| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

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| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Movie Reviews

Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: Shays' Rebellion—America's First Civil War. Dir. and prod. by R. J. Cutler. History Channel, 2006. 60 mins. (A&E Home Video, P.O. Box 2284, South Burlington, VT 05407; 888-423-1212; http://www.store.aetv.com/)
January 25, 1787, was one of "ten days that unexpectedly changed America." That, at any rate, is the premise of a program about Daniel Shays broadcast by the History Channel (HC). On that wintry day, Shays and a band of 2,200 militiamen attempted to seize a well-stocked federal arsenal in Springfield, Massachusetts. The arsenal contained 7,000 muskets and 1,300 pounds of gunpowder. Had they succeeded in taking the arsenal, their plan was to march on to Boston, burn it to the ground, and overthrow a government that had seized the property of indebted farmers, thrown them in prison, and kept them in life-threatening confinement. Their aim, in short, was civil war: to replace an oppressive state government with a revolutionary junta.	1
Their way was blocked by a guard unit of 900 men, but also by over 4,000 reinforcements organized by Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, of Revolutionary War fame. Even so, Shays's insurgents, with better luck, might have succeeded, had their communications not been intercepted by the enemy.	. . .

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