Civil War Scavenger Hunt

            The Civil War started on April 12, 1861 and lasted until April 9, 1865. During this time frame there were several separate battles being fought to decide who would be the victor, the Union or the Confederate. The topic of winning introduces two essential questions, who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war; East, West, Navel and what are some commonalities that can be identified in the reasons for the results of the battles? Finding answers to these two questions took a of preparation that eventually lead to an around the school scavenger hunt. First, each student was assigned a battle from the war. For example, someone was assigned the Battle of Baton Rouge and the person next to them would be assigned to the Battle of Cold Harbor. There were twenty battles in all. Next, based on the description of the battle, we had to figure out what battle we had, where and when it took place, the victor, the theater it took place in, and two main reasons why the battle ended the way it did. After we had all of the required information we put it onto a Google Doc and added a picture that was relevant to our battle. Then, we made a bit.ly link and a QR code for the poster. Finally, we had to communicate with the person who had the battle before and after us so we could write down directions. All that was left was to do the scavenger hunt.
            There were three theaters of war during the Civi War. There was the West, the East, and the Navel.  The Union dominated the Western and the Naval theater while the Confederacy dominated the Eastern theater. The Union was able to control the Western theater because of their large army and their overall strength compared to the Confederate army. For example, in Sherman's March to the Sea the Union was able to destroy what they did because the South didn't have enough soldiers nor where they strong enough to stop them. In Savannah, the army fled to avoid clashing with Sherman's men. The Union was able to be the ultimate victors in the Naval for the same reasons, they were larger and were a lot stronger than the South. In most of the Naval battles the Union outnumbered the Confederate in the number of ships they had. In the Battle of Baton Rouge the Union shelled the Confederate ships and the Confederate ships' engines broke. This caused the Confederate to surrender. On the other hand, the Confederate dominated the Eastern theater because they had powerful attacks and suffered from less casualties. Their strategy was to cause as much damage as they can in a short period of time. This was demonstrated at the Battle of Cold Harbor. The Confederates frontal assault caused 7,000 casualties in one hour.
            Even though the Union army and the Confederate army are very different from each other, there are some commonalties as to why each side won the battles that they did. The Union's pattern was to use their numbers as their strengths. As the war progressed the South got weaker and weaker. This proved as an advantage to the North and they used it to win the war. The South was known for attacking hard. Each time they won a battle it was because they worked for the win and didn't play nice.