Introduction

CONGRATULATIONS!!

You have been chosen to work as a docent for a new Museum of the Civil War which will be built in Northern Virginia. It will be similar to Williamsburg in that docents will be dressed in period costumes and act as they would during the period. Each section of the Museum is dedicated to a different segment of the population who was affected by the Civil War. As a docent, you will be dressed in period costume and will need to tell about your life and how the war has affected you.

Background Information

The U. S. Civil War is also known as the War Between the States and the War of Secession. It began April 12, 1861, when Southern troops opened fire on Fort Sumter, a U.S. military post in Charleston, South Carolina. It ended in 1865, after four long and bloody years. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his ragged army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9. Other Confederate commanders followed Lee's example; the last Confederate army surrendered on May 26.

The Civil War killed far more Americans than any other war in which our nation has fought. About 620,000 soldiers of both North and South died (more than half of them killed by disease rather than by bullets). Many more were wounded. Both North and South paid a heavy economic price for the war. In addition, the war divided the nation deeply. In some families, brother fought against brother. The war left a lasting bitterness between North and South; it is not fully healed even today.

What would it have been like to live in such a tumultuous time as a general or a soldier? What would you have believed and experienced if you were a slave or free person? How would the war have changed you if you were in the North or South?