How Civil War Fatalities Changed the Way America Deals with Death

It’s now estimated that 750-thousand people, two and a half percent of the population, died in the American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865. A new documentary from filmmaker Ric Burns explores how the scale of the war’s carnage forced Americans and woefully unprepared government officials to deal with death on a massive scale.

It’s called Death and the Civil War and will premiere on September 18 as part of the American Experience series on PBS. WFPL's Rick Howlett caught up with Ric Burns Friday on Byline.