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Teaching the Civil War with Technology Blog

Announcing ....

I have finally made the leap and purchased a new domain to host my blog & combined website.

Please take a moment to visit my new website at: http://www.teachthecivilwar.com

I have may ideas for the site but currently it hosts my blog and links to my wiki.

I will no longer be posting to this feed but plan to update some posts from here and post them to the new blog. I will then be slowly removing the posts from this page.

The first post on my new blog is by my daughter Sarah about Mary Todd Lincoln.

Please update your feed to my new blog and any links that you may have.

Thank you for your continued support.

Jim

President Lincoln Using Technology

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...

Another Great Resource

The following is by far one of the best Civil War related websites for educators that I have seen.
MrNussbaums.com's Civil War Page contains a wealth of activities and resources including:

• Interactive Battle Maps
• Civil War Timeline
• Cause and Effects of the Civil War
• People of the Civil War
• Union and Confederacy
• Civil War Activities
• Civil War Clip Art
• Civil War Videos

Let's take a look at a few of these pages in more detail.

The Interactive Battles Map allows students to click on the name of a battle and it will pop up a brief description of the battle on the right side of the page. The map also shows Union vs. Confederate states, which side won a particular battle and more.

The People of the Civil War page provides some great information on many of the major players of the war including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Harriet Tubman and Matthew Brady.

The Civil War Activities page includes "reading comprehension exercises, cloze reading exercises, sentence surgeons, word searches, jigsaws, crossword puzzles and much more."

Be sure to take some time to explore this site and I'm sure you will want to share it with your class.

Until next time...

Teaching the Civil War with Technology
Wiki Updates
August 14, 2008

Here are a few links that I added to the wiki this week:
Under Resources:

• Added section on Slavery
• Added link to great article on Free Soil and Slavery Expansion
• Added a link to the U.S. Civil War Era page under Primary Sources. This page has a comprehensive list of links to other sites with primary sources.

Under Curriculum

• Added section on Curriculum Supplements
• Added link to the HippoCampus website that has a good collection of short videos that explain different parts of the Civil War era including the Election of 1860 and Battles.
• Added link to the Civil War Webquest

Feel free to request to join my wiki and add your own links or suggest a link via a comment.

Until next time...

Teacher Tube Video

The following is a great TeacherTube video showing an actor portraying Major General George Gordon Meade and provides a nice overview of the Battle of Gettysburg:



Allow your students to review the video and then have a discussion about how Major General Meade handled the Battle of Gettysburg and what are some key points that your students learned.

Until next time...

More Statistics...Still too little time

Well, I'm not a statistician by any means and I've been struggling with the stats for my dissertation. But for some reason, I have quite a few blog posts on statistics. So, why not one more:

The following tables are the number of Union and Confederate soldiers who were killed, wounded or captured during the Gettysburg Campaign. These figures are adapted from Fox's Regimental Losses on the Civil War Home website.

The following shows the total Killed and Wounded for both Union and Confederates:

UNION
July 1 Killed -- 950

July 1 Wounded -- 4,550

July 1 Total – 5500

July 2 Killed -- 1500

July 2 Wounded -- 7,250

July 2 Total – 8,750

July 3 Killed -- 705

July 3 Wounded -- 2,745

July 3 Total – 3,450

Total Killed -- 3,155
Total Wounded --14,529
Total Killed and Wounded-- 17,684

CONFEDERATE
July 1 Killed -- 900

July 1 Wounded -- 4,350

July 1 Total – 5,250

July 2 Killed -- 1,175

July 2 Wounded -- 5,325

July 2 Total – 6500

July 3 Killed -- 1,425

July 3 Wounded -- 5,575

July 3 Total – 7000

Total Killed -- 3,500
Total Wounded --15,250
Total Killed and Wounded-- 18,750

By Location on the Battlefield:

Wheat-Field: Union Losses 4,133 Confederate Losses 2,822

Emmittsburg Road: Union Losses 2,645 Confederate Losses 1,978

Peach Orchard: Union Losses 1,285 Confederate Losses 1,047

Round Top: Union Losses 575 Confederate Losses 826

Total: Union Losses 8,638 Confederate Losses 6,673

So, lets start asking some questions:

• What percentage were killed on the first day of the Battle?
• What percentage of the Union losses occurred in the Peach Orchard?
• Why were Union causalities lower on July 3rd?
• What percentage of Confederates were wounded on July 2nd?

And the questions could go on and on...

Until next...enjoy the statistics !