| Classroom
Activities:
Language Arts
Social Studies
Grades 4- 12
Objectives:
Students will assume the role of a Civil War
soldier and write a letter to his Family describing camp life and events during the Siege
of Vicksburg.
Materials:
Background sheet, sample letters, state
listing, paper, pens, envelopes and stamps. |
|
Letters Home
Background:
To soldiers, letters from home provided encouragement and
welcomed information. During the Civil War these letters would arrive one to three months
after they were written. It did not matter to the soldiers. They enjoyed reading about
life at home, neighborhood gossip, and how the farm was doing. These letters helped the
soldiers endure the hardships of battle and camp life.
In turn, family and friends were
flooded with letters from the soldiers. In great detail soldiers described camp life,
quality of food or lack of food, wrote with great joy of capturing enemy supplies and
soldiers. Many wrote about their strong religious beliefs and their powerful sense of
patriotism. The most horrifying letters described the screams and cries of dying comrades.
Although soldiers sometimes exaggerated their heroic baffle deeds, these
letters remain an excellent primary source for historical research. In addition to gaining
historical insights from these letters, researchers learn more about the person who wrote
the letters. The humor, misspellings, grammatical errors and penmanship speak of the
common soldiers who wrote
Methods:
Read the background information and sample letters to
the students. Have each student assume the role of a soldier during the Siege of
Vicksburg. (Union or Confederate, black or white, soldier, cannoneer, Chaplain, medical
etc...) and write a letter to their home.
Variations:
Assign a student a state to be from, have them
write a letter describing their first impressions of Mississippi.
Mail the letters a month later. This will help students
understand the sense of waiting the soldiers experienced.
|
