Battles of the Civil War

In class, we went on a scavenger hunt throughout the school to learn about several battles of the Civil War. The day before the actual hunt, each student chose a battle and were given some basic information about the battle: Name, location, date(s), victor, etc. We then went home and created a google doc with the information on it, and used bit.ly to create a QR code for the document and a URL. Everyone printed out a piece of paper with the battle name, URL and QR code and brought it to class the next day. As a class we put them in places all over the school and tried to find a scan each one, then copy down the information. After all the battles had been scanned, we looked at patterns involving the area of the battle, the victor, and why they won. Our teacher created a Padlet and we discussed our essential questions and their answers.

The Civil War spanned across much of the country, but it can easily be sorted into three theaters: East, West, and Naval. Each side had an advantage over the other in each theater. For instance, in the naval theater, the north's strong economy compared to the south combined with their already existing navy led to the a northern domination on the sea. In the eastern theater, the Confederates were the main victors. It was the Confederates use of terrain and positioning in many battles that gave them this advantage. When the two armies met at the battle of Cold Harbor, the Confederates used the forested area to hide their troops and ultimately ended up winning. It was until the Battle of Gettysburg that the Union started to achieve victory in the East. On the west, the Union won significantly more battles than the Confederates due to their strategy. It involved many sieges, such as Vicksburg, where the Union surrounded and bombarded the city until they surrendered. The Union was ultimately able to win the war with their Anaconda plan, but the Confederates almost made a punch into breaking the Union through their eastern domination.

Each theater of the war had very similar tactics used in each of their battles. In the west, the Union ended up surrounding their enemies until they surrendered. In the east, the Confederates beat their opponents to the battle location and set up fortifications, or out maneuvered the Union. Although, towards the end of the war after Gettysburg, the Union had the Confederates on the back-foot, using momentum from the Battle of Gettysburg.


http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-war-in-america/april-1861-april-1862.html

Freedom from above and below

It is the middle of the Civil War, the War over slavery that divided the United States into two opposing sides. While the Confederate and Union soldiers are slugging it out on the battlefield, President Lincoln decides to make a choice that will greatly affect the course of the war. On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves all over America. The south, naturally, refused to recognize Lincoln as their president and therefore was outraged that he would dare try to free slaves, which was a part of their way of life. This week in class, we first analyzed a drawing of Abraham Lincoln with a family of slaves, as he is freeing them. This is an example of freedom from above, where a higher authority, in this case the President, is granting freedom to the enslaved. We then wrote on the drawing what we thought each character would say, for example, Lincoln might say "You and your family are now free peoples of the United States" or something along those lines. We then looked at four Lincoln Documents and analyzed how his opinion changed on the goal of the war as it went on. We also watched a PBS video on slavery in the US.
We also learned about another way that freedom is gained, freedom from below. This is when the enslaved people, usually due to their advantage in numbers, gain freedom by themselves via protests or other means. To analyze this method, we looked at two documents, a letter and a picture. The letter is from a Union officer who explains that slaves who have abandoned their plantations are following the Union troops and making an issue. This is an attempt to get the attention of the government to turn to the issue of slavery, as the soldiers would be slowed down by the runaway slaves. In the picture, it is a depiction of the slaves who worked on Confederate President Jefferson Davis' plantation all leaving and going to a Union camp. These both are examples of freedom from below, as the slaves are trying to become free by their own means and taking action. But when the slaves were eventually freed, was it because of freedom from above or below?
In 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, stating that all slaves in the United States were free. Up until this point, the Union was being defeated overall in the war. Lincoln knew he had to wait until they won a considerable victory in the war, otherwise it would make the Proclamation look like a final attempt at coming back into the war. Instead, it appeared as a new motivation for the Union when they turned the tide of the war. Since all slaves were free in the North, they were no longer fighting to keep the Union together, but to free the slaves everywhere. Now, since the South did not recognize Abraham Lincoln as their president, they did not recognize the Emancipation Proclamation, and would not free their slaves. In fact, they were outraged! How dare the North try to change their way of life. While this was happening, slaves everywhere had heard the news and began to leave plantations everywhere. This may have greatly influenced Lincoln's actions, as the complaints from Union officers eventually worked their way up to him. It wasn't until the battle of Gettysburg that President Lincoln said the famous speech, The Gettysburg Address, starting with the famous quote, "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." This is often acknowledged as the moment when the slaves were freed and the war over. It may seem as though the slaves were entirely freed by Lincoln's actions, however the slaves did have a large role in harassing Union soldiers to bring Lincoln's attention to the issue of slavery and giving the war a new goal. When the slaves were freed, it was freedom from above and below.

Why did the North win?

How did the differences between the North and the South affect each sides strategy during the Civil War?
To analyze this question we created an infographic:

Why did THE north win the war? | Create infographics

Created this infographic helped me personally understand the topic much better. I am a visual learner by nature and the charts and diagrams helped me put into perspective the advantages that each opposing side had. The first diagram shows the huge advantage that the North had in population: almost twice as many people. The second diagram shows that the South had a huge population of slaves and the North had almost none at all compared. The South would be able to better produce its exports and make money to sustain an army. However, the next chart shows three categories: Industrial Workers, Manufacturing Plants, and Railroad Mileage; all of which the North had a huge advantage in. This means that they would be able to produce more weaponry and supplies and get it to the front-line faster. The south, however, had a simpler strategy compared to the North. The South just had to defend its borders and keep their way of life from the Union invaders. The South also had the best leadership and morale. However, this was not enough compared to the North's enormous advantage in numbers, and once they blockaded the Confederates, the War was heavily in their favor, despite the advantages that the South had.

Elephant in the Room

 How do we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century? To answer this question we created timelines after reading about the major events that lead up to the Civil War. We then divided the events that were more pro-slavery (South) and more anti-slavery (North). The pro-slavery events are on the lower half of the line, and the anti-slavery events are on the upper half of the timeline. After reviewing these events, it is clear to see that American politicians were trying to pretend that slavery was not a problem, even though it clearly was based on the events that took place leading up to the Civil War. Thus, slavery became the "elephant in the room" all over America.
 By analyzing the events taking place, it can be seen that the tension between the North and South over slavery increases as the start of the Civil War approaches. For instance, the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, which mainly benefited the South because it opened up a new railroad in the area allowing slave owners to move more easily, created a new way for slave owners to expand their industry.
 Another Major event that happened was Bleeding Kansas. After the territory of Kansas had been allowed to chose whether to be a free or slave state by popular sovereignty, settlers from both the north and south rushed into the new land by the thousands. Naturally, fighting broke out between the two sides, and a number of people were killed. The northern capital that was established was burned to the ground, and in response, John Brown and a group of others took five southern men from their beds and massacred them in front of their families.
 A very large court event that became known as the Dred Scott Decision took place in 1857. Dred Scott and his wife sued a slave owner who tried to take them into slavery, saying that since they had come from free ancestors, they should not go into slavery. This case went to the Supreme Court, and in their verdict, they stated, "On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them. The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, [Dred Scott] could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts." The court issued that since Scott cannot legally be a citizen of the US, he cannot have the right to sue in court. This was a very controversial verdict, and further increased the tension between the North and the South.
 Right before the start of the Civil Was, John Brown, the same who massacred the southern men in Bleeding Kansas, gathered a group of abolitionists and free blacks and attacked the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, hoping to get weapons to instigate a rebellion of slaves. Instead, Brown and his men were captured and tried for treason, then later killed. Brown was seen as a martyr in the North, and a murderer in the South. This caused the issue of slavery to fully become the elephant in the room for American Politics, and eventually led to the bombing of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War.

Antebellum Slavery

In 19th century America, a major part of society was the presence of slavery. Slaves were the ones who worked the plantations in the south, and did most of the other labor. The economic, social, and political power was mainly controlled by those who owned 20 or more slaves. This was because cotton was becoming a major export of the southern US, especially after the invention of the cotton gin, which increased cotton production. The more cotton that was being produced, the more slaves that were needed. This led to more cotton being produced, which made more money, which allowed for more slaves. This cycle eventually led to slavery becoming economically entrenched in American society. There is an interesting website with graphs showing how as cotton growth expanded in the south, the number of slaves did as well.
Link: http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US18-01.html
A system that becomes so dependent on slavery for not only its economic power, but its social structure greatly affects human dignity. The government begins to classify the slaves by only the color of their skin, and not their skills or intelligence. This has been the way in America ever since Columbus landed in the Caribbean in 1492, he immediately enslaved the native peoples because of their race. The Americas have always been a land where one race thinks that they are better than the other, while overlooking their personal/physical traits.
Human dignity ultimately becomes corrupted by a system such as this. One example of this corruption is even written in the US Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, where it reads "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included in the Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." This eventually became know as the "Three-fifths rule" where blacks only counted as three fifths of a person when filing taxes and the number of Representatives in Congress. This showed that the government only classified the slaves based upon their race, and did not give them rights whatsoever.

Picture: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9294424

The Fight for Equality

In class we have been discussing the fight for women's rights in the 19th century. Many steps were taken to achieve this great feat, especially with the great amount of opposition that faced the reformers. Many felt that they were going against common practices in society. Practices that women wanted to reform can be seen in the document that they created for their movement, called the "Declaration of Rights and Sentiments", a parody on the Declaration of Independence. This document was presented in July of 1848 at the first ever convention for women's rights at Seneca Falls. In July 1848, over 300 men and women gathered at Seneca Falls, New York for the first women’s rights convention. This convention was held to abolish laws against women, such as divorce rights, the law stating women cannot own property, the right to vote, the right to equal pay, and the right to raise their children should the father die.

People at the time of the event had very diverse opinions on the matter. Most men did not wish for women to fight for equality, although there were some that supported the movement. In one newspaper article reporting on the event, the Oneida Wing, it states, "If our ladies will insist on voting and legislating, where, gentlemen, will be our dinners and our elbows? Where our domestic firesides and the holes in our stockings?" and that the convention was "the most shocking incident ever recorded in the history of womanity." In another report in The Recorder, it states, "We need not say we think the movement excessively silly." Although many were opposed to the movement, there were those who did support the fight for equal rights. In The National Reformer, it says "Lucretia Mott delivered one of the most eloquent, logical, and philosophical discourses we have ever listened to." So while many discarded the movement and did not care for it, there were those who did support it and push for equality in the mid 19th century.

Newspaper Reactions to Seneca Falls: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr040.html

Thanks to the efforts of the reformers, the movement for equal rights between genders succeeded. Women gained voting rights, a right to property and equal pay, as well as more respect. However, men and women still have differences in rights between the two genders in modern society that could be improved. Usually, women are expected to uphold their looks and look good to men rather than be more headstrong and independent. The differences on how society depicts a man and a woman are shown perfectly in a Pantene commercial aired in the Philippines. This commercial shows a man and a woman in the same position, and how society will depict them.




We have most certainly made progress in gender rights since the mid 19th century. However, while men and women have equal rights in a legal sense, there are still many gender stereotypes floating around. Women are more often than not judged on their looks and appearance rather than their personality and integrity. We have come a long way, but there is still more we can do in ending gender stereotypes in modern times.

Insane Asylum

“…I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman’s nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. I tell what I have seen—painful and as shocking as the details often are—that from them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity. If I inflict pain upon you, and move you to horror, it is to acquaint you with suffering which you have the power to alleviate, and make you hasten to the relief of the victims of legalized barbarity…” —Dorothea Dix, Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts
In this Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts, the author, Dorothea Dix, holds a strong stance that the prisons need to be reformed. Dorothea Dix was the leading reformer of Massachusetts Prisons and insane asylums in the 19th century. She wanted prisons to be kept in better condition, and for the installment of insane asylums so that the mentally ill could be moved out of prisons. Naturally, she would hold a strong stance for this reform to be made in society. Dorothea wrote this document to try and convince the legislature to create insane asylums for the mentally ill. She prepared this paper to be read by the legislature and hear her opinion on the matter. In the 1800's, the mentally ill were not treated very kindly. Many beliefs and rumors affected their prison conditions. One rumor, for instance, was that the mentally ill could not feel heat or cold, so the prisons put the mentally ill in rooms without heat. They were chained to walls and were treated terribly. This document shows that Dorothea decided to do something about the awful conditions of not only the mentally ill, but prisons in general. She toured the state, examining many prisons and writing a report on each one's conditions. She compiled them into part of this memorial, and the conditions are somewhat patterned from prison to prison: handcuffs and chains, intentional beating, no heat. The writing can almost paint a picture in your head of what the prisons were like and how awful the conditions were. Dorothea claims that the prisons are so awful, that are "revolting to the taste". She states that the reports may "inflict pain upon you, and move you to horror". She is using the second person text to direct the reading towards the reader and make them feel more personal about these horrible conditions.
Source:
Dorothea Dix, “Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts”University Park Press, 1843