Summer Institute I - "Slavery, The Civil War, and Reconstruction"

Marsha Lamb
Perry Central High School
New Augusta, Mississippi

DOCUMENT FROM THE MISSISSIPPI STATE ARCHIVES USED IN THIS LESSON:

Balfour, Emma. The Diary of Emma Balfour

HOW TO FIND THIS DOCUMENT IN THE ARCHIVES:
In the special collections, Call Number z696f. It was in the "B" binder. You can also look under "Civil War: Civilian Life, Vicksburg"
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GRADE LEVEL/LEVELS FOR WHICH LESSON COULD BE USED: 8th

SUBJECT/SUBJECTS FOR WHICH LESSON COULD BE USED: U.S. History

MISSISSIPPI CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK COMPETENCY/
COMPETENCIES
3. Evaluate the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS FOR THIS LESSON:

How does historical evidence explain the short-term effects of the war on the population of Vicksburg?

HISTORICAL CONTENT OF LESSON

People: General Pemberton, Rebels, General Grant, and Yankees

Events: Siege of Vicksburg and the taking of Jackson

Places: Vicksburg, MS; Jackson, MS; and Mississippi River

Key terms, dates, etc.: May 1863 and July 4, 1863
brigade, battery, artillery, mortar shells, siege

HISTORICAL CONCEPTS/ THEMES FOR THIS LESSON:

Values, beliefs, political ideas, and institutions
Conflict and cooperation

HISTORICAL SKILLS/PROCESSES TO BE TAUGHT OR REINFORCED IN THIS LESSON:

Analyzing primary sources
Developing empathy for people in the past

INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES

The students will have already been taught about the battles of the Civil War, including the Siege of Vicksburg, from a military point of point. The night before this lesson, they are to review what and who was involved in the siege, when it took place, and where it took place from the previous lesson.

This lesson is to help show the students what civilian life was like during the siege. They will be given excerpts from a diary. A woman wrote the diary during the siege. The following is a list of the dates of the excerpts the students will be given to read: Saturday, May 16 (evening)
Sunday, May 17
Monday, May 18
Tuesday, May 19
Thursday, May 21 (10 o'clock)
Saturday, May 23
Sunday, May 24
Wednesday, May 27
Saturday, May 30

On May 30, Emma mentions that the citizens have brought up the idea of a petition. General Pemberton said that he would grant a flag of truce to let the women and children out if the majority of citizens signed the petition. The students are to decide if they would have signed the petition or not after reading Emma's diary entries. They are to write an essay justifying their decision using examples from the entries.

The exact question the students will be answering will be the following: If you were in Vicksburg during the siege and was asked to sign the petition, would you? Remember that you would not have known about the ending of the siege a week away. You must use examples from the diary entries to justify your decision to sign or not. The essays will be graded according to the rubric the state department uses for the state U.S. History test.

TEACHER RESOURCES USED IN THE LESSON

WEB SITES THAT MIGHT PROVE USEFUL:

These sites provide documents, lesson plans, time lines, and/or handouts:

Our Documents
Go to Teacher's Toolbox and go to "Integrating Our Documents into the Classroom." This site also provides a teacher source book as well as information about National History Day in the classroom.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/

The Library of Congress Learning Page
Check out "Using Primary Sources in the Classroom." Also, there are several excellent lesson plans on the Civil War and Reconstruction for various grade levels, including "The Civil War Through a Child's Eyes."
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/index.html

National History Day
Click on "Educators" and then "Links" for museums, archives, universities, and countless other sources for primary sources. You can also download the Contest Guide (the rule book with the judges' scoring rubric,) a Web cast of the June 2003 awards ceremony, tips for using History Day in the classroom, and more! You will find "A Research Roadmap" especially useful in helping your kids get started with History Day.
http://www.nationalhistoryday.org

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Digital Classroom
Go to Teaching with Documents and Teaching with Documents Lesson Plans, which include "The Amistad Case," "Lincoln's Spot Resolutions, " and other excellent plans on slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
You will also find "Building a School Archives," "History in the Raw,"and the "Document Analysis Worksheet" to be useful, especially in preparing students for History Day research.
http://www.archives.gov/

Eyewitness Home Page
First-hand accounts include "The Battle of Gettysburg," "Carnage at Antietam," "Lincoln Enters Richmond, 1865," "Battlefield Tragedy, 1862," "The Death of John Wilkes Booth," "Lee's Retreat from Gettysburg, 1863," "Aboard a Slave Ship, 1829," and "The Trial of Andrew Johnson, 1868."
http://www.ibiscom.com/cwfrm.htm

Gilder Lehrman History Online
A very nice site! Especially recommended sections are "Hollywood's America: Slavery in American Film," "Annotated Documents: African American Voices," "Interactive Timelines," and "Great Debates" (includes debates on the origins of American slavery, whether slavery was the cause of American economic growth, and whether Andrew Johnson should have been impeached.)
Teacher created classroom-tested lesson plans and handouts include "Women in the Civil War."
http://www.gliah.uh.edu/historyonline
North American Slave Narratives: Collection of Electronic Texts
A part of the Documenting the American South Web site, this is an
extensive collection of memoirs and other nineteenth century publications concerning slavery.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/texts.html

The History Place Presents Abraham Lincoln
This site has a very detailed timeline of Lincoln's life and career, photos, and documents, including Lincoln's last speech and letters to Generals Hooker, Meade, and Grant.
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/index.html

EDSITEment
Go to History/Social Studies for plans such as "Evaluating Eyewitness Reports," "More Amazing Americans: A Web Quest," "I've Just Seen a Face: Portraits," "Attitudes Towards Emancipation," "Eve of the Civil War: Factory vs. Plantation," "Families in Bondage," "Spirituals," "Images at War," "Lincoln Goes to War," "Walt Whitmans's Notebooks and Poetry: The Sweep of the Universe," "What Portraits Reveal," "We Must Not Be Enemies: Lincoln's First Inaugural Address," "The Red Badge of Courage: A New Kind of Courage," "African-American Communities in the North Before the Civil War," "After the American Revolution: Free African-Americans," and "Who Was Cinque?"
http://www.edsitement.neh.gov/

SUGGESTED BOOKS, PERIODICALS, ARTICLES, ETC. FOR TEACHER'S BACKGROUND READING:

Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long
Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy and The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union
John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans
Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Civil War Preservation Trust, Civil War Sites: The Official Guide to Battlefields, Monuments, and More
Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom
Our Documents: A National Initiative on American History, Civics, and Service (Teacher Sourcebook)
C. Vann Woodward, Mary Chesnut's Civil War
Bruce Catton, The Terrible Swift Sword, Coming Fury, and Never Sound Retreat
Shelby Foote, Shiloh (Also available as a beautifully read audiobook.)
David Herbert Donald, Lincoln
Albert B. Hart, The Reconstruction Era: Eyewitness Accounts

MEDIA/TECHNOLOGY USED FOR THIS LESSON

Suggested: Ken Burn's video series The Civil War; the excellent soundtrack is also available on cassette or CD. The American Experience: Reconstruction will air in 2003 on PBS; check your local listings.

STUDENT RESOURCES:

Some suggested Web sites for students:

The Library of Congress Learning Page
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/index.html

Africans in America
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/

National History Day
http://nationalhistoryday.org

Our Documents
www.ourdocuments.gov

The History Place Presents Abraham Lincoln
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/index.html

BOOKS/PERIODICALS FOR CLASSROOM READING/ENRICHMENT

Some suggestions:

Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words
Joy Hakim, Liberty for All
Virginia Hamilton, Many Thousands Gone: African-Americans from Slavery to Freedom
Pat and Patricia McKissak, A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, A Slave Girl, Belmont Plantation, 1859
Joy Hakim, War, Terrible War
Kay Moore, If You Lived at the Time of the Civil War
Irene Hunt, Across Five Aprils
Stephen Crane, Red Badge of Courage
Jim Murphy, The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War
James McPherson, Fields of Fury: The American Civil War
Joy Hakim, Reconstruction and Reform
Zak Mettger, Reconstruction: American After the Civil War (Young Readers' History of the Civil War