Allison's Civil War Trip

I want to document my trip, as well as tell everyone about it! I went to Civil War sites over Spring Break! It was an amazing trip, I learned so much, and can only remember some of it!

For the whole time we were back east we had to men traveling with us, one was our "scholar" meaning that he is an expert on the Civil War and was kind of like our personal tour guide at all of the places we went. His name is Matt and he teaches at Dickinson College and is a published author of a book about Abraham Lincoln. Towards the end of the trip, we spend some time at Dickinson College; this college has been around since before the Civil War. It is a very small school, but it was very pretty. It is located in a city called Carlisle. The second man was named John and he was from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. This institute helped to pay for our trip. John was there as our "Institute Staff" meaning that we had a few sessions where he would teach us how to apply what we were learning on the trip to our teaching.

Most of the pictures have explanations, but I'll tell about each day as well.

Sunday, April 10, 2011
Today we left the SLC Airport, with an end destination of Richmond Virginia. We did have a short layover in Atlanta, Georgia.

Monday, April 11, 2011
Today we drove to Petersburg and went to the following sites:
Petersburg National Battlefield Park
The Battle of the Crater (which is inside Petersburg National Battlefield Park)
Grant's Cabin
Pamplin Historical Park

As we were driving through Petersburg National Battlefield Park, there were battlefields ALL OVER! When you looked out the window of the bus, you'd see cannons and battlefields everywhere!



Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Today we stayed in Richmond. We visited:
Tredegar Iron Works
Museum of the Confederacy
Confederacy White House
President Lincoln's Cottage (aka The Soldier's Home)

At Tredegar Iron Works, I got the help in the reenactment of shooting a civil war cannon. I learned a whole lot! It was so much fun!
There are two types of balls:
Explosive (a man named shrapnel came up with it) this ball had a fuse in it, and when the fuse ignited the ball, it would explode, and there was shrapnel inside of it! This one was used for killing people. When the powder bag lit on fire, it would also light the explosive ball. The explosive ball was NOT lit before putting it in the cannon (the cartoons got it wrong!)
A Regular ball was used to cause damage, they didn't really kill many people.

Cannons did NOT have a fuse, again, the cartoons got this wrong. They were more sophisticated than that!
1. You dip the sponge end of the stick into a bucket of water then put it down the shaft of the cannon. Meanwhile, another man has a leather "glove" for his thumb and is holding it over the hole at the base of the cannon shaft. Why stick a wet sponge down the shaft? NOT to clean it! They did it to make sure all the fire was out from the last shot before sticking in the next cannon.
2. You stick a nail type thing (actually it reminded me of a stake you use to hold a tent down) into the hole that was located at the base of the cannon. This would break up the powder bag.
3. Stick the cannon ball in. The man turns the sponge stick around and uses the other end to shove the cannon ball all the way to the back of the cannon shaft.
4. They had this metal cylinder thing, it looked like a straw with a horizontal hole going across it. They stuck the straw shaped cylinder down the hole in the base of the cannon shaft. Then, inside the hole that went horizontally, they stuck a rough metal stick (it reminded me of a drill bit). This rough metal stick was attacked to a string.
5. Pull the string, which pulls the rough metal stick out of the metal straw. Sparks are created, and go down the metal straw, into the powder bag.
6. The powder bag explodes (lights the fuse, if it has an explosive ball in it) and the ball shoots out of the cannon.

At the museum at President Lincoln's Cottage, they had the flag that Abraham Lincoln was wrapped in after he was assassinated. It still had his blood on it! It was amazing to be able to see the flag!



Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Today we went to a civil war era house, called The Tudor Place, however, we weren't able to take pictures inside. After the Tudor Place we went to Ford's Theater. They have a museum in the basement, and then we went into the actual theater, where we watched a short show about what happened the day that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Next we went to Frederick Douglass's Home. After that we went to the Library of Congress. They had a few big exhibits about the Civil War since it was the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. Unfortunately they only let us walk through, not look at, one of them. The other one was an exhibit about pictures of the common solders in the Civil War. It was pretty cool!



Thursday, April 14, 2010
Today we went to Harper's Ferry and to Antietam National Battlefield. I didn't have any space left on my memory card, so I didn't get any pictures. But don't worry, I bought a new memory card that night!

Here are some things that I learned today:
Antietam was the first battle to have pictures taken of the aftermath and shown in public media.

When we talk about casualties in a war, the word casualties means all men who were killed, wounded, Prisoner of War, etc, NOT just those who died.

Before the battles at Antietam, the Unions were loosing in Virginia and winning along the Mississippi. So the Union was only winning about 50% of the battles.

The first battle at Antietam was one of the bloodies battles in the Civil War. there were 100 casualties PER MINUTE!

Friday, April 15, 2011
Today we went to the Gettysburg National Battlefield and saw the different battlefields. Then we went to David Will's House (really wasn't that interesting), then to the Gettysburg National Park Visitor's Center. There we watched an amazing film about the Battle of Gettysburg. Many of us in our group wanted to buy the movie, but they don't sell the movie. That's a shame because they would make tons of money off it, lots of people would want to buy it! We also went into this exhibit called the Cyclorama, which was a circular room, and they talk about the war. I can't really explain it, but it was AWESOME! If you're ever in Gettysburg, the movie and the Cyclorama are TOTALLY worth the money!!!

That night we went to a Civil War Short Film Festival. They were films that students at Dickinson College made, and they were really good!



Saturday, April 16, 2011
Today we spent the whole day at Dickinson College. We went to a workshop that they were putting on because of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The workshop was called the House Divided Digital Resource Project Workshop. It was really interesting. We got to go to 2 classes on resources to use in our classroom.

The first class I chose to go to was on the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. On their website (www.armyheritage.org) they have many things, but what interested me the most is the pictures of soldiers with that soldier's story.

The second class I went to was on the National Archives and Records Administration. On their website (archives.gov) they have a lot of teacher resources, like lesson plans using primary source documents. On another website which you can access through their website (or type in docsteach.org) they have a lot of activites based on primary source documents.

Next, everyone came together and we were taught about the House Divided Project (www.housedivided.dickinson.edu) and the different teaching and student resources found on their website.

After the workshop we went to a place that I can't remember the name of, and it's not on our schedule...but they have stories of soldiers there, museum exhibits, and a huge library full of information about war. It was a pretty cool place as well!

That night we went to listen to a speaker at Dickinson College, whose name is David Blgiht. He's famous for his knowledge on the Civil War. I think he teaches at Yale.

Driving the 30 minutes back to the hotel was very eventful! It was raining SO hard that the road we were supposed to take was closed! So we went down a different road, but it was flooding as well, but we made it through the river of water. But the next stop sign we came to, the bus had problems. I guess the engine had gotten wet when we went through all the water. I don't completely understand, but the RPMs were way to high, even though we were stopped. So we had to sit there for about 30 minutes while the RPMs slowed down. But we finally made it back to our hotel :)

Sunday, April 17, 2011
This morning when we went down to the hotel lobby (with all of our baggage and everything) the bus wasn't there waiting for us like it should have been. It took a few minutes, but eventually we found out that our bus had a flat tire. Because it was Palm Sunday, the bus driver was having a really hard time finding somebody to come fix the tire (we were about 2-3 hours away from where the buses were kept). After calling 16 companies, the bus driver finally found somebody to come fix the tire. But needless to say, we sat in the hotel lobby for about 2 hours.

After we got on the road, we went to Baltimore, where Fort McHenry is. Fort McHenry is famous from the war of 1812, but we still had a great time there! After spending a few hours there, we loaded up on the bus and drove to the airport and came home!



Here are a few random pictures.
This first one has a story behind it...when I was a kid and my family went on vacations where we stayed in a motel, my mom would always make us make the bed so that the maid didn't think we were mess. One morning, I pulled the sheet and blanket up (my idea of making the bed) so that I could sit on it when I put my shoes on. When I stood up, I realized I had made the bed in a hotel. Oh man! So I took a picture so that I could prove to my mom I had done it :) Haha


This next picture is of how they hung pictures in the Civil War days. I thought this was clever! The "baseboard" type stuff next to the ceiling is called a picture rail. This method of hanging pictures created no holes in the wall. Pretty cool, huh!?!




It was a great trip, and I'm so glad I could go on it!