Civil War Learning Activities

If you like to draw see More Activities!

Letters and mail were very important in the lives of Civil War soldiers and their families. Since there were no telephones or television sets or video games, writing letters was one way soldiers entertained themselves. They also kept their families informed of where they were, what they were doing, and, very often, what they wanted their families to send them from home.

Families wrote letters to cheer up their soldiers, telling them about the simple daily activities, books they had read, neighbors they had visited.

To see some actual letters written during the Civil War,  a blood-stained diary, and to learn more about the life of a soldier click here.

One reason we know so much about the Civil War today is because of the letters exchanged by the soldiers and their families. These letters were read, re-read, and carefully saved, particularly if the loved one who had written the letters was killed. Then the letters became memorials, passed down from generation to generation.

Because one of my great, great uncles died in the war, my family treasured his letters and also saved some letters written by his family in Rochester. One of these family members was their eight-year-old niece, Carrie, whose nickname was Tute (I used Carrie as a model for Mattie, Josh and Jere's sister in My Brother's Keeper).  I still have a letter she wrote to her Uncle George although the paper is very thin and her pencil marks are fading. Click on her picture to read her letter and then return here for a writing activity.
 

Try This!

After you have read Carrie's letter, pretend that you are Mattie. You have not heard from your brother, Josh, for two months. Can you imagine how you would feel?
 

Write three journal entries as Mattie might have written them in her aunt and uncle's big home in Rochester in 1863.

Compose a letter that Mattie might have written to Josh when she received news that he was alive and had been part of the Battle of Gettysburg.
 

When Josh ran away from the army into The Wilderness of North Virginia, he had to survive with nothing but a few matches, his bootlaces, a candle, a pocket knife, and his elastic suspenders.
 

Make a log of what you would do to survive with just those things. Tell how you would find food and prepare it. Where would you sleep and how would you keep warm? Tell how it would feel to be hungry and alone.

Josh met a young runaway slave who would not talk to him.

Imagine what had happened to the boy before he met Josh. Write the story he might have told Josh if he had spoken.

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