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.

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.

 

 

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.

Announcements for 10/4

1. On Thursday, we are discussing Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches and also talking about photography.
2. If you wrote a review on Faust, I will get those to you soon, with feedback.
3. If you have not written any book reviews yet, you need to write on both Copperheads and Redemption, in order to submit the two reviews required.
4. We talked a little today, and will talk more on Thursday, about nursing and hospitals, but if you want to check out the PBS show Mercy Street, here’s their website. I haven’t seen all of the first season, but I enjoyed what I did see, although it does veer a bit into soap-opera territory at points. They did a good job with historical accuracy for the most part; there are also some reviews on the JCWE’s blog, here and here.

Study Guide for Quiz #2

Here is the study guide for the second quiz, which will be based on lecture (from September 13 to October 4) and Chapters 2-4, and 8 of Gallagher and Waugh, The American War. Since it comes closely on the heels of Quiz #1, it will be shorter and will consist of multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, one chronology, and two short IDs; there will be no essay questions. For the short IDs, be sure you can identify the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, and why).

Topics to study include: secession, President Lincoln, President Davis, Confederate advantages/disadvantages, Confederate goals at the beginning of the war, Union advantages/disadvantages, Union goals at the beginning of the war, Shiloh, Peninsular Campaign, characteristics of the average soldier (from American War, Chapter 4), conscription (both in the U.S. and C.S.A.), and women’s experiences on the home front.

The dates to study for the chronology question are: First Bull Run, Shiloh, bombardment of Ft. Sumter, fall of New Orleans, Peninsular Campaign. Be sure you can put these events in their correct order, using the start date of each event.

Announcements for 9/22

1. The book review over Faust is due on Blackboard on September 27, Tuesday, by 2:40pm. Remember that students write two reviews in the course of the semester, and it is up to you to keep track of how many you write. I don’t recommend you just count on writing the last two, since life sometimes intervenes, and it is safer to have at least one under your belt.
2. Don’t forget also about the homework assignment due in class on September 29, over the debate about General Robert E. Lee’s leadership.
3. If you are interested in periodic posts about the intersection between the Civil War era and current events, you can follow with an RSS reader or subscribe via email to The Journal of the Civil War Era‘s blog, Muster. The latest piece on the partisan press is of particular interest, given our research project into editorials.
4. Here’s the encyclopedia article on the collapse of the women’s prison in Kansas City that I mentioned, and also my contribution to the site, which is about the Lawrence massacre. The site also includes slightly longer essays on broader topics, such as this one about guerrilla violence on the border.
5. If you are interested in reading more about women’s experiences during slavery and the Civil War, I especially recommend these texts, which touch on sexuality, women who fought as soldiers, and on enslaved women: Catherine Clinton and Nina Silbers’ edited collection Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, Elizabeth Leonard’s All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies, and one of my favorite books, Thavolia Glymph’s Out of the House of Bondage. This last one talks about slaveholding households as both social and political spaces.
6. There is a viewing and discussion of the first presidential debate this Monday, September 26, at 7:30pm, in the COB Auditorium. It will be led by Dr. Heather Yates, a professor in political science.