Out Smart and Out Number

Essential Questions:
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?

To learn more about the Civil War and the battles that took place in it, we were each individually assigned a battle to research. We had to create google doc with information about the battle plus an image. We were given a description of the battle and we had to look up online the battle that matched the description. Once we have all the information for the battle, we created a bit.ly and a qr code to lead to the Google doc. We put the qr code and the bit.ly on a poster. Once everyone had the poster, we chose a spot in the school to put the it on. Then we collaborated with the people who had the battle number around ours to tell them where we put our poster. We then went around the school scanning the qr code and getting information about all the battles during the Civil War. It was a fun and unique way to take notes about the battles. After we finished the scavenger hunt, we used a website called Padlet to answer the question "who won in each  of the theaters" We were able to put down an answer on the Padlet but then you had to back it up with info that we got from the scavenger hunt.

I believe that that ultimate victor was the Union army. I believe they dominated in the east,west and naval. They were able to dominate in the west. At the Siege of Vicksburg, the Confederates ran out of supplies. The Union was able outnumber the Confederate at the battle of Shiloh, the North outnumbered the South by 30,000 troops. During naval battles, the Union was still able to win. The Union pretty much overpowered the the Confederate in the water. They had better ships such as ironclads and timberclads. An example of this is the battle at Henry County. The Union called for an attack at point blank with 4 ironclads and 3 timberclads. This proves the the north was stronger than the south in the water. Finally, the Union was able to dominate in the east as well. They won at the battle of Gettysburg and fort Donelson. At fort Donelson, the Union kept getting more reinforcements than the confederates. This cause them to get the victory. At the battle of Gettysburg, the North lost 23,055 men, but still were able to win. After looking at all the theaters and major battles, you can really start to see some commonalities. A commonality is that the Union just had more troops than the Confederate. We saw that in the battle of Shiloh and at fort Donelson. The North also had better military tactics then the South. In Sherman’s march to sea, the North separated their army into 3 sections, which confused the army and secured them the win. Also at fort Donelson, the Union surrounded the Confederate, and the Confederates actually starved because they ran out of food and starved.To answer the essential questions, the North dominated in all 3 theaters, and the commonalities between the results of the battles are that the North had more men and outwitted their opponents to win the battles.

The battle of Shiloh

Image: http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/battle-of-shiloh

No Slaves? We want out?

Essential Question: How were the results of the Election of 1860 representative of the deep divisions over slavery? 

The election of 1860 was a huge turning point for the long road to end slavery. The reasons there were deep divisions over slavery because of the results of the 1860 election was because Abraham Lincoln stated that he wanted to end slavery. Therefore, that turned some people off from the Union because they were pro slavery so it would not make sense to be apart of a anti slavery union. So the south feared that when Lincoln was elected president they would lose the right to own the slaves that they had, so they decided to succeed from the north. This was one of the events that we studied while learning about the events that lead up to the civil war. We created an Educreations video showing all of the events. We created a script and added some pictures to make a visual representation of the events.


Educreations Video

Citations:

Bombardment of Fort Sumter by Currier & Ives (1837–1885)

US Postage Stamp, 1961 issue, 4c, commemorating the Centennial of the battle at Fort Sumter, April 12-13, 1861. Civil War

"Historical Geography" map about Slavery, 1888 (See discussion at Civil War Memory)

North v. South

Essential Question: How did the differences between the North and the South affect each region's strategy and success in the Civil War?

The research that went into making this infographic really gave me an understanding on who had the advantage while leading up the the civil war. I leaned that overall, the north had a advantage on the south. It was actually pretty fun making the graphics. They were a great way to visualize the stats about slaves. I made the infographic through infogr.am. I chose to use graphs to show the data and made summaries explaining what the graph is showing. I made a few graphs showing slavery facts and then I made a list of the advantages that the north and the south had over each other. Then I summed up the list with a paragraph at the end.  

North v. south | Create infographics

Settling the Turmoil

Essential question: How we know the debate over slavery was the "elephant in the room" for American politics in the early 19th century?

The term elephant in the room is a phrase that means that there is a completely obvious topic that people who are discussing something completely ignore. We know that slavery was the elephant in the room for American politics because the politicians know that the north and the south have completely different views on slavery so they think that a major fight would no doubtfully break out if they would ever bring up slavery while in discussion. While learning about the many events that lead up to the civil war, a common term that came up a lot was that the war was inevitable. It clearly was, so the American politicians avoided talking about slaves while in discusson. This means that the politicians knew that the civil war was completely inevitable. 

The Missouri compromise was a huge part of the civil war. The compromise created an even split of 11 slave states and 11 free sates. California requested to join the union as a free state. This messes up the whole north and south trend that was going on because California is far west. California was able to become a free state thanks to The Compromise of 1850. The compromise is a 5-part compromise created by a man named Henry Clay. He anticipated the inevitable controversy of the loss of balance between slave and free states. In the compromise, it says that slave trade will be abolished in DC buy you could still own slaves buy you can't buy or sell them. A rising problem that occurred.  A part of the compromise was the Fugitive Slave Law. This law state that if any citizen was to find a runaway slave, they would have to turn them in. Making them assist the recovery of fugitive slaves. The compromise of 1850 did what it was suppose to do, which was to keep the nation united. You could tell that they knew that the civil war was coming, so Henry Clay created it so that it would settle any negative inner turmoil that was brewing in America.

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act came rolling around. The act made the Missouri Compromise line meaningless because there was now open land for slave states to settle. The act allowed white males in those territories to decide whether or not the land would be free through popular opinion. The act pleased the southerners because they could move into the land and claim it as slave land. They could also expand both west and north. Chicago was the hub of transportation and commerce because the city was were the railroad began. The northerners were happy with the new railroads because they could easily access the west for trade and sales. 

In 1856, the Bleeding Kansas occurred. Bleeding Kansas is the term that represents the acts of violence during the settling of Kansas. Because the Kansas-Nebraska created either pro-slavery, or free state territories by the popular sovereignty, pro-slavery and antislavery settlers came rushing in to try to influence the decision on whether the territory should be free or not. Abolitionist John Brown and a band of other abolitionists massacre five pro-slavery settler on the night of may 24th. This created an uproar and people did not know what to do about it. Brown's actions created more acts of violence to occur. 

Since slavery was never really discussed and figured out, all these events had to happen. All of these actions came together and finally led to all out war which was the Civil War. If slavery was never the "elephant in the room" then maybe the war would of never of happened. To answer the essentail question, we know that slavery was the Elelephant in Room because we knew that the politicians expected a war to happen, so they created acts and laws to try to settle an tensions that might have hinted towards a war to break out.

  

Slavery's Awful Impact

How did slavery become economically entrenched  in American society by the early 19th century? • How does a system of slavery based on race affect  human dignity?   What human characteristics does such a system tend  to ignore?

Slavery becomes more and more of a problem because of the demand of the north. In the north, there were a lot of textile factories that were producing a mass amount of products. Because of the amount of products they were producing, they need the supplies. Cotton was a major supply that the north needed. Cotton was a big product in the south, therefore, causing more slaves to be needed. This made slavery become entrenched. In 1834, there were 2.3 million slaves in the United States of America. 24 years later, the number leaped up to 3.9 million slaves. That is simply because the number of cotton that was consumed per week in Lowell jumped from 235 thousand to 805 thousand.


 This chart clearly shows how the increase of textile mills directly impacts the amount of slaves that were in America.

To answer the questions of "how does a system of slavery based on race affect human dignity?" and "what human characteristics does such a system tend to ignore?" we split into groups and were each assigned a slavery activists who had different views about slavery. My group was assigned George Fitzhugh, who was advocating slavery. He wrote 2 books and several articles about how he believed that all work should be enslaved. He also believed slaves had it better as free laborers. The system of slavery continued to forget about some human characteristics. Slavery ignored the fact that slaves were humans also and that they should be treated as humans too. We watched a docudrama in class that was about a slave by the name of Futa Jallon. He was ambushed and captured by an African group and then sold into slavery. He was forced to walk 100 miles while chained. He was then sent on a boat with many other slaves. They were in the bottom of the boat so the crew didn't even know that some of them were dying. This is some clear evidence that the system of slavery completely ignored some important human characteristics such as everyone is human.

Officially Equal But Not Socially

Essential Questions: How did mid19th century American society react to women's demands for equality? Does 21st century society still react differently to men and women?

The women's reform was a huge movement for women in America. They wanted more rights such as the right to speak publically, the right to own property, and the right to divorce. They also wanted the right to vote.  When women did the same job that men did, they only got payed about 30-50% of what men made. Women were not allowed to do any of these things during the mid 19th century. Women did not like being treated unfairly so in July of 1848 they held the first ever convention for women's rights. It was called the Seneca Falls Convention. Society reacted very differently to the demands that women made for equality. An example of a reaction is the article that was posted in the National Reformer on August 3, 1848. The article said " It being the first convention of the kind ever held, and one whose women is guaranteed all the rights now enjoyed by the of half of creation." The author of the article believed that the convention will work and that eventually women will be equal to men. This is an example of society reacting to women trying to gain rights.

In the 21st century, women are pretty much equal to men. They can get payed the same, have equal job opportunities, and all laws are for men and women. There are some differences though. There has never been a women president. Some people might think that women are not as capable as ruling than man. I personally believe that there will be a women president within 10 years. I would like this because it would be an interesting change. It could also be a start of a trend which could spread across the globe. Women are also criticized a lot about how they dress. We see this a lot in school. There is a dress code for girls but there isn't really a dress code for boys. Except it't interesting that girls can wear tank tops but guys can't. To sum it back up, I think that women and men have equal rights, but there are a lot more social rules for women than there are for men. 

This photo shows how women in the 19th century had a lot more responsibilities than men.

National Reformer, Aburn, Thursday, August 3, 1848. E.W. Capron, Editor.

Obsessive Consumption

Drawing by M. Marques in 1884
Copyrighted by the city of Washington on Jan. 26 1885

The author M. Marques wanted the reader to see how much of an impact alcoholic beverages had on men and their families. He/She was really against alcohol consumption during the 1800's. You can tell because the there is not one hint of a good thing happening in this image. This drawing is very believable because it is stamped with a copyright for the city of Washington on Jan. 26 1885. This must of been put into a newspaper of a promotional article.

When this article was produced, there was a lot of trouble with men getting drunk to often. When they got drunk, they often committed crimes. A very frequent crime that happened was domestic violence toward their wives or kids. This was a huge problem during the 1800's. This drawing gives a good representation of the problem. It shows a man about to punch his wife with an empty mug on the ground. His son and o daughter are trying to stop him and his other daughter has just come through the door with a scared face on. The words below the picture say "Through the constant use of liquor he loses, at all times, all control of himself and in one of these moments kills his wife." This teaches us that when men constantly drinks, they lose control of themselves and could easily kill their wife. The picture pretty much sums up the problem of drinking during the 1800's.


M. Marques is claiming that while men are under the influence of alcohol, they will be very violent because they lose all control of themselves. The author is really just trying to convince the reader that obsessive consumption of alcohol leads to horrible domestic violence which could lead to your wife's death.