1982, 5 hours. Dir: Andrew V. McLaglen. Cast: John Hammond (John Geyser), Lloyd Bridges (Ben Geyser), Julia Duffy (Mary Hale), Stacy Keach (Jonas Steele), Kathleen Beller (Kathy Reynolds), Dan Shor (Luke Geyser), Cooper Huckabee (Matthew Geyser), Colleen Dewhurst (Maggie Geyser), Michael Horton (Mark Geyser), Penny Peyser (Emma Geyser), Gregg Henry (Lester Bedell), Bruce Abbott (Jake Hale), Robin Gammell (Jacob Hale), Brian Kerwin (Malachi Hale), Gerald S. O'Loughlin (Sergeant O'Toole), Diane Baker (Evelyn Hale), Gregory Peck (Abraham Lincoln), Robert Symonds (General Robert E. Lee), Rip Torn (General Ulysses S. Grant), Paul Winfield (Jonathan Henry), Sterling Hayden (John Brown).

      Civil War Themes: Families divided.

      Battles/Moments: First Manassas/Bull Run, The Wilderness, Siege of Vicksburg, Peninsula Campaign, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Appomattox Courthouse, trial and hanging of John Brown.

If you can survive all five hours of this 1982 TV Mini-series, then you'll see that it's not a bad show, with some poignant moments describing how life was before and during the war.

The story revolves around John Geyser, a Virginian who counts among his friends a free black man, and is castigated by his brothers and father for not being a hardworking farmer as they are. The family owns only one houseslave, Hattie, but by their manner of speaking, would own more for the farm if affordable.

John is an artist, and moves to Gettysburg, Pa., to work as a newspaper illustrator for his uncle, Jacob Hale, and live with the Hale family. Thus we have the family divided, the Geysers and the Hales, loving families divided only by the Mason-Dixon line.

When war begins, the brothers of John as well as his male cousins enlist in the Confederate and Union armies, respectively. John takes a neutral position as a war correspondent for Harper's Weekly, but feels the pain of conflict and sees perhaps more death than many soldiers. He is torn between being a traitor to his land or keeping men enslaved. Of course, all is well in the end, with a lovely wife as reward.

Stacy Keach is Jonas Steele, a person with a lot of power given straight from the president. He marries Mary Hale (Julia Duffy) during the war, and befriends John for life. Pretty cool character that I favored most in the series.

The Blue and the Gray portrays war as it is, hell, and the civil war was particularly harsh on all sides. Many in the families die as a direct result of the war, and many lives are destroyed, and the series doesn't hide those facts.

Gregory Peck delivers a fine Abraham Lincoln, with portraying him as the people's president, a man of dignity and grace, who shows loyalty and rewards it as well. There are two "proud to be an American" moments in the series, when Lincoln reads the Emancipation Proclamation and his very familiar Gettysburg Address. Of course, the Proclamation was symbolism, because no slaves were freed based on it, and the Address was hailed as a failure by the press early on, but why discuss those tacky issues?

The First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas is done fairly well, even though I wish there were more re-enactors to give an epic feel to the fighting. But I did feel giddy watching the Rebs rout the Union and their cocky VIPs who rode buggies with their wives to watch the "skirmish" as if it were dinner theater. Hey, I'm a southerner; I'm glad the Union ultimately won but I still have to root for the South.

There were several points in the series that I noticed the producer did his homework, moments that were true to form in the 1860s:

• Union troops learning how to fire a gun (unlike the South, the North was a more urban culture, so a higher percentage had never fired a rifle)
  
• The insinuation that Northern girls are faster with men, but southern women were just as fast, but were more concerned with their reputation
  
• Medicine was primitive compared to today, and most soldiers and civilians who died could have been saved today with better treatment of diseases, illnesses and wounds.
  
• Troops from both sides sitting down to talk, share goods like tobacco and alcohol, hold parties for holidays or just for fun, and family members meeting to talk between the lines.
  
• Trees and brush catching fire during the battle for The Wilderness. Many soldiers were burned, alive or dead.
  
• A soldier throws away his playing cards because he doesn't want them sent to his mom as part of his personals when he would most certainly die in the ensuing battle (they should have also mentioned soldiers writing letters-or having them written if illiterate- to keep in their pockets to be sent home upon death.
  
• The starvation during the Siege of Vicksburg, where civility was thrown out the door, and fight for whatever food is available, be it rats, horses, bugs, etc. while being shelled mercilessly by Grant's forces.
  
• The wreck of the train on the way to a prisoner-of-war camp in Elmira, N.Y. Several Confederates were severly injured or killed.

I wish there was more fighting, though. No shots of the battles of Antietam or Gettysburg, just mentions and aftermath of the biggest battles of the war. Too bad, they had to squeeze in the shots for the women-folk watching, with lovey-dovey, emotional stuff.

The one thing that should have been cut was the minor story of the Confederate who would not just kill his opponent, but murder them, cutting their heads open violently and ultra-harsh. Of course, the evil officer is also a preacher, who earlier gave the "I'm evil" speech of how God said blacks were inferior and deserved to be slaves. This complete with the "I'm evil" face motions. Totally unnecessary, and made me angry at the filmmakers more than the preacher.