Final Announcements

1. Although I don’t normally use the Blackboard gradebook, I will post grade updates today or tomorrow. They will include your quizzes and the extra credit, for those of you that did extra credit.

2. Don’t forget to complete your course evaluations! If at least 80% of students complete it, I will give the whole class 5 points of extra credit. I do not see individual evaluations, and they are anonymous, but I do get a completion percentage when I check SmartEvals.

3. My office hours during final week are a little different than during the semester. I will still be in my office today from 1-4 (except for a short event I have to stop in at, sometime between 1 and 2). I will be in my office from 1-2 tomorrow as well. If you need anything, you can always email.

4. If you are writing a review over Lemann, make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to upload it, since late essays will receive a 0. No exceptions. It is due at 2pm on Friday, which hopefully gives me enough time to grade senior’s essays before graduation.

5. Sometime this week or next, I will post or email out some pictures from our field trip to Prairie Grove!

6. GOOD LUCK! Try to get some sleep, and don’t drink too much caffeine.

Announcements for 11/29

1. Don’t forget that the response paper over “13th” is due tomorrow, Wednesday the 30th, at 5pm on Blackboard. This is extra credit, so the assignment is optional.
2. The quiz on Thursday will be multiple choice and a short essay. The essay will address black soldiers in the Union army (use both lecture notes and the textbook to prepare). The multiple choice questions will be pretty basic, but do make sure you know the total number of Civil War deaths (the revised number, not the older number).
3. Most of you need to write your final book review over the Lemann text. If you want me to look at a draft in advance, please email it to me with a couple of days notice. The final review is due on Friday, December 9, at 2pm.
4. If you are coming on the field trip, make sure you print out and sign the waiver form; UCA requires this for liability purposes.

Announcements for 11/17

1. The info about the extra credit film viewing, and the response paper, is now posted under “Assignments.”
2. If you are curious about that Colorado memorial I was telling you about, here’s the inscription and a little info.
3. Here is a more complete list of Mississippi Black Codes, and also an article about some Arkansas laws.
4. Here is the Arkansas State Parks website with details about the Prairie Grove reenactment on December 3. I’ve emailed them to see if they have a more concrete schedule, so we can be sure not to miss the main events; I think the reenactment starts at 1, but they call it a “presentation” so I’m a little confused.

Spotlight On: Missouri/Kansas Border War Network

A depiction of Order No. 11.

If you are interested in learning more about the Civil War in the West, there are some podcasts available on iTunes that may be of interest.  The Missouri-Kansas Border War Network is an organization that seeks to educate the public and preserve the history of the border region.  You can see their website for more details, but you’ll have to go to iTunes to download their podcasts.

These podcasts are short (~6-8 minute) interviews with historians and archaeologists who study this period.  The two described below are the only ones that I’ve listened to. Here are more details:

1.  Historian Donald Gilmore, in the interview titled “Order No. 11,” forwards his conclusion that Order No. 11 was not necessarily a reaction to Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in 1863.  I would be interested to hear your take on the last part of the lecture where he talks about slaveholders and their right to keep slave property.

2.  Ann Raab, who is in the archaeology department at the University of Kansas, is interviewed in the podcast titled “Bates County, Missouri, Archaeology Dig.”  Recently Raab conducted an archaeological dig on a plantation in Bates County, Missouri.  Archaeology of the historic period (when written records have been preserved and can work in tandem with archaeological finds) is called “historic archaeology.”

Spotlight On: Civil War Preservation Trust

The Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) is “America’s largest non-profit organization (501-C3) devoted to the preservation of our nation’s endangered Civil War battlefields. The Trust also promotes educational programs and heritage tourism initiatives to inform the public of the war’s history and the fundamental conflicts that sparked it” (from their “About Us” page).

There are many different resources on their site that help bring Civil War battles into the 21st century.  In additional to historical images and maps, several key battles have animated videos depicting troop movements (here is the one for the Battle of Fredericksburg).  The website provides statistics for each battle, including casualties, the names of commanding officers, etc.  There are also virtual tours of historic battlefields, photos of these sites as they appear today, bibliographies of recommended readings, information on historical markers, and the steps for becoming a member.  Of course, since their primary focus is on preservation, you can also find information on preservation attempts (from their online newsletter called “Dispatches from the Front“).

Announcements for 11/1

1. We will not have class on Thursday, since I will be traveling to a conference in Kansas City.
2. I am extending the deadline for the project just a few hours–it will be due at 6pm, not 2:40pm, on November 3.
3. The information about the presentations is available online, under “Assignments,” including the rubric. Please let me know if you have questions. All presentations will be on November 8.

Recommended Texts about the Trans-Mississippi Theater

If you are interested in learning more about the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi theater, here are some of the books I recommend:

Best, one-volume text:

Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Civil War in the American West. New York: Vintage, 1993.

Anthologies:

Arenson, Adam, and Andrew Graybill, eds. Civil War Wests: Testing the Boundaries of the United States. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015.

Scharff, Virginia, ed. Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015.

Anthologies about Arkansas:

Bailey, Anne, ed. Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000.

Christ, Mark, ed. Rugged and Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994.

 

 

Resources on Pension Files, USCT Regiments, and the Western Theater

These various online resources might be helpful to you as you complete your pension file project. Also, look at the pension file guide I have posted under “Class Handouts.”

Measuring Worth–This website, built by economists, helps us calculate the value of the U.S. dollar today in comparison to the past. Make sure you read down the page to see which kind of measure is best suited to your needs.

Civil War Pensions–This brief (though slightly flawed) article explains how the pension process worked.

Useful Tips for Reading Handwritten Documents:–This is a website out of Australia, but it provides a lot of really useful advice about the particulars of reading handwritten documents from the nineteenth century.

Here are some relevant online primary sources and databases:

Index to Kansas Adjutant General Report, 1861-1865–This includes some enlistment information for the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry (later the 79th USCI) and the 2nd Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry (later the 83rd USCI).

Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863–1865–This was compiled from handwritten enlistment records, providing some basic details about Missouri black recruits.  Here’s an example of the handwritten record.

Missouri Soldier Records–This database includes records for Missouri regiments from the War of 1812 through World War I.

Official Records of the War of the Rebellion–This site is searchable and includes official military reports and orders pertaining to the various military campaigns of the Civil War. In class, and in many publications, you will hear this called “the O-R.”

Here are a few specific secondary source articles (available online):

United States Colored Troops in Missouri–this is a brief article (comprising part of a lesson plan) about black regiments recruited in Missouri.

“The First Kansas Colored: Massacre at Poison Springs”–this is a short, academic article by Mike Fisher, published in Kansas History.

“The 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers”–This is a short encyclopedia article on this unit.

These secondary source monographs and anthologies in Torreyson Library are also excellent reference sources:

Bailey, Ann J., and Daniel E. Sutherland. Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. (E496 .C58 2000)

Castel, Albert. Civil War Kansas: Reaping the Whirlwind. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. (E508 .C3 1997)

Christ, Mark K. Civil War Arkansas, 1863: The Battle for a State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. (E470.4 .C47 2010)

Cornish, Dudley Taylor. The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966. (E540.N3 C77 1966)

Dobak, William A. Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 2011. (Federal Documents D 114.2:SW 7) <– also available online as a PDF

Earle, Jonathan and Diane Mutti Burke. Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. (F685 .B65 2013)

Gerteis, Louis. The Civil War in Missouri: A Military History. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2012. (E470.4 .G47 2012)

Glatthaar, Joseph T. Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. (E540.N3 G53 1990)

Monaghan, Jay. Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-1865. Boston: Little and Brown, 1955. (E470.45 .M652)

Shaffer, Donald R. After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. (E540.N3 S53 2004)

Office Hours Canceled

My office hours tomorrow (Monday, October 24) will be canceled. Please email if you have questions, or come to my office hours on Tuesday (from 4-5:30) if you need to talk in person. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

New Quiz Date

As noted in class, Quiz #3 will occur on October 27, not October 25 (as is listed in the syllabus). The study guide is in the post below.