"Finding" Trends in the Civil War

This week in class we examined the victors of battles in the Civil War through a scavenger hunt around the school. We each were assigned a battle, and we found the theater, east, west, or naval, the victor, and the reasons for the victory. We put our information into a Google doc, put the link in a QR code, and then hung them around the school. (See mine here: http://bit.ly/CivilWarBattle3). Then, we used the information we got from everyone's QR codes to answer the essential questions, "Who was the ultimate victor in the theaters of the war: East, West, Naval? What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles?" As a class we each answered these questions for two of the theaters in a Padlet.

View our class Padlet here:

Created with Padlet

Of course, the Union Army won the Civil War, but they didn't dominate all theaters. They dominated both the Western and Naval theaters, but the Confederate dominated the East. Throughout the Western battles, the North consistently outnumbered the South with more men and defeated them with stronger weaponry. For example, at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6 and 7, 1862 and the Battle of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, the North outnumbered the South by 10,000 men, and the South had more than 8 times the amount of men missing or captured. The North also dominated the Naval Theater with fleets much stronger than those in the South. At both the Battle of Baton Rouge and the Battle of Fort Donelson, the Union attacked so heavily on the enemy ships that they caused enough damage to force the Confederates to surrender. Although the Confederates didn’t win as many battles as the North, they were still able to dominate the Eastern Theater. Each Confederate victory in the east was a result of large amounts of Union casualties. The Battle of Fredericksburg left 13,300 Union casualties, while the Second Battle of Bull Run resulted in over 5,500 more.

Through this scavenger hunt we learned about each theater of the Civil War, and saw trends in the results of the battles. I really enjoyed doing this activity because it was a creative and fun way for us to learn the information, instead of just taking basic notes. Instead of just sitting in the classroom, it was nice to be able to get up and move around the school...even though it was a little tiring.