Lesson Title Local Connection: The Civil War in the Roanoke Valley Author Tara Montague Grade Level 4th grade Curricular Areas Social Studies (Virginia Studies) Time 1 day (45 minutes) Materials/Resources Teacher Materials: Student Materials: computer, Local Connection worksheet, exit slip, access to articles, Social Studies notebook S.O.L. VS.7b: TSW demonstrate an understanding of the issues that divided our nation and led to the Civil War by describing Virginia’s role in the war, including identifying major battles that took place in Virginia. VS.1: The student will demonstrate skills for historical thinking, geographical analysis, economic decision making, and responsible citizenship by a) analyzing and interpreting artifacts and primary and secondary sources to understand events in Virginia history; d) recognizing points of view and historical perspectives; e) comparing and contrasting ideas and cultural perspectives in Virginia history; g) explaining connections across time and place; i) practicing good citizenship skills and respect for rules and laws while collaborating, compromising, and participating in classroom activities; and j) investigating and researching to develop products orally and in writing. Language Arts: 4.3 The student will learn how media messages are constructed and for what purposes. 4.4 The student will expand vocabulary when reading. 4.6 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of nonfiction texts. 4.7 The student will write in a variety of forms to include narrative, descriptive, opinion, and expository. 4.8 The student will self- and peer-edit writing for capitalization, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, paragraphing, and Standard English. 4.9 The student will demonstrate comprehension of information resources to research a topic. Specific Objective TSW explore secondary sources relating to Roanoke’s connection to the Civil War and demonstrate their understanding by answering questions and writing a brief opinion essay about Roanoke’s importance in the war. Differentiation of Instruction Articles can be printed or read aloud as necessary. Many of the multiple learning intelligences accommodated (verbal, spatial, logical, intrapersonal, interpersonal). Teacher can provide extra assistance throughout the process as needed. Students can work in pairs or small groups and can assist/support each other as needed. Warm-up and closing activity can be completed orally as needed. Warm-up or Focus Activity Social Studies Notebook Prompt: “Based on what you know about Virginia’s role in the Civil War, you think that Roanoke was significant in the Civil War? Why or why not?” Direct Teaching/Modeling TTW lead a discussion of the warm-up. TTW introduce and explain directions about completing investigation and worksheet. Check for Understanding TTW informally observe throughout investigation as needed. TSW complete an exit slip demonstrating their understanding of the investigation. Guided Practice TTW provide scaffolding and guidance during the local connection investigation as needed. Independent Practice Local Connection Investigation: TSW read articles about the Roanoke Valley’s role in the Civil War, answer comprehension questions, and synthesize the information to draw conclusions about Roanoke’s subjective importance in the broad scope of the war. Closure TSW complete an exit slip demonstrating their understanding of the activity and Roanoke’s role in the Civil War. Evaluation/Assessment Investigation worksheet and exit slip. Important Links: Civil War History in Roanoke Valley, Virginia: https://www.visitroanokeva.com/things-to-do/history- and-heritage/civil-war-history/ Roanoke Times article (abridged version attached to lesson plan): https://www.roanoke.com/news/local/years-later-peace-abides-at-hanging-rock- battlefield/article_784d190e-f8e4-11e3-b5ef-0017a43b2370.html 150 years later, peace abides at Hanging Rock battlefield An excerpt from The Roanoke Times (June 20, 2014) Let’s just say it: In the whole scope of the Civil War, the Battle of Hanging Rock wasn’t that big of a deal. “It was no Gettysburg,” David Robbins, a local Civil War historian, said with a chuckle. The brief engagement between a retreating Union army and a pursuing Confederate cavalry wasn’t even really a battle, either. The whole affair lasted less than an hour, as soldiers fought in a narrow gap near the intersection of present-day Virginia 419 and Virginia 311 just north of Salem on June 21, 1864 — 150 years ago today. Even the generals who were there that day barely mentioned the fight in their post-action reports. The “battle” was called a skirmish, a raid or any other description that means “not much to see here.” Despite the battle’s omission from history books, people should remember that more than a dozen men died during this forgotten skirmish and scores were wounded near Dutch Oven Road, just a half- mile north of Interstate 81 exit 141. The road to New Castle was lined with dead horses, whose blood ran into Mason Creek. Cannons were captured, wagons were destroyed, and farms and stores were plundered near the rocky outcropping that gives the community its name. Major figures of the Civil War passed through Salem, including two future presidents, Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley. The fact that such a violent, bloody encounter can be written off as a negligible fight just goes to show how unimaginably violent and destructive the Civil War was. “Hanging Rock was little more than a skirmish,” agreed John Long, director of the Salem Museum, “but it’s the only real battle in Roanoke County, so it has local significance.” The Battle of Hanging Rock also must be considered in the context of the larger campaign for which it served as the coda. Union Gen. David Hunter had slashed and burned his way through the Shenandoah Valley in mid-June on his way to Lynchburg, a major rail and supply outpost for Gen. Robert E. Lee’s increasingly desperate army, but Hunter and his force of nearly 18,000 men were turned back by a smaller Southern army led by Gen. Jubal Early that defended Lynchburg and sent Hunter high-tailing it for friendly territory in West Virginia. As Hunter’s army retreated through the Roanoke Valley, the rearguard fight at Hanging Rock was sort of a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you spanking from the Confederates. The war would drag on 10 more miserable months. “Had Lynchburg fallen, or had Hunter’s army been destroyed, we can wonder what would have happened during the rest of the war,” said Long, who also teaches history at Roanoke College. “But, as I tell my students, history is what happened, not what might have happened.” Here is what happened: The road to the skirmish, raid, battle — whatever you prefer to call it — at Hanging Rock started six weeks earlier at Cloyds Mountain in Pulaski County and would wind for hundreds of miles through the Shenandoah Valley and into Central Virginia before ending in Roanoke County. On May 9, 1864, Confederate forces at Cloyds Mountain fought bitterly to stave off Union incursions into Southwest Virginia. John McCausland, a 27-year-old, Missouri-born Confederate, took command of Southern forces after Gen. Albert Gallatin Jenkins was mortally wounded. Following that battle, which tore through Dublin and present-day Radford, McCausland was promoted to brigadier general. A month later, he would play a major role in the battles of Lynchburg and Hanging Rock. In June, Hunter took command of Union troops and followed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s orders to take the valley, “the bread basket of the Confederacy.” Hunter rolled from Winchester through Staunton and entered Lexington on June 11, 1864, after McCausland and his small force abandoned the town. Hunter gave the order to torch the Virginia Military Institute barracks in retaliation for the cadets’ service during the Battle of New Market a month earlier, which had been a stinging Union defeat. He also ordered the burning of former Virginia governor John Letcher’s home. Hunter’s army turned for Lynchburg, passing through Buchanan and present-day Bedford. Buchanan sustained major damage after McCausland’s men burned the bridge that crosses the James River in an effort to slow the Union advance. Confederates under Early stopped Hunter during the two-day Battle of Lynchburg, sending the Union army scampering west, with Early’s men and McCausland’s cavalry on its trail. Hunter retreated along the Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike (today’s U.S. 460) in a wagon train that stretched for 11 miles. Union Gen. Alfred Duffie was ordered to burn the wool mill and depot at Bonsack, cut telegraph wires and burn the rail depots in Big Lick (now Roanoke) and Salem. McCausland pursued Hunter by crossing the Peaks of Otter and headed toward Salem on the Great Valley Pike (the primary corridor for today’s I-81 and U.S. 11), which was a better road and a faster way to get to the Roanoke Valley. McCausland and Confederate Gen. Robert Ransom’s men caught Hunter’s army, which was slowed by the narrow gap through Hanging Rock up Catawba Mountain toward New Castle. Local militia had blocked the road with fallen trees, further slowing the retreat. On the morning of June 21, Union cannons fired on Confederate troops coming down the Lynchburg- Salem Turnpike, just above where Anchor Truck Accessories sits today on Electric Road. McCausland waited nearly two hours before Ransom finally gave the order to attack the tail end of Hunter’s wagon train at Hanging Rock. Anywhere from 50 to 200 Confederates poured into the gap along Dutch Oven Road, smashing wagons, breaking trunnions off cannons and killing men and horses. Perhaps 10 Union soldiers died. Three Confederates perished and are buried in Salem’s East Hill Cemetery. Union reinforcements arrived in time to chase McCausland from Hanging Rock and allow the retreat to continue up the mountain, through New Castle and into West Virginia.