History is Fun!
Book III: Civil War
Unit 2: Battles of the Civil War
Lesson 2: Battles of Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg
Topic Overview:
The dramatic Civil War battles at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg are indelible marks on American history. The military significance and social ramifications linger over a century and a half later. In all three battles, Grant or Lee was personally commanding the bloody outcome. At Fredericksburg, Lee’s entrenched Army of Northern Virginia ended the Union Army of the Potomac’s drive to Richmond. At Vicksburg, Grant’s Army of the Tennessee forced the surrender of the fortress city and therefore took command of the Mississippi River. Finally, Lee’s drive to Washington ended at Gettysburg, the turning point and bloodiest battle in the nation’s history.
Activity Overview:
In this recreation simulation students will act as soldiers in the Civil War and, using rubber balls, will recreate the battles of Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg. They will experience the confusion of battle and why the North and South were able to win their respective battles.
Objectives:
1. Students will be able to describe the battles at Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Vicksburg.
2. Students will be able to explain why the North won at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and why the South won at Fredericksburg.
3. Students will evaluate the decisions of the Generals at these battles.
Setup:
1. Requisition a large recreation area, such as a gym or a field. For the Fredericksburg part of the activity, use newspaper for indoors and flattened pieces of cardboard boxes for outdoors. Make a blockade in this area that is 8’ long out of boxes, desks, or anything safely surmountable by students.
2. Use rubber balls that a PE teacher would use for the game of dodge ball.
3. Setup for each battle according to the four Diagrams.
4. Prior to the day of the activity, ask students to come dressed in either blue or gray.
Materials:
1. 30 rubber balls (Toy Box)
2. Blockade material
3. Confederate and Union flags with poles
4. Orange cones (Toy Box))
5. Flattened cardboard boxes or newspaper
6. Battle Diagrams 1-4 (p.12-15)
7. Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg Worksheet (p. 10)
8. Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg Worksheet Key (p. 11)
Activity in Detail:
1. After explaining to students that they will be recreating three Civil War battles, divide them in half into the North and the South. For weapons, students will be using rubber playground balls. Stress to students that this is a recreation and not a game. In this activity most of them will be hit with a ball to simulate being killed in battle. When they are hit they need to “play dead” so as to understand the results of the fighting.
2. Say to students: “Battles of the Civil War were both similar and different than those of the American Revolution. Soldiers still fought in lines called ranks, shoulder to shoulder. In previous wars, this fighting style was used because of the inaccuracy of the weapons. It was the best way to ensure that, if enough people fired, somebody would hit the targets. During the Civil War, however, advances in weapons technology made this style of fighting very costly to both sides, especially to the side that was attacking.”
3. Ask for 2 volunteers from each side to be the General and Colonel for each side, in case the General dies. Tell students: ”During the Civil War, an experienced rifleman could fire a bullet about every 20 seconds. Generals, you will have to count to 20 out loud before your team can fire. If someone dies from your side, you must close ranks, which means reform your line by closing the gap where the dead person stood.”
4. Battle 1: Fredericksburg: Go to the gym/field, but do not hand out the balls yet.
a. Setup according to Diagram 1
b. Read the Background Info: “The first battle we will recreate is the Battle of Fredericksburg. Part of the North’s ‘Anaconda Plan’ was to choke the South by taking Richmond, the South’s capitol. Between the North’s capital of Washington, DC, and the South’s capital of Richmond was the little town of Fredericksburg. The North had to go through Fredericksburg to attack Richmond. Lincoln had fired General McClellan for being ineffective after the battle of Antietam and had replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside hoped to cross the Rappahannock River into Fredericksburg before the commander of the Southern troops, General Robert E. Lee, arrived there. When Burnside arrived, he realized that his army had failed to bring pontoon boats to cross the Rappahannock. So, while Burnside waited for the boats, Lee took position on the heights above Fredericksburg. As they waited for the boats, the North started constructing a bridge to cross the Rappahannock. The South was ready for them. As Northern soldiers worked feverishly to create the bridge, Southern sharpshooters from Mississippi shot at them from concealed positions.”
c. Union Goal: Create a bridge connecting 2 cones spaced about 15 feet apart.
d. Confederate Goal: “The South may “fire” in a row to lay constant “fire” on the bridge. If a Northerner is hit, he/she dies and the next Northerner can jump in and continue building the bridge. The Northerners have 1 minute to build under fire.”
e. Begin Sequence 1: Send Union troops one at a time to attempt to build the bridge as Southerners throw balls. Northerners should be unsuccessful.
f. Begin Sequence 2: Ask the North: “What alternative do you have, since now the boats have arrived? Sail across and dislodge the Mississippi shooters. The North must join hands to cross the Rappahannock. Three of the Southern shooters must retreat and stand on the ‘heights,’” Begin again. Allow the North to cross the river and continue the fight. The North should suffer some casualties but then defeat the South.
g. Read the Results: “The battle was not over. The South still controlled the heights of Fredericksburg, which meant that the North had to attack the heights. General Burnside planned two attacks: one to the left flank and a smaller one to the front. The North sent more troops in the frontal attack and paid a heavy price. Burnside stayed across the river and could not see Southern forces behind the thick, rock wall along Sunken Road. Due to it being a popular travel route, Sunken Road was a street lowered a couple of feet. The rock wall provided the South a perfect position from which to fire. The Southerners stayed behind the wall and put their best shooters in front. Soliders in the rear reloaded the rifles to keep constant fire.”
5. Follow Diagram 2 to line the Southerners up behind the barriers in 5 rows of 3. Put the balls behind the last person in each row. Line up the North about 30 feet away. Have them line up into two ranks with their shoulders touching. Place the balls they will use about 10 feet away from the barriers.
6. Before commencing the battle, practice without the balls. Call out names of students to practice dying and reforming ranks. Have commanders practice counting to 20 and then firing. Begin the recreation. Play until most or all of the Northerners have been killed.
7. Gather the students and say: “The North suffered 13,000 casualties, those killed and wounded, compared to 5,000 casualties for the South. Most of the Southern casualties came from the flank attack, not the frontal one. After Fredericksburg, Lincoln fired General Burnside and replaced him with General Joseph Hooker. Hooker would later lose to Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville. At this point the Northern morale was low after suffering two crushing defeats. The North had more troops, but was losing battles. Lee was aware of the poor morale in the North, and even though he was low on supplies, he tried to bring an end to the war by going on the offensive. He marched North into Pennsylvania to a little town only 85 miles from Washington, DC, called Gettysburg.”
8. Battle 2: Gettysburg: Setup according to Diagram 3. Have the North stand on one side and the South on the other. Give the North most of the balls, placed about 15 feet away. Have one student with 3 rubber balls act as a cannon. In the middle will be the fence. Have the South practice calling out people who died. Have them lay down and the rest of the South practice closing ranks. Also, show them from where they can fire. The South will have to get over the fence and reform ranks before they can march. Have the commanders practice calling out firing times. Begin the recreation.
9. Afterwards, say: “What began as a small skirmish would turn into a three day battle and the turning point of the Civil War. After unsuccessfully trying to take the high ground and flanking the North in Gettysburg by the third day of fighting, Lee ordered a frontal assault. One of the commanders of the 15,000 Confederate soldiers was General George Pickett. He led this assault on the heights that came to be known as Pickett’s Charge. To get to the North’s line the South had to cross a dangerous mile of open space with a tall fence in the middle.”
10. Gather students, seat them, and say: “Why was Pickett’s Charge unsuccessful? It was unsuccessful because of dangerous open ground, the fence, and the cannons. Pickett’s charge lasted just 30 minutes, and half of the Confederate soldiers were dead or wounded. In the three days that Gettysburg was fought, the South suffered 28,000 casualties to the North’s 23,000. It is the bloodiest battle in all of American history. This was the ‘high watermark of the Confederacy,’ the turning point in the Civil War. Lee was so close to DC, but so far away from ultimate victory. Southern armies would never attack in the North again. The South was on the defensive for the rest of the war. Happening at the same time as the Battle of Gettysburg was a battle on the Mississippi River in a town called Vicksburg.”
11. Battle 3: Vicksburg: Setup according to Diagram 4. Barricade Vicksburg well on all sides. Tell students: “Part of the North’s Anaconda Plan was to choke the South off at the Mississippi River delta. To control the Mississippi, the North had to take the Southern city of Vicksburg, a town right on the River. Vicksburg was well fortified and protected, with the mighty Mississippi to the west and murky swamps to the north. Union General Ulysses S. Grant was in charge of trying to take the city.”
12. Ask the North: “How would you attack the city?” If they say “from the North,” tell them that Grant tried that and failed. Say: “The plan that Grant finally came up with was to march his troops to the South of the city on the opposite side of the river and then use his ships to ferry them across the Mississippi. To do so he had to get his ships past the big guns of Vicksburg.”
13. Divide the North in half. Half of them will be the ships trying to outrun the guns of Vicksburg. The other half will wait for the ships in the South. The South will shoot at the ships as they pass. The ships that survive have to “fireman’s carry” Union troops over the Mississippi without their passengers touching the ground. Begin the recreation. Allow ships that were sunk to rejoin the North.
14. Once the North has made it tell students: “Grant marched his troops to Jackson, Mississippi, and was able to take the city. This allowed Grant to attack the city of Vicksburg from the East. But Vicksburg was well fortified and on the top of a hill. Northerners: What would happen if you tried to attack a well fortified position? You would die. Grant tried and failed to take the city, so he decided to besiege the city. As in ancient warfare, Grant decided to starve the city and bombard it until it surrendered.”
15. Give the North all the balls and have them stand about 20 yards from the fortifications of Vicksburg. Tell the students that the North will bombard the South. If Southerners get hit, they have to leave the city. Perform the recreation for 1-2 minutes. If there are Southerners still left, ask them: “If you were eating rats for dinner, and being bombed all day, would you want to continue? No. Eventually the South surrendered. Thirty thousand Confederate troops marched out of the city and laid down their arms on July 4, 1863, the same day that the North defeated Lee at Gettysburg. These battles were turning points in the war. The North had split the South in half, controlled the Mississippi, and put the South on the defensive. The war would end two years later.”
18. Escort students back to the classroom to complete the Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg Worksheet.
Debriefing:
Major Battles of the Civil War
I. Battle of Fredericksburg, VA: December 13, 1862
A. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia defeated Burnside’s Army of the Potomac
1. One of the most one-sided battles of the War
2. Confederate defenders were entrenched on the heights behind the city
3. Ended the Union’s drive to the Confederate capital of Richmond early