Civil War

In this lesson, we learned about all of the battles during the Civil War.  To learn about each, everyone in the class got a different battle on a chart of battle descriptions numbered 1-20.  Every student has to find a scholarly source to get information on their his/her battle.  We had to find the name of the battle along with the date(s), the theater in which it occurred, the victor, and the reasons for the results that occurred.  Then, we were instructed to create a QR Code and print it out on a piece of paper making a sign.  The next day, everyone took their signs and put them in different locations of the school.  Each person had to know the location of the battle number above his/her battle so that when people scanned in, they could find the next sign's relative location.  On the scavenger hunt, when we scanned into each code, we had to copy and paste the information that the code brought us to into our Google Doc so that way, we would have all of the information about each battle.  The next day, we used Padlet and everyone posted the information on two battles.  There were two clear patterns forming as everyone made entrees about who dominated the Eastern and Western Theaters.  The Eastern Theater was from the Appalachian Mountains to the coast.  The Western Theater was west and beyond of the mountains.  There was also the Naval Theater which was in the ports and on the ocean.

The first pattern was dominance by the Union in the Western Theater.  The majority of battles that occurred in the Western Theater were won by the Union.  In the battles of Fort Donelson and Shiloh, the Union had soldiers that were very familiar with the area and they were able to surround the Confederate troops and forced their surrender.  Also, the battle of Chattanooga Tennessee had the Confederates unorganized and struggled from poor communication and were defeated by the Union.  Another example would be at the battle of Vicksburg and Henry Fort.  The Union had stronger lines   and stronger tactics of warfare.  At the battle of Baton Rouge, the Union had more men which was a huge advantage over the outnumbered Confederates.  In the Eastern Theater, battles like the Battle of Chancellor and the Battle of Fredericksburg were won by the Confederates.  In the Battle of Spotsylvania, the Confederates had planned well ahead building fortifications and entrenchments allowing them to defeat the Union.  A major battle won by the Confederates was the Battle of Fort Sumter where the Confederates were well composed and well supplied. They launched an air attack on the fort which destroyed it.  In the Naval Theater, the Union dominated.  In battles such as the Battle of Fort Henry/Henry Fort, the Confederate owned fort only had outdated guns as weapons.  It was an easy target located on the Tennessee River as the Union used superior weapons to blast the Confederates.  Also, the Battle of Fort Donelson was located on a river and the Union had large gunboats to surround the Confederacy with the rivers around them. 



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In all of the battles, the victors won with similar strategies.  The Union in their victories in their battles had outnumbered the Confederates.  Also, Union victories could fall into the responsibility of outdated or unsupplied weapons fought with by the Confederacy.  That could also go against them as well in the Battle of Fort Sumter and the Union troops couldn't defend themselves against a raging Confederate siege.  However, the majority of Battles were won by the Union because of a more soldiers and more supplied weapons.



Battle of Chattanooga Photo:

Image Citation:

"Battle of Chattanooga." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.