Teaching the Civil War with Technology

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

In this season of elections, I thought it would be interesting to share a website on Civil War era elections.

Harper’s Weekly has created a website for researching historical elections from 1860 to 1912. According to the website, the Presidential Elections page features political cartoons from several different digital resource centers such as Harper’s Weekly, the Library of Congress and Vanity Fair. The website also “provides explanations of the historical context and images of each cartoon, campaign overviews, biographical sketches, a review of the era’s major issues, and other valuable information.”

Let’s take a moment to explore the 1860 election between Lincoln, Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell. First, each election contains four sections: Overview, Cartoons, Biographies and Events. From here you can learn about the events leading up to to the 1860 election, how the Democratic party split, the Union Constitution Convention, the Republican Convention and the Campaign.

One of the greatest part of this site for teachers are the political cartoons. Let’s look at one and see how you can use it in your classroom.

The above image shows Abe Lincoln as a rail-splitter and is intended to appeal to the average voter. Before giving your students the full description of the cartoon, ask them to tell you what they see, what do they think is going on in the cartoon, what does the little child represent and why are the words “Democratic Party” listed on the rail?

You can then follow up by reading them the complete description: “In order to appeal to average voters, Republicans emphasized the poor, hardworking origin of their candidate through the myth of Abraham Lincoln as a rail-splitter. This cartoon in the Wide-Awake Pictorial plays on that image by joking that the last rail he split is th Democratic Party in 1860, which divided into the Northern and Southern Factions.”

Then, have your students think about presidential campaign ads or commercials they have seen recently. Do any of those ads try to appeal to the average voter by making the candidate look like every hardworking American? I think so and can name a few but let me know what your students come up with as you review these cartoons.

Until next time….

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Primary Sources, Websites

Since I have posted on The Gettysburg Address in the past, I thought I would share this USA Today headline article about a “new” image of Abe Lincoln at Gettysburg being found at the Library of Congress.

The story discusses how an amateur historian was looking at photographs of the famous Gettysburg Address and found Lincoln in his famous top hat riding a horse to the speaker’s stand.

You can read the entire article HERE.

Here is a close up of the photo from the article showing what appears to be Lincoln

Photo from USA Today.

I have posted before about using photographs in your classroom. The historian in the article had researched the events around the Gettysburg Address and was simply looking at photographs and made a terrific discovery. You and your students can do the same thing in your classroom. Who knows, you may be the one to find the next photo of Lincoln or other famous Civil War figure.

Researchers advocate instructional approaches that engage students in the processes of doing history (Friedman, 2005). This process includes building historical knowledge through the use of primary sources, conducting historical inquiry, and encouraging students to think historically. As part of this process, students must be active learners, by seeking answers rather than waiting for them when engaging in the analysis of primary sources. The reason for this is that the process of engaging in historical thinking is more than simply absorbing information; instead it requires seeking out answers to questions (Friedman, 2005). While viewing a primary source, students will examine the historical document and then construct a narrative based on that document. Through the process of constructing this narrative, students have begun to develop inquiry skills that they will be able to use throughout their life (Wineburg, 2001). According to VanSledright (2002), children as young as seven and eight years old are capable of thinking historically.

Good luck and have fun exploring those photos.

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References:

Friedman, A. (2005, May). Using digital primary sources to teach world history and world geography: Practices, promises, and provisions. Journal for the Association of History and Computing, 8, Retrieved October 2005, from http://mcel.pacificu.edu/jahc/JAHCVIII1/articles/friedman.htm#037

VanSledright, B. (2002). In search of America’s past. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press

Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Posted under Famous People, Primary Sources

There is a very good book called Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails by Tom Wheeler that I encourage everyone to read. The book discusses how President Lincoln used technology, in this case the telegraph, to stay connected with his troops in the field. In today’s technological society, the President knows exactly what is going on with his armies and can communicate with them in real-time even when they are halfway around the world. President Lincoln did not have that luxury. Instead, he used the technology that was available to him in order to ensure that the war effort was being run properly.

While doing to searching the other evening, I came across a companion website for the book and thought I would share. The Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails website provides visitors with some great additional resources. In addition to information about the author, the book and reviews of the book, the website contains images of eight different “t-mails” that President Lincoln sent throughout the war.

The following is an image of a message send from Lincoln to General McClellan just over a month after the Battle of Antietam.

Following the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, General McClellan failed to go after the Confederates and came up with numerous excuses. Well, President Lincoln had heard enough excuses and sent this message to McClellan. Lincoln demanded to know “what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?”

Have your students think about that for a moment. How would you feel as President if your commanding General was not going after the enemy and is making up excuses? How do you think McClellan felt when he received the message? Can you do some research and find out if this “t-mail” caused McClellan to act in any way? What else can we learn about McClellan that may have caused Lincoln to respond in this manner?

Finally, the website contains some terrific links on Abraham Lincoln and Morse Code.

To listen to a great interview of Mr. Wheeler, check out Eric Langhorst’s Speaking of History Podcast Episode #79

Until next time…

Posted under Famous People, Primary Sources, Websites

Hi.  As you know I have a project called Civil War Sallie and she recently visited Fords Theater in Washington DC so I thought I would share her post here on my dad’s blog.

I just came back from a busy few days at the National Education Computing Conference in Washington D.C.


While there, me, my friend Sarah, and her family went t0 Ford’s Theatre and we listened to Liz Hogan a volunteer who talked about the theater and President Lincoln.
Here is what I learned during Ms. Hogan’s speech.

I learned that a lot of the buildings in Washington D.C. were used as hospitals during the war. There were times when Washington D.C. looked like it was on fire because of all the candles in the windows. John Wilkes Booth, who was from Maryland, attended President Lincoln’s 2nd Inauguration speech and decided that he was going to capture President Lincoln and exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war.

On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln’s son Tad did not go to the play with his parents because he was at a different play called “Aladdin” or “His Wonderful Lamp” at Grover’s Theatre. On that night, President Lincoln arrived at Ford’s Theatre around 8:30 and the play had already started. When President Lincoln arrived, the play stopped and band played Hail to the Chief and the people in the theater gave him a standing ovation.

President and Mrs. Lincoln were accompanied that night by Major Rathbone and Miss Clara Harris. Booth arrived at Ford’s Theatre around 9pm but then left to get a few drinks of whiskey. Booth then returned to the theater and walked toward the Presidential Box. Booth did not need a ticket to get in because he was a actor at the theater and according to Ms. Hogan he was the most handsome man on the stag. Booth snuck into the box where the President sat and waited till the funniest line in the play to shoot him. He chose that line because the laughing, hooting, and hollering would cover up a gun shot.

It was 10:15pm when Booth shot the President. After shooting the president, Booth jumped 12 feet to the stage and raised bloody knife (from stabbing Major Rathbone) and shouted Sic Semper Tyrannis (which means Thus Ever to Tyrants). When Booth jumped from the box to the stage, Major Rathbone shouted “Stop that man”.

Mrs. Lincoln was screaming that her husband was dead. Miss. Laura Keene rushed up to the box with a pitcher of water and she held the the President Lincoln’s head and her sleeve became stained with the blood from the Presidents wounded head. Soldiers that were in the theatre carried Lincoln across the street to the Petersen House. President Lincoln arrived at the Peterson House around 10:30 and he lived 9 hours in that house.

Booth had rented a horse and kept it outside the back stage door. This was not his personal “one eyed horse” from Dr. Mudd but another one. From there he rode out of town and was finally captured and shot at Garrett farm in Virginia and was paralized from the neck down. He lived for two hours his last words were “Useless” referring to his hands.

As part of my visit, I got go up in the booth that Lincoln sat in and get my picture taken. My friend, Sarah came up with me and got to look in the booth too.

Here I am with Miss Allison walking toward the famous box.

What a great view of the stage. I have chills from being in this historic spot.

Be sure to follow Ford’s Theater on Twitter they are @fordstheatre

Posted under Famous Locations, Famous People