Civil War accurately portrayed?

Rating: 1/10 (28 August 2004)

This movie was filled with tiresome clichés dressed up as an historical portrait of the South.
To begin with it buys into the fallacy that the Civil War was primarily about slavery when it only became about that in the history books after the Union forces won. Some glaring historical facts support this such as the fact that Lincoln did not "free the slaves" until at least two years into the war and then he only freed the Southern slaves. Ulysses Grant - general of the Union forces - had slaves during the war whereas General Lee did not.
In the South blacks fought alongside the whites. Whereas in the North they had their own segregated regiment - "eulogized" in the movie "Glory" with Matthew Broderick - as the union men did not want to fight alongside "darkies".
The people of New York rioted and killed blacks after Lincoln's emancipation decree - somewhat accurately portrayed in the movie "The Gangs of New York."
All these facts fly in the face of the "death to all abolitionists" line in the movie Cold Mountain - when in fact there were many abolitionist organizations in the South. These facts fly in the face of the seeming ignorance people in the movie have as to the battle cry of the South when one says "last time I checked the south was a direction". As if someone in the South - who voted overwhelmingly for succession - would not understand that the war was about the independence of states and their rights. They fought against the tyranny of the North to force their will on other states simply because they had more guns.
Like most I am glad slavery died but let us not pretend that this was nobly achieved as the central cause behind the American Civil War - or more accurately The War of Northern Aggression.