re: Spinoff thread: Favorite Civil War Movie?

So Glory ... we were living in Charleston at the time and owned a home not far from where Fort Wagner had been located. A lot of things were happening around then, like Cussler's search for the Hunley and they had also found a mass grave where some soldiers had been buried out on James Island.

I have always been a been relic hunter (metal detecting) ... I own a Deus now but back then I was using a Garret Master Hunter VII and I had two buddies and we were doing a lot of orivy digging. (We'd find old outhouse locations downtown and dig them for artifacts.)

One of my buddies owned a small bar and grill downtown known as The Patriot Pub and he also owned Shaw's original candleopera ... which the director of the film used in the movie when Broderick was writing letters by candlelight.

Later in '89 we were hit by Hurricane Hugo and a lot more digs opened-up for us. That following year, in '90, I found my first CSA plate (brass belt buckle) and a silver pill box dated 1629 with a London Sikversmith's mark. The pillbox I figured was dropped in the privy accidentally by someone who was sick and throwing-up and the belt buckle was probaby dropped in the privy by a soldier taking a dump.

We also found two gold rings that year, both at Civil War depth. We figured the citizens were so emaciated that the rings probably fell off while they were wiping their butts.

We found wash bowls and piss pots and thousands of Palmetto Dispensery bottles ... all very collectable stuff over the years.

Later, the movie generated so much attention that we were interviewed by CNN at the pub about some of the relics we had found, as well as the candleopera that he eventually sold to the Director of the movie.

Now, my cousin owned the old Tidal Home for years ... the house used in The Great Santini and The Big Chill, and it was through him that I met Tom Berringer (The Big Chill) who still lives in the area and wanted to get married at the house. He gave my cousin a beautiful Civil War era silver tea set as a gift ... and he bought the silver pill box from me for far more than it was worth - and it was worth a lot.

So yeah, while Glory is not exactly historically accurate it is a good movie and one of my favorite Civil War movies.

Gone With The Wind remains my favorite. My wife is actually a Butler, from the Charleston Butler clan Margaret Mitchell based her Rhett Butler character on.

My son is named Butler.

Next would have to be Red Badge of Courage.

Made for TV movie ... North and South. Highly underrated.

Glory. Followed by Gettysburg. There are actually a surprising few number of movies that are about the conflict itself. Most of them remain on the periphery of the war with films like Gone With the Wind, Shenandoah, and Cold Mountain being some of those examples.

There is a producer in Hollywood who has been working his arse off securing funding and network rights for a Civil War miniseries for the better part of this decade. He's finally got Mark Burnett and Rob Lowe on board to produce but is still shopping his 700-page script around to networks. Hopefully we'll get some news on that here in the next few weeks. The title of the miniseries was tentatively "To Appomattox" but has since been changed to "A Nation Divided."