Cutting, it needed. The film should have focused on Jackson, which would have meant that the Valley campaign, the Peninsula campaign, and 2nd Bull Run, and Antietam would hsve had to be worked in, requiring much more compression. Also his relations with other commanders. And how does one make a film about the war in Virginia while ignoring Jefferson Davis and Johnston?Remeber that the movie was based on a novel, and the novel did not include much of those things. Because the novel concentrated on two Union and two Confederate characters in the main, the story was advanced in other ways.
The film did not have this balance anyway.