Good drama but appalling history

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2006)

Gettysburg perpetuates many popular misconceptions of the Civil War. Despite the Chamberlain's noble speechifying in the movie, for example, the North fought the war first and foremost to preserve the union. Ending slavery was a minor concern, especially since most northerners had no more interest in freeing salves than most southerners. The popular perception of the South as fighting the war in a noble, but impossible battle to retain their independence, freedom and traditions is pure revisionist history. After the war, the southern elite rewrote history to make disguise their real motivation, maintenance of slavery, which they knew would not sell well, especially overseas. These "lost cause writers" made up this nonsense about freedom from central government, etc. No, the South's one and only goal for fighting the war was slavery.
The other major fiction perpetuated by the movie is that the fate of war hung in the balance at Gettsyburg. This is more nonsense. If the north had lost, there would have been no "clear road to Washington" because the Union army would simply have pulled back and set up a new defensive line. The South didn't even see the battle as a major defeat at the time. The war went on another 2 years and the South, in fact, came closest to winning in summer 1864, a year later. Despite the blather in the movie, Gettysburg was no more significant that many other Civil War battles. The "lost cause writers" elevated the battle to unwarranted significance because they could pinpoint their loss to a specific battle and specific villain - Longstreet, who oddly shows up as the main hero in the movie. By far, however, the strangest part of the movie was the portrayal of Longstreet, as the sagely Cassandra who sees the future but is ignored while and Lee shown as gentlemanly and kindly, but not really too bright. This is a complete reversal of the norm, where the "lost cause writers" vilify Longstreet for losing Gettysburg and by delaying his attack in a fit of pique when his advice was ignored while Lee was the brilliant, infallible military genius who could only be defeated by the incompetence of his subordinates Â– in this case Longstreet.
Apart from the poor history, the movie consists of three parts, reenactments of battles, dialog about strategy and dialog about the deep meaning of it all. The first two are fine, but the corny dialog that boils down to "ain't it shame that two swell fellas like us have to fight it out" is mind-numbingly sappy. They movie-makers are careful to airbrush the entire issue of slavery right out of the movie so as not to offend anyone. For example, the relationship between Armistead and Hancock is clearly meant to symbolize the relationship between the two sides, but borders on homo-eroticism.
In sum, enjoy all the battle scenes and laugh heartily at the ridiculous looking phony beards, but don't take the story any more seriously than you would Star Wars or the next Batman movie.