Teaching the Civil War with Technology

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.

Posted under Miscellaneous

As promised in an earlier post about the PA Civil War 150 Website, there are more new resources and content for teachers and students (and anyone interested in the Civil War) to engage with the Civil War through technology. PACivilWar150.com recently unveiled its newest multimedia exhibit “Interactive Soldier.” (see image) The Interactive Soldier explores Civil War-era infantry, artillery and uniforms as demonstrated by re-enactors from the 11^th PA Volunteer Infantry Company K and Purcell’s Battery and 1^st PA Battery A re-enactment groups.

In the uniforms section, you can rotate the soldiers in a 360-degree view of their clothes, gear and military decorations. The stars callout important details about the uniforms with a zoomed-in view and description, such as the forage cap worn by Captain Felice, which could be used to store food and personal items during travel. (see image)

Your students can select commands for an infantry unit to execute on the battlefield in the Infantry section, where there are more than a dozen battlefield commands—from “stacking arms,” for intertwining the bayonets of the rifles to stand up on the ground, to “kneel by files,” where soldiers kneel in order to fire their rifles at different levels. Students can also watch a demonstration of the process of loading and firing an authentic Civil War cannon in the Artillery section.

And keep an eye out for more new content that’s coming soon to the website, including Civil War tourism experiences, intimate stories of real Pennsylvanians who persevered through the war, and lesson plans for teachers. Expect the new content to be pretty interesting. Here are a few teasers to get you excited:

• Medicine Then & Now: An in-depth look at how medical practices have evolved since the Civil War reveals how doctors were forced to learn new surgical techniques on the job when faced with thousands of casualties during battles.
• “French Mary”: Despite being robbed by her husband at an encampment and removed from the army payroll because of her gender, the bold and fiery Marie Tepe Leonard was not deterred from serving for the Union Army cause—sporting a skirt, of course.
• Martin Robison Delany: A vigorous proponent of African American participation in the U.S. military, Martin Delany became the highest ranking African American officer of a field regiment during war in U.S. military history serving as a Major in the 104^th regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops.

So bookmark PACivilWar150.com and check back often.

Posted under Websites

The Edublog Awards 2009 are open for nomination!

This is a chance for educators to nominate and celebrate the achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology.

Here are the categories, I would like to nominate the following individuals:

• Best individual blog — Speaking of History by Eric Langhorst
• Best new blog — Civil War Sallie by Sarah Beeghley
• Best student blog — Civil War Sallie by Sarah Beeghley
• Best resource sharing blog — A Blog Divided by Dickinson College
• Best educational wiki – Web 2.0 Guru by Cheryl Capozzoli

Best sure to The Edublog Awards 2009 website to see all of the nominees and winners!

Posted under Miscellaneous

I recently received a copy of The Complete Gettysburg Guide by J.D. Petruzzi and Steven Stanley and I wanted to share my thoughts on the book.   To begin, this is by far one of the best guides to the Battle of Gettysburg that I have read.  In addition to detailing the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg, this guide also provides the reader information on events related to the Gettysburg Campaign such as the Battles of Hunterstown and Fairfield.  Additional sections of The Complete Gettysburg Guide include tours of various historical sites within the town of Gettysburg, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, Gettysburg’s Evergreen Cemetery, rock carvings on the battlefield (my personal favorite) and tours of different Battlefield Hospital sites.

Throughout the guide, there are hundreds of photographs ranging from original photographs taken shortly after the battle to full-color photographs that provide the reader with a visual representation of the narrative text.  In addition to the photographs, the Guide contains 60 highly-detailed maps by Steven Stanley.  These maps help the reader to better understand how Union and Confederate troops were positioned or how a particular attack occurred.  These maps (see sample below) are rich in detail and even include a small clock to show the approximate time the event occurred.

sample map image from The Complete Gettysburg Guide Website

The Guide, which took approximately two years for the author to write, is rich in details, facts, first-person accounts and human interest stories from the battle.  Additionally, throughout the book are many “Did You Know” boxes that greatly supplement the text by providing interesting facts about different parts of the battle or the town of Gettysburg.  Finally, in addition to detailed driving directions, The Complete Gettysburg Guide provides map coordinates for many locations on the battlefield (such as the rock carvings).  So, now you can pre-load your portable GPS or even plug the coordinates into Google Earth and find the precise locations on the battlefield.

I also sent a few questions to Mr. Petruzzi about the book and I thought I would share some of that interview with you:

Question:  How did you get interested in the Civil War and Gettysburg in particular?

J.D. Petruzzi: I took my first trip there as part of a class trip in the 6th grade.  So Gettysburg was my first introduction to the Civil War.  After that I became very interested in American history, especially the CW, Indian Wars, Colonial period, etc.  Gettysburg was always my primary interest because it’s close to my home, and my cavalry interest was fed by the campaign – great stuff with Brandy Station, Buford opening the Gettysburg battle, and the actions along the retreat.  It has always held the greatest interest for me, although over the decades I’ve studied just about anything and everything related to the CW.

Question:  What is your favorite part(s) of the Gettysburg Battlefield?

J.D. Petruzzi: The first day’s field for sure, since it’s the least visited and least understood.  Of course I love the areas of the cavalry actions – South Cavalry Field, East Cavalry Field, Fairfield, Hunterstown.  I’ve long enjoyed spending hours in the National Cemetery.  I also love Little Round Top – like everyone else, I enjoy spending “thinking” hours up there.  I also really enjoy the monuments and spending a lot of time looking them over very carefully.

Question:  How do you think teachers can use your book and website to teach about the Civil War?

J.D. Petruzzi: The campaign overview gives a good, capsule view of the campaign in general.  But the book, in it’s entirely, teaches the lesson that there’s much more to Gettysburg than just the main battle and the main battlefield.  There’s a human cost to war – our tour of the field hospital sites hopefully shows that and shows just how much of the area the battle and resulting casualties touched (and more).  The rock carvings done by veterans demonstrate that it was important to the participants to be able to return to the field and mark for all eternity what spots were emblazoned on their memory.  And we hope the personal vignettes of the main battle tour give visitors an idea of some of the personal struggles and heroic deeds by participants – just a few of many.  Large battles and campaigns are comprised of the deeds of individuals – the whole is a sum of its parts, in other words.  Pickett’s Charge is seen as a massive, 13,000-man charge – but each man in the line was concerned with what was going on in his immediate space; and chances are that he was marching alongside his brother, friend, neighbor… hopefully the visitor comes away with a sense that Gettysburg, like all other conflicts, was very personal for each participant.

Mr. Petruzzi is also the author of the Hoofbeats and Cold Steel Blog

I highly recommend that you purchase a copy of The Complete Gettysburg Guide to add to your collection.

As part of my review, I also received a copy of The New Civil War Handbook by Mark Hughes that I am going to give away.  I plan to write a review of this book next.  So to enter to win this book, simply leave a comment on this post by November 20th and I’ll have one of my kids pick a random entry.

Posted under Book Reviews, Miscellaneous

Editors note:  This is the first in a series of posts by the Civil War Preservation Trust on all of the wonderful educational resources they have to offer.  Enjoy!

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As senior manager of education programs at The Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) I am extremely pleased to work with Teaching the Civil War with Technology and grateful for the wonderful platform Dr. Beeghley offers with this blog. Today I am excited to discuss the latest offering on our website; a new animated map depicting the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.

Just to tell you a little bit about us, CWPT is America’s largest non-profit organization (501-C3) devoted to the preservation of our nation’s endangered Civil War battlefields. CWPT is also committed to providing educational programs and resources to inform the public of the war’s history and the fundamental conflicts that sparked it.

The animated maps are one of the feature educational offering of CWPT.  The Franklin animated map, launched this week, is a part of a series of animated maps including: the Battle of Fredericksburg, Saving Bentonville, the First Day at Chancellorsville, the Battle of Chantilly, and the Battle of Cedar Creek.  Through these animated maps the battles of the Civil War come to life.

CWPT Franklin Animated Map

Over the past year CWPT has worked on these maps, gradually developing a template for the “animated map.” Taking the traditional static battle map, we have compressed the battle into a short/bite-size presentation, inserted a historical narrative, and set the once still armies into animated action.  The outcome is a user friendly, high-speed learning experience for students of all ages.

In my opinion one of the greatest parts of the animated map is that it is not a static map sitting on a self or table by itself.  The animated map is surrounded by information and resources.  It is a full narration of the battle from beginning to end.  The animated map provides the user with context for the battle, opening with an introduction which explains where and when the battle took place, who was involved, why the battle happened at that time and in that location.

During the battle troops can be seen moving in and around the battle, those that are not involved in the major action at a certain moment can still be seen.  The user can also see the roads, topography of the land, rivers, and railroads.  Historians have provided a narrative of the battle. As the battle progresses the narration follows along providing the user with information that could not be discussed on a static map.  Following the battle there is discussion about what effects the battle had on the soldiers and community. The preservation efforts or lack there of are also discussed.

Another great feature of the animated map is the use of primary sources; newspaper articles, pictures, illustrations, and letters appear thought-out the animated map presentation.  This provides the user with a visual context for the time and landscape in which the battle was fought.  It also exposes the younger audience to the use and variety of primary sources.

CWPT Franklin Animated Map

As someone who began to learn about the Civil War fairly recently I really appreciate the animated map approach to military history.  I never understood how a static battle map was useful, these always seemed to make me more confused.  I needed to see the movement; I needed to know where the armies were coming from, and where they were going.

The animated map is useful at so many levels of Civil War scholarship.  We are very fortunate to have the technology to do this and the ability to provide it free to all who want to learn about the war.

I hope to post again soon, Nicole Osier.

education@civilwar.org

Posted under Websites