North Carolina Era 6: Civil War and Reconstruction - 1860 - 1876: Views of the Civil War Lesson Plan

North Carolina Era 6: Civil War and Reconstruction - 1860 - 1876: Views of the Civil War Lesson Plan

Pauline Johnson, Roman Blevins

This document may be viewed, downloaded, and printed for personal and educational use, but any commercial use is prohibited without permission from the Southern Appalachian Archives, Mars Hill University. Questions may be directed to the Archivist at (828) 689-1262 or archives@mhu.edu

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
• Learners will evaluate primary and secondary documents
• Learners will make note differing views of the war from the time of the conflict to views fifty years after the war.
• Learners will understand that people in the same region held different views of the Civil War.
• LEARNING TARGET: I can list several differing opinions of the Civil War by people living in Western North Carolina.

Materials/Equipment: copies of newspaper articles, primary sources, obituary in packets for groups

half of the scheduled class period

PROCEDURE

1. Put students into cooperative groups of 4 – 5. Give each group a packet that includes the documents. Explain that they need to only read the sections of the newspaper articles that reference the Civil War. Give them the following information about the authors of the texts.
a. Mitchell Alexander Chandley – farmer and civil servant from Madison County, NC.
b. John B. Marsh – preacher, missionary for the American Sunday School Union, second president of Mars Hill College, from New York
c. Some of the newspapers are not dated; believe they are from the early 1900s
2. Give students time to read through the packet, discuss, and fill in one graphic organizer per group.
3. Lead a discussion concerning the documents.
a. Which were primary and which were secondary.
b. Go over the who, when, audience, and form of each source.
c. Ask students to bring up concerns about the sources – for example, the Chandley was written when he was over 80 years old and J.B. Marsh was a New Yorker who had traveled to NC five years before the war. He also was a preacher. The newspaper articles may have left out certain items (the Shelton Laurel event is inferred, but not directly referenced).
d. Ask for specific evidence from each source that shows each authors view of the Civil War.
e. Ask what surprised them as they read through the material. Students may express surprise that Chandley fought for the Union, but was from Madison County. They should make the connection that he was still well respected (but was he really??) at his death according to his obituary.

ASSESSMENT

• Graphic organizer should be complete.
• Class discussion should examine considerations about the documents.
• Class discussion should review differing opinions of the war from the time of the conflict to views fifty years after.
• You might ask students to write a paragraph explaining how these documents give them a different view of the war in Western North Carolina.

EXTENSION/DIFFERENTIATION ACTIVITIES

• This activity presents an excellent opportunity to examine the events and aftermath of the Shelton Laurel incident, particularly since it is skimmed over (or information is false) in some of the newspaper accounts.
• This also can lead to a short lesson on the events at Warm Springs that J.B. Marsh wrote about in his letter.