Expert: Jason Grabill - 4/25/2002

Question
Hi, my name is Christine Koch, and I'm a middle-school social studies teacher in Louisiana.  My co-teacher and I are approaching our unit on the Civil War, and we were trying to figure out a way to put on a fairly simple mini-reenactment.  Neither of us have ever done anything like this before, and both of us appreciate the enormity of a real reenactment-- so we're kind of at a loss as to how to begin.

We've got about 130 kids to work with, a small budget (think gray and blue tee-shirts)

Do you have any suggestions, or could you point me towards any good resources?

Thanks

Answer
Miss Christine:

 I think what you are trying to do is great!  And, a neat idea to boot.  Sorry for the delay in responding, have been working lots of overtime in my "real" job :)

 Sadly, there really aren't any good resources for what you are trying to do, at least, that I am aware of.  However, I can offer some ideas that don't require much (if any) expenditure of funds....you may want to inquire around and see if there are any local reenactors who want to help out as well.  They would be an invaluable resource to tap.

 First, the T shirt idea is a good one.  Inexpensive, and will easily divide the kids up into "sides".  

 Don't know how familiar you are with Civil War tactics, but my suggestion is this, when you have your equal groups, give each student an index card or piece of paper telling them what they will do in "battle".  It will be much easier to manage this if you break them into small "companies", probably 2 companies per side.  Civil War soldiers fought in "lines of two", so each company has two ranks, one behind the other.  They fought literally side by side, in long lines, because tactics had not caught up with technology.  Rifled muskets were a vast improvement over the old weapons, which fired a "round" ball.  

 Once you have the kids into companies, with the cards/notes telling each kid what they do, you'll have to have them use their imagination a bit, but this will work.  Advance one company towards the other, using a drum if possible, but whistles will work as well.  As soon as the advance starts, some kids will run from the fight.  (About 5 percent on each side).  As they start to move, some more will be hit by artillery fire (about 1 percent).  When the advancing company gets to within about at the 50 yard point (or however much room you have to work with, I'd say even a football field would do the trick, put your 'defenders' in one end zone and have the 'attackers' start from the other)
The defending company will 'open fire'.  You can either have your attackers run "en masse" back to their own end zone, or continue the "assault", sustaining about 50 percent casualties.  Your defenders will take about 20 percent casualties.  I def. would not allow "close combat/hand to hand" stuff (we don't even do that when we do reenactments).  The attackers can "charge" the defenders end zone, and its up to you if you want to have the defenders retreat off the field, or hold their ground and repel the attacking force.  I'd do the latter, with the attackers suffering a total of 70 percent casualties at this point, then retreat.

 Some kids can be made "surgeons" or "Ambulance attendants", whose job it is to get the "wounded" off the field.  There will be nothing they can do for the wounded except give them water and "make them comfortable".

 This will give the kids a good idea of how battles were fought, and you can make your reenactment any battle you want.

 If the time is available, you could then "switch" the sides, having the attackers defend and vice versa.

 Even the school gym will work for this, you just want to give them an idea of what the average infantryman had to do.

 My final thought is after the battle, you ask them how they felt, advancing into the "fire", and how the defenders felt, seeing all those people marching toward them.  Then ask the wounded how they felt when they realized that the "doctors" could do little to help them.  The end point here is that these men "rushed to the colors", in thinking that war is a glorious thing, but as it turns out, its not.  Not at all.  (I've been in combat for real, and I can tell you its no fun).  You are not trying to put out an "anti-war" message here, just to disabuse the notion that war has anything to do with romance.  (Does that make sense)?

 The last thing I'd suggest would be to have them all write a paper on some aspect of what they did, and to ask their parents/grandparents about their ancestors.  Even if they didn't fight in our Civil War, there are plenty of people out there who've fought in other wars, or served in the military.  

 I hope that helps, if its not what you are looking to do, drop me another line and I'll see what else I can come up with.

Respectfully,

Jason