rate the five stories
the outlaws
the railroad
the rivers
the plains
the civil war.
THE PLAINS (1851)
THE RAILROAD (1868)
THE OUTLAWS (1889)
THE RIVERS (1839)
I view these four segments about equal in highlights, but this is how I'd rank 'em if backed against a wall.
THE CIVIL WAR (1861-1865): This is the weakest of the vignettes because the scenes where Ulysses Grant (Harry Morgan) and General Sherman (John Wayne) hang out are obviously studio bound and, worse, the Shiloh battle sequence is almost non-existence (unless the version I saw was truncated; correct me if I'm wrong). What a letdown!
the civil war story was out of place. by far the weakest.
shareIts inclusion can be defended on the grounds that the purpose of the creators was to show how the West was "won" over the course of the fifty years between 1839-1889; and the Civil War was a key event during that era, as well as pivotal to the settlers traveling further West.
Also, consider the fact that the Civil War did span pretty far west with the the Battle of Picacho Peak taking place roughly 40 miles northwest of Tucson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Picacho_Pass); meanwhile the setting for "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is the New Mexico Campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_campaign). The scenario shown in the movie, the Battle of Shiloh, took place in southwestern Tennessee, which was quite further west than the Erie Canal where the story started.
(I know you weren't asking for a history lesson; I'm just adding some interesting insights to the discussion).
In my opinion they needed to include a brief battle sequence to better represent the Civil War period rather than the dull studio-bound sequence they curiously went with.