The Civil War; Battles Breakdown

During this past lesson, our history class participated in perhaps one of the most entertaining lesson of the year. We were split into pairs and tasked with creating clues and Google documents for a scavenger hunt. These clues would be hidden around the school and would have scannable QR codes that allowed easy access to each groups Google doc. Each Google doc created by a pair of students had a description of a different battle from the civil war. These battles were all extremely important in shaping the war into what it was, a bloodbath between brothers. The battles varied from eastern to western theater, from naval to land battles and from union to confederate victories. My Google doc, which can be found here, was focused on the battle of Hampton Roads which was the first time both sides utilized the new naval technology ironclads. Ironclads changed the way naval battles were fought, not only in the civil war, but other wars in other parts of the world as well. These QR codes were then hidden around the school and it was our job to find them, scan them and analyze the information given to answer the essential questions. To answer the essential questions, our class used a program called padlet which allowed all students to give their own input on what they believe the answer is and why. The first padlet, which can be found here, answers the question of who was the victor in each theater during the war. The victor of the eastern theater was overall the confederacy due to strong leadership and tactics which allowed the larger confederate army to edge out the invading northern forces. Such battles as Spotsylvania and the battle of cold harbor were won by the confederates and provided huge boosts to the moral of the confederacy. However, many other confederate victories were much closer which allowed the union to work its way through the south by waging a war of attrition, slowly bleeding the south dry of all supplies needed to sustain a fighting force. In both other theaters, the union dominated the fighting, only losing one battle in the western theater (that we studied) while obliterating the confederates in all others. The same was true for the naval battles, although one battle was closer because of value of the supplies lost, and was eventually ruled inconclusive although the union took slightly greater losses. The second padlet, found here, helped to answer the question of what commonalities can be found in each armies respective victories. Simply put, when the confederacy won battles, it was largely due to their superior military leadership and overwhelming numbers. Many of the battles were held in southern territory which allowed the confederates the privilege of knowing the area and easier movement of troops then the north. When you combine that with brilliant military planning that generals like Robert E. Lee brought to the confederates, they dominated the fighting. When the Union wee the victors, it was mainly due to their overall army and nation being much larger than the south, allowing greater numbers of resources to be produced and larger armies to be formed. This meant by the end of the war, the north had a much larger capable fighting force than the south which allowed generals Grant and Sherman to march their armies into enemy territory with little worry and large chances of success. These questions summarize beautifully what our class learned during this scavenger hunt and gave many students insight on just how and why the north was able to triumph over the south in the American Civil War.