Plot Synopsis

Eleven Civil-War descendants search for insights into the experiences of their ancestors, who include a Union and a Confederate private, a doctor, one of the first black soldiers, a slave and a nurse from New York. The three one-hour episodes are: 1. "Families at War": Roger Fisk uses letters written by a Union soldier and Christian Latham wants to experience what his ancestors did; 2. "Free at Last": Kenneth Morris, a descendent of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, follows the trail of his great-great-uncle, a founding member of the first black regiment, to learn more about what a black Union soldier had to do to be recognized as a war hero; 3. "The Hard War": Tim Sawyer, an army veteran and great-great-grandson of a Civil War surgeon, travels to Gettysburg to discover how long a doctor could last working in brutal wartime conditions and to determine whether his great-great-grandfather could have saved the life of President Lincoln. In honor of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, Nat Geo aired all three episodes on a single night.