History Channel? No way.
In the game, you are able to choose from a set of battles in which the Union Army pretty much won, or which the Confederate Army pretty much won. You can't play both sides of the battle. The battle begins with a computerized map of army tactics that show what lead up to the battle. Once you enter the "battlefield", you are given some objectives to accomplish. Objectives like carrying three barrels of gunpowder in your sack/pockets and blowing up some fences and such. And I say "battlefield", because you hardly ever even see any of the large open fields that were so infamous for their body counts during the Civil War. Pretty much every level is a linear style in which you encounter borders on each side (i.e. fences, forest) which creates one path that you have to follow. You never see any of the infamous areas like Bloody Lane at Antietam, or Devil's Den at Gettysburg. (As a Union soldier at Gettysburg, 75% of the time you're stuck in the woods.)
Combat is extremely unrealistic, mostly because of the superman factor. You versus five enemies at long range? Don't even break a sweat. Ranged combat is horrible. Most guns don't kill with one shot unless it's to the head. Only plus to ranged combat is the realism of the guns and their reloading process/time. Except that you can somehow reload a musket (ball, powder, ramrod, all that jazz) while running around avoiding enemy fire. Melee combat is laughable. In order to hit someone in the face with your rifle butt, you must aim at their chest.
The world graphics are at most up to par with releases from a couple years back. Player models are disgusting, with four or some different faces available for the models, in both armies (aka lots of twins and triplets running around). Soundtrack is pretty good (I think it's from Gods & Generals?)
AI? More like lack there of. Your allies are fairly smart. At least they know to attack, though they do sacrifice themselves trying to attack melee style. Enemies hardly notice you until you pop the guy standing right beside them. And I mean RIGHT BESIDE THEM. In the Shiloh level, you are supposed to sneak around, steal documents, slit throats, that kinda thing. No need. You can shoot some guards in the camp, and the guards 15 feet away won't hear a thing.
All in all, this game is pitiful. It puts the Civil War to shame. It puts FPS's to shame. It puts the History Channel to shame. Bobby Lee is rolling over in his grave.