Great interpretation of the Civil War time period and what was going on in New York City!

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2017)

Upon seeing the title of this movie, I had no idea how it would relate to the historical events that happened during the Civil War, but it took place during the time period, so I guess that counts and I went for it.
I'm not professional critic and I am not familiar the director of this movie, but from a historical perspective, as that is what I came into to this movie looking for, I can say it was quite satisfying! I thought the movie was a bit too long and there were several scenes that could have well been left out, but the parts that were actually interesting were the ones that I could make connections to facts I learned in AP U.S. history! I didn't realize how much of an issue immigration had caused during the Civil War, especially the Irish ones! We briefly covered the topic of immigrants in another unit and in this movie they portrayed them similarly to how I pictured them, except not all of them were rowdy, they just had to be tough to fit into this new home of theirs. New York City was a place of where many people of different religions, ethnicities, political beliefs and more gathered in one melting pot and I enjoyed learning more about the culture of the city through this movie that has continued to be the same today.
One thing in particular that I was somewhat disturbed by was the amount of blood and gruesome scenes throughout the movie. I am willing to accept it for now because it made sense for some of the scenes, but it was unnecessary to have it in almost every part. I liked the scenes that showed us how the Civil War Drafts worked and how immigrants would literally walk off of a boat, become a citizen, then were sent off to fight in the army. I can totally understand why so many Irish immigrants protested and rioted about the drafts because the Civil War was a series of many bloody and deadly battles, just like what was happening between the gangs in Five Points! I don't understand why the Irish people resented blacks and gathered mobs to attack them and why did they have to riot at the same time as the Five Point gang battle and bring in Union troops to create a chaotic mess? Luckily, both Amsterdam and Jenny survived, but thousands of others lost their lives, which I thought overpowered the "good guys" being able to live and was left with more of a sorrowful ending. I did recognize some important historical figures like William 'Boss' Tweed and Horace Greeley that made appearances and also the political factions that them along with other groups of people belonged to. The characters, in my opinion all seemed to be a bit crazy in the head and I would never trust people like them in real life! The actors did their job of getting the basic theme of a boy who watches his dad die and grows up to get revenge on the person who killed him across, but I wish the main point of the movie was a history-based.
Overall, my final thoughts to add are that the movie was great in and was filled with action and was good in how it had the setting and feeling of what New York City would be like in the 1860s during the Civil War.