In the middle of the 19th century, the United States embarked on a new relationship with death. The American Civil War, fought between 1861 and 1865, was by far the bloodiest in the nation’s history, presaging the slaughter of Verdun and Passchendaele, and the horrific global carnage of the 20th century. The war killed many victims—an estimated two percent of the population, equivalent to about six million deaths today—and it transformed forever the lives of the people and the nation it left behind. Based on the best-selling book by leading historian and Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, this documentary explores how the American Civil War created a “republic of suffering,” whose consequences are with the nation still.