Battles Won and Lost

In this lesson we learned about twenty different battles during the Civil War.  The  essential question for this lesson was, “Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war: East, West, Naval?  What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles?”  We started this lesson by being each assigned a battle.  I chose the battle of Shiloh.  We then had to research our battle name, location, date, victor, theater (East, West, or Naval), creating two bullets explaining the reasons for the results, and at least one image.  We put all of this information into a Google Doc and then created a shareable link to make a QR code so that students could scan in to the document when we completed our scavenger hunt.  We then helped create the scavenger hunt with our class and then we went around the school and scanned into every code to learn about each battle.  After everyone had completed the scavenger hunt, each student wrote two posts on our class padlet page, answering the questions, “Who was the ultimate ‘victor’ in each of the theaters (naval, west, and east)?  Was the ultimate victor winning all along?” and “What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles?”  We collaborated on our padlet page to help each other answer the essential question.

After learning about these battles, there were clear victors in each theater.  The Union succeeded by using the Anaconda plan, while the South faced some troubles during many of the battles.  The Union was the victor in the West and Naval theater.  For example, in the battle of Shiloh and Fort Donelson, the Union soldiers were able to surround the confederates until they were forced to surrender.  In the Battle of Shiloh, the the Union’s technique of the “Hornet’s Nest” lead to victory.  In both battles of Vicksburg and Henry Fort, the technique that was utilized was bombarding the Confederate soldiers until they had to surrender because of casualties.  The Confederacy was the victor in the East theater.  For example, in both the battles of Fort Sumter and Second Manassas, the strategy of using the Union’s depletion in ammunition and reinforcements as a weakness lead to the Confederacy winning the battle.

This is an image depicting soldiers fighting for the Union and Confederacy during the Battle of Shiloh.

I really enjoyed this lesson.  I thought that the scavenger hunt was a creative and fun way to learn about the many civil war battles.  Although it was sometimes frustrating connecting to the internet in order to access the notes on each battle, I thought the scavenger hunt made the lesson more interesting and made me feel like I was almost in a war zone!

Pictography:

“American Civil War: Battle of Shiloh.”  Picture image.  http://www.ducksters.com/history/civil_war/battle_of_shiloh.php.  3/31/15.

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