8 History 11 - Tennessee History for Kids

EIGHTH GRADE
Part Eleven: Slaughter, Death and Chaos

Tennessee History for Kids has created a video about African Americans during the Civil War. In this segment, called "The Lost Soldier," History Bill wanders through the Nashville National Cemetery, wishing he had a tour guide to tell him some of the stories of the people buried there. Along comes a someone who tells his story. Click here to see it using Windows Media Player; here using Quicktime.

A re-enactment at Shiloh National Battlefield

Many books have been written about the Civil War. Might we suggest that you ask your teacher or parents to take you to one of the battlefields in Tennessee – Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, Stone’s River, Lookout Mountain, Chickamauga, Fort Pillow, or Johnsonville.

You can't learn EVERYTHING about the Civil War -- trust us on this one. But we suggest you pick one battle and study it in some detail. If you go to a battlefield, take the guided tour and listen closely, as you will hear some of the most important things to know about this war.

For example:

A magazine ad during the Civil War
Harper's magazine

* During the war, far more people died of disease than of wounds.

* During the war, when people were shot, they often had to have their arms or legs amputated (cut off) without the benefit of anesthesia (anesthesia refers to the drug that you are given today that "knocks you out" before surgery so you won't feel it).
* During the war, battles were so loud, bloody, chaotic, and unpredictable that the generals had a hard time figuring out what was happening.
* Contrary to the impression that you may have gotten in movies, there were terrorists in this war -- people who shot, mutilated, and even tortured unarmed people -- and they were on both sides. One of the most notorious was Champ Ferguson, who was executed after the war by the U. S. Army for murdering at least fifty-three people. Click here for his story.

A Union Army soldier re-enactor

Now let's talk about the Civil War in Tennessee. Here are some other important things to remember:

* Middle and West Tennessee, in general, were pro-Confederate; East Tennessee was mostly pro-union. (Tennessee produced more Union soldiers than any other southern state.) But there were pro-union and pro-Confederate people in every county. Neighbor fought neighbor, and in some cases, brother fought brother.

* Young men generally didn’t stay home during this war. For example: In 1860 there were about 2,700 men in Perry County of all ages. Eight hundred of them went to fight in the Civil War – about 600 for the South and about 200 for the North.

The Battle of Shiloh
Harper's magazine

When people signed up for this war, they were sent as a group to the same place (a practice that the military stopped in future wars). Because of this, some areas lost a lot more men than others. In Wilson and Sumner counties, for instance, close to a thousand men left home as the Seventh Tennessee Infantry. They were sent to Virginia and fought in every major battle there. When the war ended, forty-seven of the original thousand were still serving. (It’s impossible now to know how many of them died of wounds, died of disease, or deserted.)

Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and the first state to come back into the Union.

This is the way the Union Navy was greeted when it came sailing up the Cumberland River to Ft. Donelson.

Although it wasn’t a huge battle in terms of body counts, the Union victories at Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson were huge losses for the Confederacy. With Ft. Henry, the Union Army took over the entire Tennessee River in West Tennessee. With Ft. Donelson, Nashville was left practically undefended. Soon after that battle, the Union Army took over Nashville without firing a shot.

This comic book retells the story of the Battle of Shiloh

Americans were utterly horrified by the Battle of Shiloh, which took place on April 6 and 7, 1862. More people died at Shiloh than in all the American wars combined up to that point.

There were several bloody battles in and near Chattanooga, eventually resulting in Union victories on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The end result of all this was that the state of Georgia lay open to invasion from General William T. Sherman’s army, which proceeded to march all the way from Chattanooga to Savannah, Georgia.

A statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest

* The man considered by both armies to be the greatest soldier and general to come from Tennessee was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a cavalry officer who narrowly escaped death numerous times. Click here to read more about this remarkable and controversial man.

President Andrew Johnson
PHOTO: Library of Congress

When President Lincoln ran for re-election in 1864, he wanted his running mate to be a Southerner who had remained loyal to the Union. (Some people believe that he did this as a signal to the nation that he intended for the restoration of the Union to be civil and not too harsh on the South.) He picked a man from Greeneville, Tennessee, named Andrew Johnson, who was at that time the military governor of Tennessee. When Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson became president. It was a hard time to be president, and Johnson did not do well. Johnson wanted to help the South recover from the war, while many people in Congress wanted to punish the South. Because of these disagreements Johnson (by a single vote) escaped being the first president removed from office.

Click here for a tour of the Andrew Johnson Historic Site, which includes his home (which was occupied by Confederate troops during the war).

QUIZ

1) (TRUE OR FALSE) The number one cause of death during the Civil War was gunshot wound.
2) _____ __________ was the Tennessean executed by the U.S. Army after the Civil War for war crimes.
3) _____ __________ was the name of the Confederate stronghold on the Cumberland River that fell to the Union Army in February 1862, resulting in the invasion of Nashville.
4) (TRUE OR FALSE) More Americans died at the Battle of Shiloh than in all the American wars combined until that point.
5) _______ ___________ became president after Lincoln was assassinated.

For quiz answers, click here.

Reconstruction is in many ways one of the most overlooked and misunderstood periods in American history. Click here to read about it.