The musical had its world premiere at the Alley Theatre, Houston, Texas, on September 16, 1998, where co-author Boyd is the Artistic Director.

Bixby, Kirk as Frederick Douglass, Bogart as Private Sam Taylor, Gilles Chiasson (Corp. William McEwen), Capathia Jenkins (Harriet Jackson), David M. Lutken (Voice of Abraham Lincoln/Corp.

A studio cast album was released in 1999 by Atlantic Records, and included Linda Eder, Maya Angelou, James Garner, Hootie & the Blowfish, Travis Tritt, Dr. John and Betty Buckley.

Directed by Jeff Calhoun, the 16-member cast featured Jarrod Emick, Eleasha Gamble, Michael Lanning and Timothy Shew, with the recorded voice of Hal Holbrook as Lincoln.

The Variety review of the Alley Theatre production said that the show was not "a traditional musical as a revue-style presentation of a song cycle.

Wildhorn and co-creators Jack Murphy and Gregory Boyd impose precious little narrative structure on 'The Civil War', preferring instead to integrate individual, self-contained vignettes as elements in a thematically consistent but essentially bookless concert".