Let's Not Forget About This Guy

 Maybe it was about a year ago, maybe a little longer.  Our friend Gus said he'd been to the battlefield at Gettysburg and it was an experience that we should not miss.  Last summer we saw this amazing, hallowed ground and were moved beyond words.  It was an extraordinary experience that really left its mark.  There is such loss and such heroism and it's all about the creation and identity of this incredible land we inhabit.  Our appetite had been whetted.

Some of you may have noticed a pencant on behalf of some of the contributors here at The Balcony that we like our PBS - It's sooo true.  So we cued up our NetFlix queue and nine episodes (and countless tears) later we're through Ken Burns' extraordinary work.  It is a masterpiece that features all the headlines and major battles discussed in exemplary detail, but follows the narrative through smaller treasures such as the meticulous diaries of an otherwise obscure yankee soldier and rebel soldier.  As these primary sources are read by the appropriately accented voices of Garrison Keillor and M.  Emmet Walsh, countless photos show the horror of this unbelievably bloody conflict. But the coup de gras comes at the end when moving (finally moving) pictures are shown of the actual combatants as they gathered at reunions in the 1910's and 1930's.  These are the actual men who bore witness to this atrocity and have lived to tell the tale.

And while there is such artisty in the assemblage, the greatest attribute of Mr. Burns' film is clearly the insight of his star scholar, Shelby Foote (pictured above).  Foote's contribution to the emotion of this story is enormous.  He feels the pain of both sides and tears up as he relates the adulation and awe with which the soldiers viewed Robert E. Lee.  His 3000 page narrative of the war is next on our readnig list, and if you haven't spent any time with Burns' extraordinary documentary, you should make room for it on your queue.