hello,

I thought the film was just OK. Too many speeches, too much maudlin stuff, poorly edited and paced. The Irish of Cobb's Brigade versus the Irish Brigade was nice - even if Cobbs Brigade only had two Irish companies in it - and one Co. K, 24th GA) was not fully Irish!

The Civil War still does not have the definitive movie and Ron Maxwell has had two chances to do so.

Yet there is some good stuff - the Fredericksburg scenes are, perhaps, the best CW combat stuff on film. There are scenes that could have been cut out.

Flags - the CS flags, were for the most part, wrong, as usual. Most of the ANV flags shown were 4th Buntings which did not show up until may, 1864. CS units need to do better research and the flag makers need to make better flags! Way too much zigzag stitching across the stars - when real ANV flags had loop stitches around the dges. I saw one accurate Third Bunting and two correct Second Bunting flags.

Too many state flags being used later in the movie when they would have been relegated to parades. The VA state flags replicated those made by George Ruskell pretty well. Also - the color guards at First Manassas did not portray properly a regiment with company colors in line of battle.

The Irish 24th Georgia flag has no historical basis (the unit had one partially Irish company in it) and most of the existing GA state flags are blue, not white. The Bonnie Blue flags shown were too light in color - real ones were darker blue. The flags shown were for the country of Somalia basically. Once again the Federal flags were far more accurate!

On a scale of one to ten I rate it a 3.

Greg Biggs