Although we are generally finished with the Civil War, one assignment remains:
You are expected to write a 5 - 7 page research paper covering some aspect of the Civil War that will involve primary historical documents. The paper will be due Monday, May 31, 2021.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021 will be the checkpoint class -- you will be asked to produce the work you have completed thus far.
Browse the Valley of the Shadow Archive to help you decide the topic for your paper.
https://valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/choosepart.html
Here are some primary sources for you to use:
https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/9314/10416
https://www.docsteach.org/topics/civil-war
Preparing your own document based question (DBQ) from the Valley of the Shadow archive.
(Adapted from The Internet as an Opportunity for Students to Create Their Own Document-Based Question by Daniel Kotzin - Beth Tfiloh Dahan High School, Baltimore, Maryland)
Requirements
1. The Question: Your question must be one that requires an answer that uses both the documents chosen and brings in outside knowledge from the reading and/or class discussion. The question must either be comparative (between North/South) or require an answer that spans from 1861-1865. The question must also require an answer that makes a general thesis statement about the Civil War using Franklin County and/or Augusta County as examples.
2. The Documents: You must have between 8-12 documents as part of your DBQ. The majority of your documents should be text from reports, newspapers, letters, and/or diaries. No one document in your DBQ should be more than two paragraphs, but feel free to cut paragraph excerpts from the sources you use. You must also use at least one image or at least one statistic, but no more than two. Each document must have a label that cites where the document is from. For example, if you are using the Diary of Rachel Cormany, you would do the following: From the Diary of Rachel Cormany, July 2, 1863
3. Your Answer: You will be expected to use both the documents and outside information in your answer.
Other possible essays:
Was the Civil War inevitable?
Shelby Foote has said the Civil War changed the United States from an "are" to an "is"; as in prior to the conflict, people would say, "The United States are..." and after the conflict they would say, "The United States is..." Agree or disagree with this assessment.
Explain how the South was able to hold off the Union through to 1863. Were the Confederacy's generals so much superior to the Union's? How was the North unable to exploit it's numerical, financial, and technological superiority?
Compare a Civil War personality with another historical figure of another era.
Who should get the blame or the credit for military victory at Gettysburg?
Nathan Bedford Forrest - self made soldier or enigma?
Any other topic as approved by me. Please ensure that your topic has enough material to allow you to write a substantive paper. Also make sure your topic has a research question to it that allows you to justify a position rather than tell about something.
You may also write a researched short story, much like the novel, "Shiloh," by Shelby Foote.
https://archive.org/details/shilohanovel012435mbp
Regardless of the topic, you MUST use primary sources for the majority of the research -- that is some form of documentation like the information you find in the Valley of the Shadow archive or the two other primary source links that I have provided you with here (do your own search --there are others). Primary sources are items that are created closest to the topic being investigated or communicated by those who were eyewitnesses to a particular event-- so government records, newspaper articles, diaries, memoirs all qualify.
