Era 5: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877) Instructional Plan Support Overview In this era, students will be bridging their understanding of the tensions that were building in the United States regarding 1) the extent of the federal government’s power and 2) the question of slavery and its relation to the country’s founding principles of liberty, equality, and justice, with the eventual political breakdown that resulted with the great rebellion now dubbed the Civil War. This era is a great opportunity for students to use the habit of mind, historical empathy. Students can practice this historical analysis skill by examining and analyzing primary and secondary sources in order to understand the many perspectives, motivations, and rationales leading to the conflict, during the conflict, and in the period of Reconstruction that followed. This era ends with students analyzing and evaluating Reconstruction—its economic, social, and political consequences, and the unintended consequences created by the United State’s inability to address racism. Adapted Standards for Grades 5‐12 (I) Students will understand how the North and South differed and how their economic systems, politics, and ideologies led to the Civil War. (II) After the onset of the war, students will understand how the resources of the Union and Confederacy affected the course of the war. As students learn about the wider political and economic perspectives of the war, they will then delve into the more personal conditions, and will be able to understand the social experience of the war as it was felt on the battlefield and home front. At the end of the war, there were many different opinions and significant political struggles around the issue of how the country should be put back together again. (III) Students will consult primary sources to understand the political controversies over Reconstruction, with a particular examination of how Reconstruction programs were designed to transform social relations in the South. Students will then evaluate the successes and failures of Reconstruction in the South, North, and West. Essential Question(s) Possible Big Idea Essential Question: To what extent did the Civil War fundamentally change the United States? Possible Essential Questions 1) How central was slavery to the conflict? 2) How did the North and South’s differences in economic systems, politics and ideologies lead to the Civil War? (Sense of Republicanism) 3) How did the resources of each side affect the course of the war? 4) How were peoples’ lives affected by the conflict? 5) What cultural practices, including art and photography, did Americans draw upon for conceptualizing westward expansion, conflict with Indians, and the Civil War? 1 6) What was the political controversy over Reconstruction? 7) How did Reconstruction programs transform social relations in the South? 8) What were the successes and failures of Reconstruction? 9) How did westward expansion, Indian removal, the Mexican-American War, and insurgent women’s voices challenge and change those institutions? Possible Individual Lesson Topics • The South and the Institution of Slavery • Compare and contrast the North, South, and West • The Compromise of 1850 and the Dred Scott Decision • “Free labor” ideology and its impact on slavery • Secession: order of, and reasons for • Compare and contrast resources and technology • How individuals influenced the course of the war • Why people fought, or resisted fighting, and the reason(s) for the sides they took • How important were the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation to the war effort? • The costs of the war and its successes • The Reconstruction policies of Lincoln, Johnson, and Congress • Johnson’s impeachment trial • The 14th and 15th Amendments • The role(s) and position(s) Native Americans took both during the conflict and reconstruction • The programs, political influence, social position, and progress made by blacks after the conflict • The influence of the Industrial Revolution on the Civil War and Reconstruction Guided Discovery Activities Oldies, but Goodies: • Artifact Analysis • Maps • Research papers, • Newspapers • Podcasts projects, and • Re-enactments presentations Have you tried? • Journaling • Timelines • Reader’s Theater • “Quilt” (Civil War • Posters • Balance Sheet themed) (Glogster—online • Found Poems • Simulation posters) • Social Media • Supreme Court • Primary Source • Mock Trials Case Studies Analysis • Debates Documents, Resources, Biography People John M. Chivington Jim Crow Susan B. Anthony Samuel Clemens Jefferson Davis Clara Barton Crazy Horse Frederick Douglass Belle Boyd George A. Custer Robert Elliot John Bozeman James Buchanan Exodusters John Brown Chief Joseph Charlotte Forten Blanche Bruce Bill Cody William Lloyd Garrison 2 Ulysses S. Grant 1820 Missouri Gettysburg Address Rose Greenhow Compromise Freedman’s Bureau Oliver Otis Howard Compromise of 1850 Thomas Nast cartoons Thomas “Stonewall” Compromise of 1877 Black Codes Jackson Wilmot Proviso Ku Klux Klan Andrew Johnson Kansas-Nebraska Act Robert E. Lee Dred Scott vs. Sandford Abraham Lincoln (1857) Readings/Resources William Clarke Quantrill Lincoln-Douglas Debates Stephen Crane, Red Badge Red Cloud Party platforms during the of Courage Hiram Revels election of 1860 Michael Shaara, The Killer William Tecumseh Lincoln’s First Inaugural Angels Sherman Address Virginia Hamilton, The Sitting Bull Mississippi Resolutions People Could Fly Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Nov. 30, 1860) Patricia Lee Gauch, Harriet Beecher Stowe South Carolina Declaration Thunder at Gettysburg, A Harriet Tubman of Causes (Dec. 24, 1860) Child’s Account of the Diaries and letters of Battle of Gettysburg Union and Confederate F.N. Monjo, The Documents Soldiers Vicksburg Veteran 13th, 14th, and 15th Emancipation Amendments Proclamation Assessing for Understanding Conclusions “A natural conclusion to the study of Civil War and Reconstruction is a consideration of the legacies of the era. The complex mix of change and continuity can easily confuse students. Too much stress on the “unfinished agenda” of the period can obscure the great changes actually wrought. Notable among them are the following: the expansion of the power of the federal government; the shift of economic power toward northern industrialist and away from southern planters; [the consignment of African-Americans in the South to agricultural peonage and the simultaneous ascendancy of Jim Crow both in the South and the North--inserted]; the effect of the war and Reconstruction on race relations in an era of growing conservatism in the courts and in Congress; and the impact of the war on America’s position in the world.” (From Lessons from History: Essential Understandings and Historical Perspectives Students Should Acquire by The National Center for History in the Schools, p. 116). “Reconstruction was not merely a specific time period, but the beginning of an extended historical process: the adjustment of American society to the end of slavery. … [It] produced far- reaching conflicts and debates over the role former slaves and their descendants would play in American life and the freedom they had acquired” (Eric Foner in Bring History Alive, p. 113). 3 Possible Responses to the Big Idea Essential Question To what extent did the Civil War fundamentally change the United States? • The Civil War ended African American Slavery (but not racial inequality, which remained unfinished for another 100 years.) • It ushered in the development of a capitalist market society based on corporate industrial capitalism while subsuming and integrating into itself earlier forms of proprietary modes of production and exchange. • It strengthened the power of the federal government and preserved the union. • It defined national citizenship. • It was the extension from the Revolutionary struggle of liberty, equality, justice, and human dignity. Possible Responses to the Essential Questions How central was the issue of slavery to the conflict? • For the north, the abolition of slavery became more important as the war progressed; initially the expansion of slavery was more important. • For the South, slavery and its expansion had equal value—slavery had increased tenfold between 1780-1860, and migration to newly developed regions in the South was critical. How did the North and South differ in politics, ideologies, and resources? • The South had its own class structure, very different than the North’s. • The Northern economy more industrialized and its economy more tightly integrated by rail, waterways, and the telegraph. • Slavery in the South allowed white men to be freed from production for combat, but the North had a larger male population from which to recruit and conscript combatants. • The North had a larger and more powerful saltwater and freshwater navy, which enabled it to: (1) maintain a relatively effective blockade of Southern shipping and supplies; (2) to establish critical beachheads (Roanoke, Sea Islands) along the coasts of the Confederacy; (3) militarily dominate the Ohio/Mississippi/Tennessee River Valleys, thereby dividing the Confederacy itself. • The influx of gold from California, Montana, etc. helped stabilize Northern currency. • The North had a more united and flexible leadership (contrast the leadership styles of Lincoln and Davis). • More railroad miles in the North • Banking structure in place in the North • Ideology: “free labor” v. “slave labor” poses inherent contradiction for South: how to fight for principles