Women in the Civil War

When most people think of the Civil War, they think of the men that fought in it. However, many women also played significant roles in the Civil War. These roles both had some women stay within their traditional gender roles and require others to act outside the “Sphere of Domesticity”.

One traditional role that many women played was as nurses for the army. Some nurses included Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, and Louisa May Alcott. Another traditional role done by women was organizing charity. Alice Chapin was one of these people. She sent gifts to soldiers and cared for victims. Many other women worked in soldiers aid societies. They went around their towns and gathered donations of food and clothing to send to the front line. They also made their own stuff to send to the soldiers. This aid was an intrical part of the war.

Martha Coston was one woman who acted outside the “Sphere of Domesticity”. After her husband died, she continued his work of developing a flare for the navy. She then sold it to them and her flares were used for decades after. Other women who played nontraditional roles were Belle Boyd and Rose O’Neal Greenhow. Both women served as spies for the confederate army. They left their homes and went undercover in the north stealing secrets. They even killed union soldiers. Other nontraditional roles included women who left their families to become nurses and women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the war. All of these roles in the war were performed by women who acted outside the traditional “Sphere of Domesticity”.

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Fight: For Your Country or Your Survival?

An 18 year old store clerk in 1861 debating whether to join the Civil War. His friends are all joining the Union, but he isn’t sure if he would rather fight for his country or save his own life. This was a common scenario in the Civil War. Many young men were unsure whether to join the army and fight. They were faced with the dilemma of whether service to their country or self preservation was more important. This dilemma was made harder because of the influx of new war technology and tactics that made the fighting more brutal.

There was a lot of patriotism and pride on both sides of the Civil War. The Confederates saw the war as not only defending their land, but defending their morals and lifestyle. For this reason they were determined to win the war. They also needed to defend themselves from the Union. The Union also felt like fighting in the war was very important. They felt like they were fighting for their beliefs on slavery. All of these reasons meant there was a lot of pride on both sides. This pride for their country made young men eager to join the war effort on both sides and made the dilemma much worse.

Fighting in the Civil War was not easy and was very bloods. The weapons developed at that time were far ahead of any defensive measures, so there were a lot of bad wounds. Minié balls were much better than previous bullets and they destroyed bone and anything else they hit in a soldier’s body. Other new weapons included landmines, railroad artillery, and early machine guns. On top of this was the naval invention of ironclads. Ironclads were almost invincible to other ships because of their armor and could annihilate an entire old fleet. All of these brutal weapons caused all sorts of injuries and while many soldiers died, some were saved by, now crude, advancements in surgery. Anesthetics were just starting to be used and a popular choice was chloroform. Amputation and resections of limbs improved greatly and saved the lives of many soldiers. However, it was still largely chance that a soldier would survive the surgery and avoid infection.

Despite all of the gruesome risks of war, many young men in the era still decided to join the war. They were drawn in by the chance for adventure and to leave home. They also felt a lot of pride for their country and felt obligated to defend it. However, the brutal reality of war was not so glamorous. Many people were hurt or killed and people had to weigh that against other factors. They had to personally answer the moral question of whether to fight for their country or themselves.

Civil War Battles Scavenger Hunt

Instead of doing a normal unit on the important battles of the Civil War, we did a different, more interactive method. We made a scavenger hunt out of it. Everyone in the class was assigned an important Civil War battle that they had to research. They were given a little description with the date and a few other pieces of information and had to find the name. We then had to find some other basic information about the battle including the victor and theater of war. We put all of this into an open google doc and added an image. We then had to make a QR code linked to the document and put it on a sign. The signs were hung up around the school, so people would go to a sign, scan it to get information, and receive a clue to where the next battle was located. We spent three days running around the school completing the scavenger hunt. After the scavenger hunt, our class made two padlets to answer the essential questions of the unit.

Battle Google Doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MqZ0WD7VUjYxDMdrWCtRvO1kC15fc8O8K-Cf6hWUspw/edit?usp=sharing

Reasons for results padlet:

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Theaters and victors padlet:

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The ultimate victor of the Civil War varied between the theaters. In the east theater the confederates were the winners. They won seven out of the twelve eastern battles studied including the Battle of Chancellorsville, Battle of Cold Harbor, Battle of Fort Sumter, and Battle of Fredericksburg. Most victories were at the beginning of the war, though, and the Union started to win eastern battles after Ulysses Grant became in charge. The Union was the clear victor of Naval battles. The first major one, the Battle of Hampton was a draw and the south sustained damage on their only ironclad. The union won every other naval battle we studied including the Battle of Baton Rouge and the Battle of Fort Henry. The Union was also the victor in the West theater. Victories included the Battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Gettysburg. Some reasons for the confederate victories include that they had good leaders and good tactics. For example, the Battle of Chancellorsville was won because Lee decided to split up his troops. Some confederate victory could also be attributed to the union underestimating them. One major reason for Union success is that they had a lot more resources. They had more soldiers and more weapon and had more advanced technology. Another reason for Union victories was the union had some very smart generals, especially Ulysses S Grant. Grant was a very good general and was responsible for many union victories and the victory of the war itself as well. For these reasons, the Union was the overall victor of the Civil War.  

Civil War Statistics

The different statistics were chosen to represent a variety of different important factors of war. The statistics about population were important to determining the size of the armies and available labor forces. The information about the amount of railway was important because railway had an effect on war strategy. The value of manufactured goods was an important indicator of economic standing and money is necessary to war. The corn is an indicator to the amount of food available which is an important supply.

This process was very important in helping to understand the Northern and Southern situations. It provided a way to visualize a unit that was largely statistics. It also forced me to analyze the statistics so I could organize and prioritize them in order to make the infographic. Overall, I had a much better understanding of the unit and the essential question after I made the infographic than before.

advantages and strategies in the Civil war | Create Infographics

Causes of the Civil War Research Project

The Causes of the Civil War Project was a long term group research project. Each group was given an event that led up to the Civil War and had to explain how it was a compromise and a conflict. My group had the Compromise of 1850. We had to write a one page essay on it and create a virtual scrapbook of both written and visual primary sources related to the topic. Here is the project below. My group did ours in the form of a prezi.

We also viewed other groups projects and used the information to compile a timeline of the events that led up to the Civil War. The timeline is below.

EdCafe Reflection

EdCafe is an interesting alternative to the usual socrative seminars and class discussions. I liked how the discussions were smaller groups. This allowed everyone to participate more and the conversation to progress more quickly than a socrative seminar where two or three question took the whole period. This allowed seven or so questions to be discussed in 15 minutes. I also liked how you got to choose topics that interested you. While in this EdCafe the topics were all fairly similar, this has a lot of potential and can lead to better discussions because people talk more when they are interested. The EdCafe can be improved by having fewer groups present at a time. Some groups only had one or two attendees, so the discussions were not as good as they good have been with more minds contributing. It also would be better if the overall EdCafe had a broader theme. This would allow a greater array of topics which would be more interesting.

I feel that I did a pretty good job presenting. I was well prepared for the discussion with plenty of questions. We barely got through half of the questions we prepared. I also think I prepared a good intro. The discussion went pretty well, but there were only two attendees, so it didn’t get very in depth. I could improve by picking a better topic next time. I thought my topic was interesting, but almost no one came so I assume it could have been better. Overall, though, I feel I did a pretty good job presenting.

I also feel like I was a good attendee. I participated frequently in the discussions and feel like my points contributed to the discussion. Both EdCafes I attended had very interesting and well done discussions. I also think that I took as good of notes as I could with still participating frequently in the discussion. I took note of most of the questions and of the good points that people made. My notes are for the post part a good representation of what I learned. However, I missed some stuff because it is hard enough to write as fast as people talk without having to participate yourself. I did a good job as an attendee as well as presenter. 

Money Above Morals

The common conception of Antebellum America is that the north was pro-abolition and the south was pro-slavery. However, it was not as strait forward as this. Many northerners did object to slavery, both morally and economically. However, some northerners recognized that they economically were dependent on and benefited from slavery and, so, they were opposed to abolition.

One group of northerners opposed to slavery both morally and economically was the mill girls. The mill girls felt like they went through similar hardships as the slaves did because they both had long hard work and were not treated very well. It is because of this connection they felt that they were pro-abolition. The mill girls were very active in abolitionist causes and more than 1600 of them signed an abolition petition and thousands showed up for pro-abolition rallies. The mill girls were morally against the unfair treatment that they viewed slavery as and did not allow selfish motives to silence their opinion. 

This was not the case for many northern businessmen. Northern factories, especially mills, relied on southern slave-grown crops to manufacture goods out of. This industry made up almost the entire economy of places like Lowell and, so, many business owners had economic interests invested in slavery. Slave labor was needed to make cotton farming economically viable, so as slave labor grew the number of cotton mills was also able to grow. This is shown in the chart below. As time progresses, the slave population increases significantly and so does the number of mills and mill jobs. This shows the economic impact of slavery on the mill towns and the dependency on it. Because mill owners made so much more money from slave grown cotton, the slaves were important to their success and the mill owners did not want to lose slave labor. Because of this, mill owners and other important businessmen did not want to support abolition regardless of their moral views.

Even though many northerners were not opposed economically to slavery, they did display signs of moral opposition. This is shown in the speeches of anti-abolitionists. One paper says, “We go against Southern Lynch-Law, and Southern mobs, and Southern threats.” Since most anti-abolitionists are against what they perceive as the negative aspects of slavery, it shows that they have moral hesitations. They recognize that how slaves are treated is not right, yet they do not want to change it. This indicates that they have another motive behind their actions, most likely an economic one. Most of the prominent anti-abolitionists were those who had monetary connections to slaves and slave-grown cotton. These include mill owners like Kirk Boott and Abbot Lawrence, and even the mayor of Boston. Ultimately, economic motives shaped their stance on slavery.

Despite popular belief, many northerners in Antebellum America were not opposed to slavery. While most may have had moral issues with slavery, many had other motives that overpowered moral opposition. Those who were publicly against slavery did not usually benefit from slavery and, so, had no economic motives. These were people like the mill girls who wanted to help the slaves. However, many prominent and wealthy people cared more about the economic benefits of slavery than its downsides. Because of this, many northerners were actually anti-abolition. Many northerners in Antebellum America were not opposed to slavery, as most people believe.

Coverage of Lowell’s Anti-Abolitionist Meeting. August 28, 1835. Lowell Patriot. Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell. Accessed on February 6, 2014.