The extraordinary success of the PBS documentary series The Civil War lay in Ken Burns’s ability to bring out the tragedy in that bloodbath. His film was a relentless chronicle of how good men butchered good men over the institution of slavery, with an omnipresent and anguished Lincoln, consumed and eventually destroyed by his role as both executioner and savior. Central to the drama was the suffering of the South, which sent its brave sons to die gallantly for a cause that was unworthy of their sacrifice.