I had to think back to my first encounter with the civil war.
It had to be my mother....she made me watch "gone with the wind" quite a fair few number of times....me not really understanding things too well heh (and generally losing interest easily around the time scarlett marching up the stairs in forlorn way while all the ruckus about fort sumter starting with all the gents rushing down as war announced to produce that funny contrast).....but she did try explain best she could though she would go into many details (she is a huge huge fan of the book by Margaret Mitchell).
Some scenes didn't need explaining though, I could tell by my mom's reaction just what it meant. I saw her trial and tribulation with giving birth to my sister....it was fresh in her head still first time I was watching the "middle" of the movie however that finally came about (I guess I finally had some taste for serious story)....and that scene scarlett rushes out to find the doctor to help Melanie deliver her baby....and the doctor being in the middle of all those soldiers returning from the front, all that carnage he has to deal with......"are you crazy, i cant leave all these men, get some woman to help you with that...look at all these men they have nothing....nothing to even ease their pain"....and the shot just pans out to show just the size of all that. My mom taken back by all of it. It has stuck with me more than anything else from that movie. Unbearable stuff in end.... but she trusted me to understand it.
That to me explained what a war was, is and always will be in distinct way only my mom could do.
But that is how my interest in the civil war really started albeit slowly at first and picking up drastically later in life.
@Joe Shearer