Civil War Battles

Created with Padlet

  During this weeks lesson we focused on different battles in the civil war. We looked for some commonalities between the victors in the easterners western and naval theaters. To focus on the different battles we each were assigned one of twenty, and we were to find the battle name, date, and and two sentences on how the victor had an advantage. We put that information on a Google doc and printed out a QR and bit.ly code. When we came to class the next day, we put up our codes all around the school. This meant we had to scan in to find the information, and the end of the Google doc there was a hint to where the next battle code was. My battle was the Battle of fort Henry.

   During the Civil War it was clear to see that Union dominated in the western and naval battles, whereas the Confederacy won most of their battles in the eastern theater. For example, the battle of fort Henry took place on the Tennessee river. A Union general named Andrew Foote came into the Confederate owned fort with seven gunboats. This was an easy target because fort Henry had outdated guns. This victory made it easy for Union ships to take control of the Tennessee river. Another example of the union dominating the western theater was the battle of Baton Rouge. The Confederates lost because the Union side attacked by land and sea. The Confederates forced the Union back to a river. The Union knew this would happen so they had boats waiting. The Confederates were not expecting this and lost the battle. The Confederacy lost many naval battles simply because they were not prepared, they did not have the boats and equipment. Although, for the most part the Confederacy dominated the eastern theater. During the battle of Chancellorsville, the Confederates won because Joseph hooker, a Union leader decided to wait until more soldiers arrived before advancing to Rappahannock. However this costed the north because the confederates decided to attack. Overall, the North dominated the Western and Naval theaters, and the confederate dominated the Eastern theater.

This picture shows the Battle of fort Henry.

   I thought the idea of having a scavenger hunt was a great method of helping us understand the different battles of the civil war. But, what helped me the most was when we made the Padlet, which you can see above. This was great because it made us look through our notes and find patterns to see which side won which battles. When i first looked through my notes i looked right past the fact that all of the naval battles were won by the union side, but after the class organized the battles it helped me see how the Union was much more prepared on the water. I really liked this part in the unit because it allowed us to move around and work together as a class to figure out the essential question.