $300, men can hire substitutes and most of the wealthy elite do so. Resistance to the draft causes riots throughout the North. Lincoln authorizes the first black troops. The 54th Massachusetts regiment, under Robert Gould Shaw, attacks Fort Wagner, South Carolina. The battle is a Confederate victory but it proves that blacks can fight as well as whites.

The Battle of Chickamauga, Tennessee is a Confederate victory and the Union army retreats to Chattanooga. U.S. Grant arrives, takes charge and brilliantly wins major victories at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.

At the dedication of a new national military cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield, Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg address.

Walt Whitman worries about the coming battles, the "awful loads ... of bloody, pale, and wounded young men."

There is no real end in sight for the war. And, as William Tecumseh Sherman says, "the worst of the war is not yet begun."

Letter from Spotswood Rice, escaped slave and Union soldier, to his enslaved children.

Ulysses S. Grant's background: Born in 1822 to a tanner in Ohio. Graduates from West Point. Marries the daughter of a Kentucky slave-holder. Fights in the Mexican War. Unsuccessfully tries farming, real estate, and works as a clerk for his father. Re-enters the Army when the war begins.

Lee's background: Born in 1807 to a very prominent Virginia family and raised by his mother. He is nicknamed "the marble model" at West Point and graduates in 1829 without a single demerit. Marries Mary Custis, George Washington's granddaughter. Serves in the prestigious Army Corps of Engineers during the Mexican War. The captor of John Brown at Harpers Ferry, Lee is the most promising soldier in the nation at the start of the war.

Grant plans a four-pronged assault on the Confederacy: Sherman will move on Atlanta, Sigel will advance up the Shenandoah Valley, Butler will work his way up the James River, and Meade will head south to Richmond. Lee and Grant clash for the first time at The Wilderness, near Chancellors Ville, Virginia, "in many ways the most terrible battle of the war." Grant loses 17,000 men. But the next day, instead of retreating, he gives orders to march. Now the war will wage non-stop for 30 days.

Lee and Grant fight continuously as Grant's flanking maneuvers force Lee south towards Richmond. At the Battle of Cold Harbor, Grant makes his worst mistake, sending 7,000 troops to be slaughtered by entrenched Rebel troops. In one month, the Union loses 50,000 men. But Grant tricks Lee and makes it to Petersburg, just south of Richmond. The siege of Petersburg begins - it will last ten months.

Both sides organize hundreds of hospitals to care for the wounded. Walt Whitman volunteers in hospital wards in Washington. Dorothea Dix is in charge of all the nurses for the Union army and serves all four years without pay.

William Tecumseh Sherman moves south from Chattanooga to wards Atlanta. Lincoln's chances for re-election hinge on Sherman's campaign. Sherman's advance is a masterpiece of planning and Joseph E. Johnston cannot slow his advance. He makes one mistake at Kennesaw Mountain he loses 3,000 men in a series of doomed frontal assaults. Then, Sherman also stalls outside of Atlanta.

Shelby Foote on Nathan Bedford Forrest.

With the Union Army stalled outside Petersburg, and the casualty lists growing longer, Northern opposition to the war increases.

Lincoln's chances for re-election hinge on Union victories.

The siege at Petersburg is taking a toll on the inhabitants. To relieve pressure on the city, Lee sends Jubal Early north to attack Washington and the Shenandoahs.

Forrest - according to William T. Sherman, "the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side" - is on the move, slowing the Union advance to Atlanta.

It is the North's darkest hour with Grant stalled outside Petersburg and Sherman stalled outside Atlanta. Lincoln's chances for re-election are slim. The Democrats nominate George McClellan on a peace platform, and the election becomes a referendum on the war.

Both the Confederacy and the Union have secret services, run by William Norris and Alan Pinkerton. During the war, spies are everywhere: many Southern slaves spy for the Union, and the Confederate spy network extends as far north as Montreal.

In an effort to end the siege of Petersburg, Northern troops dig a tunnel and pack it with gun powder. But the plan is doomed because of bad planning. Scores of black troops are killed as they try to surrender.

The seamier side of life in camp - soldiers gamble, bet, play cards, and visit whore houses.

Black soldiers are finally given equal pay with whites. Union Admiral David Farragut, wins another naval victory in Mobile Bay. Sherman's troops arrive outside Atlanta. Jefferson Davis removes General Joseph E. Johnston from command and replaces him with John Bell Hood. At the Battle of Atlanta, Sherman's favorite general, 35-year old James McPherson is killed. But with the next Union attack, Hood withdraws into the city, and Sherman puts Atlanta under siege. A week later, Hood abandons Atlanta and Sherman enters the city.

The Northern war effort has created an enormous industrial machine and many astute businessmen are making big profits off war industries. Ruthless war profiteers are getting rich, too.

In Tennessee, Nathan Bedford's men attack Fort Pillow and kill 300 black troops after they have surrendered. In retaliation, U.S. Grant ends the system of prisoner exchange, until the Confederacy agrees to treat black and white prisoners the same. As a result, prisons North and South become overcrowded. In the South, already inadequate prisons become nightmares. Andersonville in Georgia is the worst of all.

Union General Phil Sheridan triumphs over Jubal Early in the Shenandoahs. Lincoln is re-elected by large majorities. The Confederacy is now "a lost cause."

Lincoln calls for more men to finish the war. The South has no men left. The Union dead have now completely filled all the military cemeteries. Montgomery Meigs, Quartermaster General, chooses the grounds of Lee's home for the new military cemetery. It becomes Arlington National Cemetery, the Union's most hallowed ground.

Shelby Foote discusses one of the main importances of the war: the Southerner's sense of defeat - of having lost a war.

The Confederacy is dying. Robert E. Lee assumes command of all the Southern forces, but the Union is closing in on all sides.

William Tecumseh Sherman - the first modern General - purposely makes war against civilians to deprive the enemy of what kept it going. "War is cruelty ... the crueler it is, the sooner it will be over," he says.

In late 1864, Sherman decides to march his army from Atlanta to Savannah, living off the land, and destroying everything along the way that could aid the Confederate army. On the march, Sherman's army causes $100 million worth of damage "the South would never forget." John Bell Hood moves his forces into Tennessee, and at the Battle of Franklin clashes with Union troops under General George Thomas. Hood loses 7,000 men. At the battle of Nashville, Hood's army is destroyed. Joseph E. Johnston is put back in command.

25,000 slaves flee to Sherman's army during the march, jubilant that he has come to liberate them. On December 25, Sherman emerges near Savannah and starts for South Carolina, where secession began.

The situation in the South becomes desperate. Hundreds of soldiers desert. As a last resort, the Confederates decide to use slaves as soldiers. Earlier in the year, Congress had passed the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery.

Lincoln is inaugurated for a second term. John Wilkes Booth hatches a scheme to kidnap Lincoln. Lincoln travels to City Point, Virginia to meet with Grant and Sherman and discuss the final campaigns of the war and the Union's plans for peace.

Grant finally conquers Petersburg and moves quickly towards Richmond. Jefferson Davis is forced to evacuate the Confederate government. The retreating Confederate army sets fire to much of the city and mobs loot what remains. The Union army enters the city. Lincoln arrives in Richmond. Lee and the remains of the rebel army flee westward, with Grant in hot pursuit.

April 7, 1865 - Grant writes to Lee. April 9, 1865 - Lee sends word that he will surrender. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant meet at Appomattox to work out the terms of the surrender. The formal surrender comes three days later. In Washington, Lincoln quietly rejoices. A few blocks away, John Wilkes Booth plots.

Barbara Fields and Shelby Foote discuss the meaning of the war.

The war is over and the soldiers are going home.

Word of Lee's surrender spreads across the country. In the North there is joy and exaltation. In the South, despair.

On April 14, 1865, a ceremony at Fort Sumter marks the end of the war. On that same day, John Wilkes Booth learns that Lincoln will be attending a play at Ford's Theater that evening. That night, he assassinates the President at the theater. Lincoln is moved across the street to a boarding house, where he dies the next morning. All across the country people are horrified. Lincoln's funeral train makes its way from Washington back to Springfield, Illinois.

Union cavalry capture and kill John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn. In Georgia on May 10th, Union soldiers arrest Jefferson Davis. On May 23, victorious Union troops parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in the Grand Army Review. Booth's conspirators are tried and executed.

The war took a heavy toll on the country - three and a half million men fought in it and 620,000 men died. Now, the survivors are going home. We learn of the fates of major characters - Elisha Hunt Rhodes (Union soldier); Sam Watkins (Confederate soldier); William Tecumseh Sherman; Joe Johnston; Mary Chesnut; Jefferson Davis; Alexander Stephens; Mary Todd Lincoln; Clara Barton; Henry Wirz (commandant of Andersonville Prison); Phil Sheridan, George McClellan; Pierre G. T. Beauregard; Nathan Bedford Forrest; Dan Sickles; John Bell Hood; James Longstreet; George Pickett; Frederick Douglass; Julia Ward Howe; Robert E. Lee; U. S. Grant. At the 50th reunion of the battle of Gettysburg, in 1913, the veterans stage a reenactment of Pickett's Charge.

Barbara J. Fields, James Symington and Stephen Oates sum up the meaning and legacy of the Civil War. Shelby Foote makes a closing statement on the war.