“Civil War: The Untold Story”

Date: February 4, 2014
Contact: Kim Coons, 423-752-5213 x139

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park invites the public to a sneak-preview screening of Civil War: The Untold Story – Episode 4 "Death Knell of the Confederacy" on Saturday, March 1, 2014, at 7 p.m. This special screening will take place in the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center Theater at 3370 LaFayette Road, Fort Oglethorpe, GA 30742. Producer/Director Chris Wheeler of Great Divide Pictures will be at the park to introduce the film and give insights to the production process. Afterwards, he and Park Historian Jim Ogden will conduct a question-and-answer session.  Please note the theater can only accommodate 150 viewers. 

Episode 4 is part of a visually stunning new 5-part documentary series narrated by Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey) and produced for public television by Great Divide Pictures. The series breaks new ground by examining the war through the lens of the Civil War's Western Theater. Filmed with sweeping cinematic style on the very grounds where these epic battles were fought, it recreates authentic scenes and features interviews with prominent historians to provide new insights on the war and the relatively unknown roles that African Americans played in the conflict. The series is sponsored by Nashville Public Television and will be distributed nationally to more than 100 public television stations, including WTCI, Tennessee Valley PBS, by American Public Television (APT) this spring. 

This episode begins on September 19, 1863, amidst the Battle of Chickamauga. Miscommunication, confusion, and fatigue with Union General Rosecrans and his generals have left a gap in the Union line more than a quarter mile wide. General Longstreet's Confederates pour through the gap and split the Union army in half. Rosecrans and his beaten troops barely escape north to Chattanooga. Chickamauga's combined casualties of over 34,000 are only topped by the carnage at Gettysburg. In October, Rosecrans is replaced by General Grant, who immediately plans an offensive. In November 1863, Grant routes the Confederate stronghold atop Missionary Ridge just outside the city. As the gray-clad soldiers escape south into Georgia, an officer calls the devastating defeat: "the death knell of the Confederacy." Chattanooga is the gateway to the Deep South, and in May 1864, a large Union army marches from Chattanooga bound for Atlanta. The final chapter of the Civil War is about to begin.