Teaching the Civil War with Technology

Hi, Here is another acrostic poem. This time it is about Julia Grant, the wife of the 18th President Ulysses S. Grant.

Julia Grant was born at White House Plantation in St. Louis, Missouri

U. S. Grant proposed to her several times times before she said yes

Lonely without Ulysses Grant

In 1869, she entered the White House to begin, “the happiest period of her life”

Attended 1897 dedication of Grant’s tomb in New York City

Grant’s had 3 sons and a daughter

Received the position of 1st Lady

A family marriage held at the White House

Next to her husband’s grave

The 1st First Lady to write a memoir

Posted under Famous People

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The National Civil War Museum here in Harrisburg is a great place to visit to see all of the wonderful artifacts and exhibits.  Well, from February 6th to the 20th, it will also be a great time to visit and talk to a living historian who will be experiencing life as a Civil War soldier.

In order to raise money and awareness for the education department of the museum Brett Kelly, the museum’s curator, will be  spending two weeks of his vacation time living the life of a Civil War picket soldier.  He will be living on the grounds of the museum, living on rations, wearing the clothes, eating the hardtack and basically living the life of a soldier.  All the money raised from this initiative will go directly to the Museum’s education department to purchase reproduction equipment for school and public group presentations, develop the summer speaking program and also to develop a distance learning system to reach school groups unable to visit the Museum.

While on duty, Brett will be performing some of the duties that a typical soldier would have done including spending time on picket duty, building some winter quarters and wooden defenses.  In addition to this, Brett will also be carrying out several ten mile marches to raise awareness of the Museum.

Thanks to the help of local history teacher Jeff Mummert (check out his blog) and his students, Brett will be able to share his experience with the world via the Internet.  Brett’s daily journal, photographs and videos by museum staff, will be posed to various social networking sites like a blog, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.  If your school blocks these types of services, this is a great way for you to show how they can be used for educational purposes to benefit your students.

Brett’s blog,  Civil War Soldier 24/7, will allow teachers and students to follow his experiences from day to day.  Also, be sure to follow @cwsoldier24_7 on Twitter.  If you have a Facebook account, you can become a fan of The National Civil War Museum page.  Finally, be sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel.  Thanks to all the hard work by Jeff’s students!

Finally, I’m working with the museum to see if Civil War Sallie can visit and to possibly have Brett do a follow up webinar for students in order to describe his experiences.  Stay tuned for more information.  Here are links to read about Civil War Sallie’s visits to the museum:  Part 1 and Part 2

Please spread the word about this exciting event and if you are in Harrisburg during that time, stop by and say hello to Brett.

Until next time, stay warm.

Posted under Miscellaneous

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Eric Langhorst is an 8th Grade History teacher from Illinois and is the host of the Speaking of History podcast.  Well, a while back he made a trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and recorded a podcast of his thoughts on the museum.

You can view pictures from his trip and listen to his podcast on the visit on his Speaking of History Blog.

He also recorded a podcast about some of the historic locations in Springfield, Illinois related to Abraham Lincoln that you can listen to HERE.

Be sure to check out all of the links Eric has included in his show notes. I’ll try to cover some of them in upcoming blog posts.

Until next time…

Posted under Famous People, Websites

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As many of you already know, Google has begun to scan and make books available online, including full versions of books. These books are copyright free and can be downloaded for your reading pleasure.

In addition to these books, there are also some books where the copyright has not expired, however you can read sample pages from the book. Not free to download, but nice to “try before you buy.”

So, for example, a quick search for the word “Gettysburg” and you get a list of books of some really interesting looking texts such as:

• Gettysburg: Description of the Painting of the Repulse of Longstreet’s Assault by John Badger Bachelder – 1870
• Gettysburg Made Plain: A Succinct Account of the Campaign and Battles, by Abner Doubleday – 1888
• The Attack and Defense of Little Round Top, Gettysburg, July 2, 1863 by Oliver Willcox Norton – 1913
• Did General Meade Desire to Retreat at the Battle of Gettysburg? by George Meade – 1883
• Hospital Scenes After the Battle of Gettysburg, July, 1863 by Patriot Daughters of Lancaster (Pa.) – 1864

There are also numerous autobiographies and biographies of Civil War Generals that are also available for download. Try searching for Civil War or Civil War general and see what you come up with.

Finally, Google Books also has a feature where you can find a library near you that has a copy of a particular book, and for you researchers out there, a “cite this item” link which gives you the proper citation for a book for publishing purposes is given in several different formats .(APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Turabian.

Try it at http://books.google.com especially the “full view books.”

In addition to Google Books, you may also want to try searching the following websites for Civil War books:

http://www.archive.org and http://books.live.com

and

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Happy Reading.

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According to John Busey’s “These Honored Dead: The Union Casualties at Gettysburg”, the following is a list of the number of soldiers killed during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Army Of the Potomac :

Army of Northern Virginia:

Total number killed: 7,821

Based on these figures, you can easily have your students working on some math concepts. Have your students answer questions such as:

• What is the average number of soldiers killed for both the North and the South?
• What percentage of the total number of soldiers killed were from Ohio?
• What percentage of those killed were from the South?
• How many more soldiers were killed from North Carolina versus Pennsylvania?

Or, how about some critical thinking skills…

• Why do you think New York and North Carolina had the highest number of soldiers killed?
• During what day of the battle do you think Minnesota lost the greatest number of soldiers and why?

Until next time. From just north of Gettysburg…

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Primary Sources

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