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This is an important piece of history imaginatively staged. Sam Waterston executed a bravura performance as the abolitionist and civil war hero Daniel Chamberlain who liked emancipation but was unwilling to accept equality. The spencerian social darwinianism which infected upper caste society was accurately presented, even though as we reach the twilight of the American era it sounds so childishly stupid. To people of the time what they said stemmed from scientific fact, the novel doctrine of evolution which had devolved into a belief that, if the existing order were not to have been ordained by a Supreme Being, it was dictated by natural forces over which man had no control.The cast and writers paid careful attention to the diction of the civil war era which to us today sounds so stiff and formal yet capable of concealing much wry, introspective humor.The film also brought to the fore an interesting character Asa Bird Gardiner little known out of the limited circles of military law scholars.Well done! Comparable films: Courtmartial of Billy Mitchell, Courtmartial of Jackie Robinson, Caine Mutiny, Hart's War
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