INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR IN EARLY FILM
One Film To Rule Them All

In 1915, the blockbuster film, The Birth of a Nation swept the nation. In a pivotal scene, the attractive daughter of a former slave owner, whose cotton business had been ruined by the war, is stalked by a menacing looking black soldier, named Gus. He is shown with his shirt wide open and bare-chested. Flora, the stereotypical southern belle, notices the voyeur and is visibly shaken. Flora tries to hide from Gus, but Gus corners her and tells her that he wants her and that he is not married. Since the end of the Civil War, Flora has noticed several black soldiers in the area in the past few months harassing her family and other upstanding families. Gus forces Flora closer and tries to kiss her. In a panic, Flora slaps him and pushes him away. Flora flees into the woods. The ensuing pursuit shows Gus as a sex-crazed maniacal troll chasing down the seemingly innocent virginal fairy. Gus follows her absorbedly intent on raping her. Flora winds up on a cliff overlooking a series of jagged rocks. She stares at Gus and motions for him to leave her alone. In a silent ultimatum, she gesticulates that if he doesn’t leave then she’ll leap from the cliff to the rocks below. Gus is exposed as a beast, sweating and pulsating lustful desires. He moves closer to Flora to stop her from leaping. Unwilling to give herself to a black man and death being the only alternative, Flora jumps from the cliff. Thus, the quintessential portrayal of the black man was born into the psyche of American culture. The Birth of a Nation was just but one movie of the early era of Hollywood films that combined many of these interpretations or misinterpretations of the Civil War period. With little regard to actual facts, most Hollywood filmmakers rewrote history ignoring the actual stories. Generalizations, stereotypes, and amalgamations were used to move a story or make the film more dramatic. Driven by audience approval and dollars, commercial and political considerations, film makers of the early era of film mostly treated history casually. This is mostly evident in war movies, distorted and sanitized for the masses, producers, writers, directors, and studios churn out films that they think will give them a return on their investments. If the story needs to be changed to make a dollar, then by all means history can wait. In the Civil War era western, Arizona Bushwhackers (1968), William Quantrill is a gallant leader in Arizona in 1866. However, Quantrill died in 1865 and never lived or operated in Arizona.
Hollywood has responded to historical inaccuracies by ignoring the plot holes or by simply implying that the “spirit” of the story may be more important than the facts. Kim Peirce, the director of Boys Don’t Cry (1999), stated that she could not let the facts get in the way of her feelings. She said, “You can change the facts. You can change characters. You can change everything in search of the truth.” Historians have been very concerned about the way history is portrayed in film and fiction, and how filmmakers fit history into their stories. “The past is up for grabs for creative people,” affirmed by David McCullough, whose novel Truman was being turned into an HBO miniseries. Daniel Bernardi, in The Birth of Whiteness, Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema, implies that the calamity of film making is not only that history is revised, but that the public absorb and believe it to be fact.
Fact, Fiction, Film

Portrayals of fictional stories, legends, and myths in literature can become accepted as actual truthful history. Jill Lepore has stated in New York Burning: Liberty and Slavery in an Eighteenth-Century City, “How wars are remembered can be just as important as how they were fought and described.” Thus can be the same for film. The Civil War is one of the most romanticized, admired, and interpreted as well as criticized, condemned, and analyzed periods of American history. Early silent films depicted slaves as loyal and happy members of the family, eager to help their owners save the plantation from the evil Yankee soldier or carpetbagger. Americans have developed their own interpretations of the war mainly from these translations. Few Americans actually understand how the conflict of the Civil War changed the course of American life. Even as the early films trumpeted the American ideal, soul, and passion for patriotism, the division of races was greatly aggravated by diluted interpretations. The typical early Hollywood setting of the Civil War is the colonial Victorian plantation surrounded by rows of magnolia trees and Spanish moss. The men are dressed in dazzling fine suits, while the women scurry about preparing for the next cotillion. Soldiers are instant heroes. From the infancy of film to the 1930s, the Civil War was depicted as a pristine love affair between men and women with the war itself as a backdrop. In 1903, the western, The Great Train Robbery, was the first film produced and whetted the appetite of the American public for the blaze of guns and glory on the screen. It brought action and adventure to a public starved for a sense of forgiveness and involvement in a time riddled with emotion. Over five hundred silent films have been made about the Civil War. In these now known, “moonlight and magnolia,” films, early filmmakers interpreted the Civil War with some commonality. These interpretations have become “truths” to the American public and proven by their “spirit”. In early Civil War films, Southerners are heroic. They are typically the protagonists of the story and more so the underdog. However, in reality, the South started the war. Only through various mishaps, lack of communication, and loss in three key battles, the South held a distinct chance to win the war. In early film, filmmakers in the likes of D.W. Griffith seemed to apologize for the fact that the South lost, and only through film could “the South live on forever.” Women are presented as weak and openly fall in love with Union officers in early film. To the contrary, southern women of the Civil War period endured occupation, subjugation, humiliation, and the pillaging of their homes. Most southerners in Civil War silent films are presented as extremely wealthy slaveholders. Contrary to this impression, most southerners could not afford slaves, lived middle to lower class lives, and were mainly farmers. These farmers made up the bulk of the Southern army, making it according to draft act explanation, “a rich man’s war and poor man’s fight.” Abolitionists are often blamed in early film for starting of the war. Little attention is given to the political maneuvering and controversy that created the tension. Civil strife in Kansas, division in Congress over slavery in the Western Territories, the rise of the Free-Soilers and Know-Nothings, the creation of the Republican party, the splintering of the Democratic party, the secession of South Carolina and other Southern States, or the attack on Ft. Sumter go ignored. Slaves are often represented as helpful, loyal, “free” servants, nannies, butlers, chauffeurs, workers, or entertainers. Black men are most always portrayed by white men in black face. D.W. Griffith, considered the father of film, never allowed a black person to be on his set. In Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers, Robert Schnakenberg describes that Griffith took offense at the notion of a black man “disgracing his film.” Lincoln is presented according to Brian Willis in Gone with the Glory, that he was a “knight of the cause of freedom.” He is most always a saintly heroic father figure, unmatched and brazen against any attack. Only through the cowardice of John Wilkes Boothe is “Father Abraham,” presented fragile and immune to death. Little awareness is given to the political events of 1856 through 1860 that brought about neither his election nor his desire to maintain the union and free the slaves. Lincoln’s military leadership, attacks by Democrats and Republicans, complexities in his personal life, relationship with his wife, and his involvement in any political scandal is seldom portrayed. Movies in the silent era typically ended with reconciliation. Northerners and Southerners becoming one, undivided nation joined by the American spirit. As films progressed into the 1930s, this notion became very apparent as the heroic soldiers of the North and South united to fight the Indians. Political and cultural tension between the North and South after the Civil War exacerbated into the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and nearly destroyed the Southern economy. These interpretations were built around primary sources and accounts from the actual war. Filmmakers of the silent era had an abundance of principal source material to draw. With it being only forty-three years since the start of the war to some of the first films being presented to audiences, filmmakers drew from their own experiences of the time to draft their visions. Robert E. Lee had always been a regal figure of American history, and his great dignity shown at the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in paintings and newspapers was a great source of inspiration for early film makers.
Make My History Have A Happy Ending

Though inaccurate, misguided, controversial and romanticized, these interpretations of the war in film helped the nation heal its wounds. The revisions of the war seemed necessary. More than 620,000 American soldiers died in the conflict, half of the country was victorious and celebrated by parade and acclaim, while the other half went home to burned cities and ruins. Physical and psychological damage, as well as an oppressive Reconstruction effort led to a fear of suppression of the South by the North. To realize true reunification, the entire Civil War political and cultural history had to be revised so that the Southerners would never again be viewed as harsh slave-owners or secessionists who started the war. Reconstruction, reinvestment in the South, and the rebuilding of infrastructure in the South revitalized the Southern economy. Entertainers began to rewrite and reinvent the Southern culture as noble patriots fighting not for slavery but for honor. Blurred by this sense of unification, the Civil War became lost in a myriad of interpretation. Tidied up in amalgamations and through the power of media, Americans came to believe the myths and legends of novels, magazines, and film. Thus, such history was the accepted norm in the early twentieth century. The filmmakers of the silent era were extremely genuine in their interpretations, seemingly offering true visions and honest characterizations. Thomas Dixon, who wrote The Clansman, the inspiration behind D.W. Griffith’s film, The Birth of a Nation, in 1915, expressed that, “The movie picture man is not merely the purveyor of a form of entertainment. He is leading a revolution in the development of humanity – as profound as that which followed the first invention of print.” Viewers of film in the early silent era thought that the movies they were watching were true depictions of the war. Early filmmakers credited themselves with statements before the film stating to the effect that every effort has gone into painstakingly researching the film and production. Movies became legitimate historical descriptions to be studied and analyzed. Molly Haskell states in From Reverence to Rape, The Treatment of Women in the Movies, that “Americans have always seen films as their nation’s story.” Civil War films of the silent era have had critical and commercial success. The Birth of a Nation was the top grossing film until 1925 and Gone with the Wind tops the list as the highest grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation. David O. Selznick, who produced Gone with the Wind, and D.W. Griffith, who wrote, produced, and directed The Birth of a Nation, thought they were creating historically positive stories to explain a troubled fragmented time in American history. Arthur M. Schlesinger is noted to say that Southerners “won on screen what they lost on the battlefield.” The struggles presented in these early films represent the struggles of modern Americans. By examining the issues of the war in films, they have become a medium to openly speak about what we have become as a nation as a result of the conflict. By visually witnessing the hard fighting Yankees and Rebels defending their nation and upholding their honor prepared the nation for its own future battles. As America entered the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the movies of the early era helped create a vision of gallantry, honor, unification, and definition of Americans rising to fight a cause. The films proved Americans could fight out of the Depression and win foreign wars. Audiences were granted visions of great patriots and through early silent films, the interpretations of the Civil War laid the foundations for actors such as John Wayne, who portrayed both Southern and Northern heroes. As Americans began to heal from the wounds of the Civil War, and revel in its reinterpretation, the price of this revitalization took its toll on the American culture. The real cause of the war was stone washed. Slavery as a reason for the war began to be forgotten. Black people were shown to be stripped of their humanity on film, through “rastus” or “sambo” films. Thus, reality began to imitate fiction. Portrayals of blacks in early film have typically been as simpletons, beggars, or murderers and rapists as seen in The Birth of a Nation. With the overpowering ability to shape opinion, early film convinced many whites that the way that blacks were treated in the movies was completely justified and could be replicated. If black people were regarded in film as low life creatures, and that painful research has gone into the making the film, then it should be taken note in reality blacks should be treated as such. The reunification of America in early films about the Civil War meant that reunification was meant for whites only. The actual war itself solved nothing. The opening scene from The Battle (1911) sets the stage for early Civil War film and contains elements seen in most era films. The proud parents, eager soldier, girl left behind, and cheering crowds are the backdrop of one of D.W. Griffith’s first Civil War tales. New studios were being developed and consisted mostly of Jewish immigrants from Europe. These men knew very little of American history, but were determined to create a history for themselves. Early film pioneers, the Warner Brothers and Samuel Goldwyn were from Poland, Louis B. Meyer from Russia, Adolph Zukor from Hungary, and William Dickson from England. These men all had a commonality in film to create an America that they could be proud, especially for new immigrants. They were proponents of strong family values, and honoring women and children. They believed in dreams coming true, and living out life long aspirations. The American Dream as we know it was created in film. The first Civil War era film was the 1903 adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The first Civil War battle film was the 10 minute feature, Days of ’61, produced by Thomas Edison in 1908. Days of ’61 featured a Romeo and Juliet style love story of a Northern soldier falling in love with a Southern belle. The film started the romanticism of the war that would be prevalent in most films hence. Days of ’61 is the first film to depict Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln. Days of ’61 was revered as an “educational film” and marketed to teach young children and parents about the war. Early films were mostly pro-Union, due in part to the financial success of the first film, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Southern theater owners began to desire pro-South depictions. In 1909, the film, Escape from Andersonville, portrayed the infamous Confederate prison. One filmgoer complained to the Moving Picture World asking, “Why do all the Civil War movies have the northern army come out ahead?” The plea was for more balance in the films but also was an indicator from a man in Florida who believed that the South won. The demand for Southern victory and Southern themes pleased and bewildered the producers of early film. They initially believed that the South did not want to be reminded of the conflict, but were delighted that they could bring film into the region. However, it was obvious that to make a profit that Southern subject matter and heroes needed to win. The desire for a Southern point of view became very prominent in 1909 with D.W. Griffith’s, In Old Kentucky. D.W. Griffith produced and filmed the movie in Jacksonville, Florida taking advantage of the warm and mild weather and ubiquitous non-union workers.
Two Men

By 1909, D.W. Griffith was the most prominent filmmaker of his time and has been considered the father of film. In Secret Live of Great Filmmakers, Robert Schnakenberg, describes Griffith as “…a man whose imperious manner and grand appetites set the standard for every moviemaker who came after him. With his straw hat and oversized megaphone, he is also the physical template for the “director” archetype. Fortunately, most filmmakers who came after him saw fit not emulate his other defining characteristic: a racism so pernicious it taints the undeniable technical brilliance of his trailblazing silent features.”
Griffith, unlike his contemporaries, was a true local born and bred Southerner. Born in La Grange, Kentucky, the son of a Confederate colonel, Griffith was treated with daily tales of the “lost cause.” His father, Roarin’ Jake Griffith, had been a veteran of many battles of the war to include Shiloh, Missionary Ridge, and helped in the attempted escape of Jefferson Davis in 1865. Jake Griffith was known to expound on his experiences to his family and marveled in the exaggeration of the South’s near victory. Jake’s stories helped contribute to fourteen Civil War films, ten of which were directed by D.W. Griffith. D.W. would produce three others and supervised the production of the last. In all these films, Jake’s son would portray the South as a paradise shaken by Northern aggression. Men were heroes and women were affectionate supporters of their husbands. Slaves were portrayed to be trusted honest staff devoted to their masters. D.W. consistently denied that his father influenced his films and stories. He also denied any reference that his family were former slave holders or that any Southern literature, history, or theater had any influence.
D.W. Griffith did occasionally have Southern villains in his tales. However, any Southern character in his movies that would seemingly denigrate the South or suggest any moral flaw would be characterized as a traitor to the Cause. In 1911, Griffith produced a rare double feature. His Trust and His Trust Fulfilled cultivated the stereotype of the slave as trusted companion. The advertising bill for the films read, “In every Southern home, there is an old trusted body servant, whose faithful devotion to his master and his master’s family was extreme to the extent of laying down his life if required.” This tag line was accompanied by a disclaimer of the feature being, “…a truthful representation of life in the South during the Civil War.” By 1915, Griffith was outgrowing simple one or two reel films and dreamed of epic two hour or longer films.
Thomas Ince, was another trailblazing contemporary of D.W. Griffith. Ince was from Rhode Island, however influenced by Southern pop culture of the time, he portrayed a very pro-Southern point of view in his films. Ince helped perpetuate the moonlight and magnolia Plantation archetypes. Thomas Ince was very flamboyant in his dress and was an avid golfer. He often wore very expensive suits and helped generate his flamboyance in his films. His heroes always wore the latest fashions and were extremely neat and clean, even in battle scenes.
As an innovative director of more than twenty Civil War films, out-producing his rival Griffith in this genre, he became known for his formula style of filmmaking. He wrote, “A director must know life, but he must know, too, how to project life, not in narrative form but by selected dramatic moments, each of which builds towards a definite crisis that will bring about a burst of emotional response from every audience.” Ince’s films included the axiom that women would capitulate to uniformed handsome men and that the loyal black slave would normally be an overweight jovial mammy. He is best known for his 1913 film, The Battle of Gettysburg. Ince collaborated with well known screenwriter, C. Gardner Sullivan. They began a writer’s group that eventually led to the typical Hollywood model, spawning hundreds of former newspaper writers to inscribe screenplays. No print of The Battle of Gettysburg is known to exist, however it is touted as a masterpiece and innovative in its storytelling. Only play bills and reviews of the film describe Ince’s masterpiece. Clocking in at a pioneering five reel, hour long feature, The Battle of Gettysburg illustrated the Southern rout through an anthology of brave and wise leaders who would have won the battle had they not been outnumbered. Ince wanted Sullivan to write dialog for the film and had his actors speak their lines when filming “in order to create sound.” The play bill was very bold to suggest gallant men fought gallant men, promoting bravery on both sides. The films ends with no clear hero or villain, no winner, and no loser.
D.W. Griffith is known to be the father of film, where as Thomas Ince is known to be the father of the modern studio. Ince produced over four hundred films based in Santa Ynez, California, twenty miles from Hollywood. He built the first modern movie studio, complete with living amenities, production facilities and an oversized warehouse exclusively for Civil War props. His studio was nicknamed, Inceville, and once was the home to the 101 Ranch Wild West Show. Due to a lack of travel bookings, Ince used the 101 Ranch Wild West Show production team for his westerns and Civil War films.
Ince and Griffith were undeniably the most successful filmmakers of the silent era. They only produced thirty two Civil War films of over five hundred films made by both filmmakers. However, these thirty two films included the most financially and famous films of the war, one being Griffith’s epic masterpiece as the most successful film of all time.
The film was Birth of a Nation. As a massive twelve reel, three-hour long epic, Griffith believed that Birth of a Nation would revolutionize how movies were presented. He wanted to see films moved into larger arenas for wider groups of audiences. He envisioned making movies for the middle class, not just the poor working class. Birth of a Nation was the type of movie to allow audiences to view action scenes as well as intricate scenes of close-ups and actual acting. Such filmmaking style was innovative in a massive epic.
Giving Birth To A Klan

Adapted from Thomas Dixon’s Civil War era novel, The Clansman, The Birth of a Nation became an instant blockbuster as well as the most controversial film of all time. Academics panned the film while black citizens protested the theaters that were showing the movie, The Birth of a Nation was an unapologetic racist commentary of the war. It belittled all blacks as racist brutes and rapists while glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.
In D.W. Griffith: An American Life, Richard Schickel reports that D.W. Griffith saw possibilities in Dixon’s book immediately after being introduced to the work. Griffith was noted in saying, “I could just see these Klansmen in a movie with their white robes flying.” Thomas Dixon’s uncle had fought in the Civil War and was a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction effort. The Clansman was the second book of a trilogy of Reconstruction inspired novels. The first, The Leopard’s Spots: a Romance of the White Man’s Burden, became a bestseller in 1902. Dixon was inspired by the success of the novel, and subsequently wrote The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Klu Klux Klan and The Traitor: A Story of the Rise and Fall of the Invisible Empire in 1905 and 1907 respectively. Dixon adapted The Clansman into a successful stage play in 1905, drawing more triumph in the North than the South.
The Clansman is a two part story. The first half of the book devoted to the tale of two sets of brothers from the North and the South and their exploits during the war. The last half of the book is a postwar epilogue about two of the surviving brothers from each region. In the aftermath of the war, black leaders and soldiers have seized control of the Southern region of Piedmont and continuously harass, rape, and kill innocent white citizens. The novel climaxes with members of the Ku Klux Klan capturing and executing a black man suspected of rape and sexual threats to white women.
The ensuing film, was the one of the first truly complex movies of the era. The Birth of Nation would involve various subplots, rich characterizations, large outdoor battles, nighttime fighting, fires, glorious cinematography, and Southern heroes returning to burned homes and villages but most importantly the pivotal scene of a near twenty minute ride by Klansmen in their “flowing robes”. D.W. Griffith was given the opportunity to craft his masterpiece by Harry Aitken, the new head of an upstart studio. Aiken wanted to create a name for himself and recruited Griffith and his entourage. Griffith was given carte blanche to develop and produce his epic. Griffith felt that his previous studio was hindering his vision of filmmaking and wanted more power and funds to fine tune his art. Griffith was given a massive budget and despite a cost of over $100,000, The Birth of a Nation was a blockbuster and nation wide hit.
The Birth of a Nation took a radical step in the depiction of blacks on film. Griffith broke new ground when presenting blacks as docile farm hands in the first half of the film and then as violent cutthroat savages in the second half. Confident, Griffith believed that audiences would accept this racial hostility even though it strayed from the established standards of archetype. Russell Merritt argued in Cinema magazine that “The Birth of a Nation is not a historical document any more than are Walt Whitman’s poems about the war or Shakespeare’s historical plays.” Audiences, however, educated and saturated with Civil War legends, paid little attention to historical inaccuracies. They were interested so as long as the girls were pretty and the boys were heroes.
The film, The Birth of a Nation, met the audience’s expectations. Every established Civil War film rule of story telling was used. The Southerners were portrayed as underdogs, a young northern woman falls in love with the dashing Southern gentlemen, a Union friend saves a Southern friend, Lincoln is the proud emancipator, and blame for the war rests with the Abolitionists. The Birth of a Nation was extremely racist that slandered American blacks and helped create a racial divide that last to this day. Complimenting Dixon’s The Clansmen, the movie gave rise to the argument that blacks if set free would take over the nation economically, politically, and sexually. Black political leaders as well as rough and poor slaves would be shown to lust over white women. Black troops were seen as savage beasts, intent on sexual gratification. Blacks would be distorted to be seen as humble people who can be controlled and restricted in repression, however when given freedom, they would be become prowling hordes and destroy society. The Ku Klux Klan was necessary to restrain the black mobs and put them in their place in America.
D.W. Griffith, Aitken and Dixon all believed that the true United States of America was born out of Reconstruction. Upon screening the film to some prominent New York politicians and clergy, and after witnessing the audience to erupt in a jubilant applause, Thomas Dixon suggested to Griffith and Aitken in an exhilarated tirade, “Let’s not call it The Clansman any more. It’s too big for that. Let’s call it The Birth of a Nation.” The new nationalistic title of the movie was immediately agreed upon and symbolized the racist view of its author and director, and in the wake of the wild fervent success of the film, the American public.

Bibliography
Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Women in Culture and Society Series). Chicago: Chicago UP, 1996.

Bergman, Andrew. We’re in the Money: Depression American and its Films. Lanham: Dee, 2007

Bernardi, Daniel Leonard. The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of the United States Cinema. Rutgers: Rutgers UP, 1996.

Brown, Karl. Adventures with D. W. Griffith. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973.

Brownlow, Kevin. The Parade’s Gone By. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.

Dixson, Thomas. The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (The Novel As American Social History). Lexington: Kentucky UP, 1970.

Fischer, Lucy. American Cinema of the 1920s: Themes and Variations (The Screen Decades Series). Rutgers: Rutgers UP, 2009.

Gaudreault, Andre’. American Cinema 1890-1909: Themes and Variations (The Screen Decades Series). Rutgers: Rutgers UP, 2009.

Gish, Lillian. The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me. Englewood: Prentice Hall, 1969.

Hark, Ina R. American Cinema of the 1930s: Themes and Variations (The Screen Decades Series). Rutgers: Rutgers UP, 2009.

Lepore, Jill. New York Burning: Liberty and Slavery in an Eighteenth-Century City. (New York: Knopf, 2005; Vintage, 2006).

Lewis, John. American Film: A History. New York: Norton, 2007

May, Lary. Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1983.

Schickel, Richard. D. W. Griffith: An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.

Schnakenberg, Robert. Secret Lives of Great Filmakers. Philadelphia: Quirk, 2010.

Skylar, Robert. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. New York: Vintage, 1994.

Stokes, Melvyn. D.W. Griffith’s the Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.

Selected Films:

Ince, Thomas H. The Invaders (DVD). Hollywood: Kay-Bee Pictures, 1912.

Ince, Thomas H. The Drummer of the 8th (DVD). Chatsworth: Image Ent. 1913.

Ince , Thomas H. Granddad (DVD). Chatsworth: Image Ent. 1913.

Ince, Thomas H. The Coward (DVD). Chatsworth: Image Ent., 1915.

Griffith, D.W. The Birth of a Nation (DVD). Hollywood: D.W. Griffith Corp, 1915.

Griffith, D.W. The Battle. Hollywood: D.W. Griffith Corp, 1911.

Griffith, D.W. Days of ‘61. Hollywood: D.W. Griffith Corp, 1908.

Griffith, D.W. Escape from Andersonville. Hollywood: D.W. Griffith Corp, 1909.

Griffith, D.W. In Old Kentucky. Hollywood: D.W. Griffith Corp, 1909.