Introduction
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the American Civil War and was the start of the war. It took place over two days from April 12–13, 1861 in the state of South Carolina.
Causes of the Civil War:
There were a few reasons why the American Civil War happened. The most well known one is the issue of slavery. Economic factors included the difference in how the Union (North) and Confederacy (South) made their money. The North had an industrial driven economy (it had a lot of factories), and the South was agriculturally driven (it had a lot of farms and plantations). Political factors included the difference in moral and ethical beliefs concerning slavery between the North and South.
Slavery did play a large part in the Civil War. As new states were being formed, such as Kansas, it was becoming increasingly difficult to decide whether or not they would be slave states. This resulted in heated debates and arguments and even physical violence in what is now known as “Bleeding Kansas,” which was a series of small attacks between the North and South in Kansas.
The North believed that the time for slavery has passed, and the slaves need to be freed in the South.
The South was a slave society because it relied a lot on the labor of slaves to produce their crops.
Activity:
You will collect information about the war on assigned topics, take the answers and write a letter to your fake best friend about what your life is like as a soldier for either the Union or the Confederacy.
First, you will decide if you want to represent the Union (North) or the Confederacy (South). You and your fake best friend have different ideas about what the United States should be like. You both enlist in the army but will fight on different sides and will be telling your fake best friend what life is like for you now that you are in the army.
Think about this as you go through this Webquest. Again, you will be pretending to be part of the Union army or the Confederate army.
Task
You and your best friend have enlisted in different armies to fight in the American Civil War. However, as you are best friends you decide to write to each other during the war.
AS A MEMBER OF EITHER THE UNION ARMY OR THE CONFEDERATE ARMY: You will pick a battle and write a letter to your FAKE friend who fighting for the opposite side as you. This letter will tell your friend about the battle from your perspective as either a Confederate or Union soldier. You are looking for facts, but you need to include emotion and feeling into your answers, too.
Each letter should include the following from YOUR perspective:
1. Are you a Union or Confederate soldier in the battle?
2. The name of the battle you are fighting.
3. The leaders on both sides of the battle (Union and Confederate) where you fought.
4. Where did the battle take place (city/ state)?
5. How long did the battle take take? A day? Many days?
6. How many died for each side or in total during the battle?
7. What kind of shelters did you live in during the battle.
8. What did you eat and what kind of uniforms did you wear. (include pictures found online)
9. What kind of weapons did you use in the battle. (include pictures found online)
REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE ANSWERING THESE AS A MEMBER OF EITHER THE UNION ARMY OR THE CONFEDERATE ARMY
Process
I SUGGEST DOING STEPS 1 AND 2 (COLLECTING ALL OF THE INFORMATION) DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF THE ASSIGNMENT (MAY 4- MAY 8).
I SUGGEST DOING STEPS 3 AND 4 AND CONCLUSION (PRACTICE COPY OF THE LETTER, EDITING IT, AND FINAL COPY OF THE LETTER FINAL QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT) DURING THE SECOND WEEK OF THE ASSIGNMENT (MAY 11- MAY 15)
The steps to follow are below. Remember the questions that you are answering are in the TASK tab.
WEEK 1 PART~ MAY 4- MAY 8
1. Decide what battle you are going to be fighting in. You may choose from the following:
• Fort Sumter
• First Bull Run
• Shiloh
• Second Bull Run
• Antietam
• Fredericksburg
• Gettysburg
• Chattanooga
2. Go to any of the following websites to find information on your battle and get the answers to all the questions on the TASK tab. You may also use other sites found through a search engine such as Google. You may not use information from articles on Wikipedia, but you may use the resource section to find other websites.
YOU NEED TO PUT THE INFORMATION THAT YOU FIND IN YOUR OWN WORDS. IF YOU COPY AND PASTE IT, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO REDO IT FOR A LOWER GRADE, AND IF YOU DO NOT REDO IT IN YOUR WORDS, YOU WILL GET A ZERO ON IT.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war-battles.htm
http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/#fort_sumter
For number 5 on the TASK part, https://www.ducksters.com/history/civil_war/weapons_and_technology.php OR https://www.history.com/news/8-unusual-civil-war-weapons
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WEEK 2 PART~ MAY 11- MAY 15
3. Write a rough draft or practice version of your letter. Make sure that you are being descriptive enough for your friend to feel what you are feeling. If you want to know if you have written everything, you need to you should return to the task page and review the questions. You may also go to the evaluation tab to see if you have done all that is required.
4. Edit and revise your letter to get rid of mistakes and to make sure that all questions from the TASK tab have been answered.
YOU NEED TO PUT THE INFORMATION THAT YOU FIND IN YOUR OWN WORDS. IF YOU COPY AND PASTE IT, YOU WILL BE ASKED TO REDO IT FOR A LOWER GRADE, AND IF YOU DO NOT REDO IT IN YOUR WORDS, YOU WILL GET A ZERO ON IT.
5. Go to the ASSIGNMENT tab and write your final version of your letter in the Civil War Letter part. This will be pretty long since you had several questions to answer and all must be included in the letter. Give your fake best friend a name and start writing. REMEMBER to be detailed and answer all the questions on the TASK part. This is the last grade for the Civil War. Feel free to find pictures on the internet to help show your friend what you experienced. I would put the pictures at the end of the letter.
Evaluation
| CATEGORY | 5 POINTS | 4 POINTS | 3 POINTS | 2 POINTS | 1 POINT | |
| FOLLOWED INSTRUCTIONS | all questions addressed and filled with all of the needed information | all questions except 1 is addressed and filled with information | mostly stayed on topic and most of the information that was requested in included | has some of the information that was requested and is on topic for part of the letter | very little information that was required | |
| CORRECT WRITING FORMAT | Zero to few spelling and grammar mistakes are made. Sentences are well written and are punctuated correctly. | Some to few spelling and grammar mistakes are made. Sentences are mostly written and punctuated correctly. | Some spelling and grammar mistakes are made, student has punctuated some sentences incorrectly or inconsistently. | little to zero effort to make well written sentences and is filled with errors, it is hard to follow | ||
| LETTER HAS FEELING WITHIN IT | The letter was written with a lot of feeling and emotion. The reader is able to feel what the writer wanted them to feel. Much effort has been made. | Feeling is there and some effort has been made to make the reader see what was happening. | The letter was written with some feelings and the reader is able to understand what the writer was feeling. | The letter shows some feeling, but does not show the author's thoughts for most of it. There is slight effort. |
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| CORRECT INFORMATION INCLUDED | All of the requested information is correct, students went above and beyond with the effort and included pictures that support the information provided | Information is correct and a great deal of effort is there | Most information is correct and effort is obvious | Some information is incorrect yet a little effort has been shown | Much information is not correct and little evidence of effort |
Conclusion
You have now learned what it was like to be a soldier in the Civil War, fighting for either the Union or the Confederacy. Please think about the following based on what you learned about the Civil War.
- What do you think would happen if the United States were to have another Civil War? Is this even possible in this time period?
- What side would you have chosen if you had lived in that time period and why?
- Do you think that this war could have been avoided? How?
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Please answer these questions on the ASSIGNMENTS tab under Conclusion.
Credits
I used various web sites to gather the information for this WebQuest.