The Divided Union

8 Twenty-Minute Programs
Grade(s):  9 - 12
Curriculum:  History

This series brilliantly leads you through the events and the battle grounds of the civil war. This was the first war ever to be photographed and these programs integrate a wealth of first hand information including extensive footage, letters, diaries etc. Not simply a military story, this series is an unprecedented illumination of this turbulent period in our history that truly separates reality from myth and legend, presenting the balanced truth.

Teachers Guide: The 16-page guide contains goals, background information and recommended activities for classroom use of each program.

Programs Titles & Descriptions:

1.   The Antebellum South (19.06)
The program focuses on southern though, in addition to some of the events that drew the North and South further and further apart.  It does so using narration under drawings, photographs and reenactment footage.  In addition noted scholars carry the flow of the program. Teacher Guide

2.   Forward to Sumter   (18.20)
The push by Southerners to permit slavery in Kansas and Nebraska led to the formation of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln was a former Whig who had broken with his party for pragmatism and a deep devotion to the Union.

3.   The Summer War   (19:23)
By keeping troops at Fort Sumter, President Lincoln very clearly manuvered the South into a position where it fired the first shot.  Prior to this there had been mixed reaction on the North as to what action to take with regards to the secession of the Southern States.  The shots fired on Fort Sumter were interpreted as an attack on the North and coalesced the various factions in favor of the war.  Each side was sure it would win.  Many men had volunteered for three months - more than enough time - they thought, to win the war.

4.   Bloody Stalemate   (19:06)
There was no doubt that this war was real and was going to be around for a long time.   The Union armies pushed further South to take New Orleans and the Mississippi Valley.  The Confederacy built ships and naval battles ensued.  On land and sea both sides experienced successes and failures.  The successes, however, were always shadowed by high casualties and mortality rates.

5.   The Politics of War   (19:24)
The effect of the Emancipation Proclamation coupled with Lee's retreat from Antietum had ended the Confederate hopes of foreign intervention.  The Confederacy would have to fight on alone against the North's superior forces.  The bloody battles of the first year had left the Confederate Army in desperate need of fresh troops.  In April, 1862, the South began conscription, and Confederate was factories were filled largely by white women and black slave labor.

6.   High Tide of the Confederacy   (19:31)
The Southerners were tremendous fighters.  They were bold, they were reckless.   They were tenacious in their abilities to withstand hardship.  But they were probably better fighters than soldiers, units could sustain horrendous casualties and continue to fight.  They were marvelous in one wild mad dash if they could win it all that way, but they couldn't stand the waiting and inactivity.  

7.   Total War  (19:32)
It was no longer army against army, but society against society.  It had become total war.  Three years of war had taken its toll on the Confederate Army, but those who remained were battle hardened and ready to die for the cause.  Few of them understood that they were fighting for a way of life that no longer existed.

8.   Conclusion at Appomattox (19:19)
By June 1864 Confederate troops were pushed back to the last group of hills before Atlanta.   The South was now in economic ruin.  Most of the Confederate Army, however, still retained the will to resist.  They believed that they could still make the was so costly to the North that voters in the next election would choose a man willing to negotiate peace.