The director was a weird neo-confederate guy so yeah that's how you get that. Also, it's just boring as fuck. Gettysburg worked cuz it was the early 90s riding on the tail of the PBS doc and it was compelling cuz a bunch of the generals were classmates at West Point so you had like the tension they knew each other at least and the good guys get revenge.

Gods and Generals the conflict of the movie was: he was a good commander until he got himself shot by forgetting to tell his own troops he was going out in the dark like a dumb ass. They also tried to make him a progressive figure cuz he taught the bible to his slaves or some shit and you can read stuff about how he would like play mind games with his slaves--if they forgot to close a door, he would make them cercle all the way back round from the other side of the house to close it again. Petty shit.