History Film / GodsAndGenerals

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Jackson is portrayed as favoring an eventual abolition of slavery in the South, for which there is no historical evidence - he figured that if God wanted it to end then it would end in God's time, and if God didn't want it to end then it wouldn't. He did get in trouble for teaching Sunday School lessons to slave children, with his defense that "The Lord intended all his children to be able to read his word", but he still believed they could read it fine while remaining in slavery. The first Confederate general to suggest freeing slaves in order to have them fight against the Yankees was Patrick Cleburne, "the Stonewall of the West", in early 1864, which was a year after Jackson died. Also in real life, Jackson's cook was not a freeman as in the movie, but a slave. The film also leaves out his BunnyEarsLawyer tendencies, like the fact he kept one hand raised at most times to "keep the blood balanced" and was known to sometimes refuse to fight on a Sunday, considering it a sin.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Stonewall Jackson, on his deathbed, raises his right hand as if in blessing, a [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} bloodstain at the center of his bandaged palm.]]

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* HollywoodTactics: Fredericksburg has a scene where Union troops repeatedly advance across an open field towards the Confederate troops, who are crouching behind a stone wall. Obviously this works out in the Confederacy's favor. Unfortunately it's TruthInTelevision: Burnside's tactics at Fredericksburg really were little more than a series of {{Zerg Rush}}es against a fortified position.
** TechnologyMarchesOn: Fifteen years earlier and his tactics would have been just fine given his superior numbers and better artillery. Charging fixed positions to deliver the bayonet would have been how he was taught. It's just that about ten years before the war the Minie Ball and Rifled Musket were introduced, making the standard infantry weapon far more accurate and unbelievably more deadly, and infantry tactics had not yet changed to account for that.
** It is, however, inaccurate and in fact a bit unfair to Burnside to depict the futile fight at Marye's Heights as all that happened at Fredericksburg. Even Burnside only ever intended the fighting there as a distraction from the decisive fight further south against Stonewall Jackson, where casualties were more even (5,000 Union vs 3,400 Confederate) and where George Meade and his men actually made a fortuitous breakthrough only to have it squandered when William B. Franklin and John F. Reynolds refused to commit any of their 20,000 reserves to support him.