At least one critic noted that the new American Experience documentary by Ric Burns’, Death and the Civil War, which recently premiered on WGBY, is neither morbid nor solemn. Based on Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust’s 2008 book, “This Republic of Suffering,” the film is divided into sections: “Dying,” “Burying,” “Naming,” “Honoring,” “Believing and Doubting,” “Accounting,” and “Remembering.” (If you missed the film or want another look, you should soon find it on the American Experience website along with many other recent broadcasts.)
You’ll definitely want to explore American Experience‘s vast educator resources, among them a Teacher’s Guide and innumerable lesson plans under units such as the following:
Life in the North and South 1847-1861: Before Brother Fought Brother
The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America: A House Dividing
The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword”
The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword”
Abraham Lincoln on the American Union: “A Word Fitly Spoken”
From Courage to Freedom: Frederick Douglass’s 1845 Autobiography