Students will find Civil War Comes Home an entertaining supplement to history texts and fresh look at small town life on the eve of the Civil War. The book is available at the outlets listed below for approximately $19.95, due to store pricing variability. The teacher’s guide, however, is available for download at no cost. The free teacher’s guide contains lesson plans and assessment questions, in accordance with Virginia Standards of Learning for Civil War history.
Unlike other Civil War books in this sesquicentennial year, ‘Civil War Comes Home,’ provides a thought provoking, yet entertaining look at what life held in a Southern town, Williamsburg, VA when the war suddenly arrived on the doorstep. It is not the military history of the Peninsula campaign, or the often overlooked first contact at Big Bethel or battle of Williamsburg. It is, however, a first person account of the town’s rich Civil War history that heretofore, has been largely overshadowed by its world famous colonial recreation.
CIVIL WAR COMES HOME Teacher's Guide
‘Civil War Comes Home,’ is the stories of residents from various walks of life, and the struggles faced as the Union’s Peninsula Campaign deploys to nearby Fort Monroe–the nation’s newest national historic park. Young students at the College of William & Mary, like Thomas Barlow, face life-changing decisions: return home, or enlist with his classmates? Some would become heroes, but many more casualties. Slaves must decide: remain with their master or runaway? While some remain, others become ‘contrabands,’ and later freedmen, and ‘colored troops.’ Politicians, like Benjamin Butler of Boston, are given the rank of Major General despite the lack of military experience, while General George B. McClellan, who despises President Lincoln and Washington politics, later runs for national office. Neither transformation is particularly successful.
Williamsburg residents, like shopkeeper William W. Vest and family must decide: flee as refugees, or stay, like lawyer William Peachy to endure Federal occupation. Williamsburg’s women, like Letitia Tyler Semple, daughter of President John Tyler lead efforts to improve soldier medical care, opening their homes to thousands of wounded. Others, like Mary Payne, persevere to be at her husband’s bedside, while Margaret Durfey falls in love with her patient. These stories unfold in a town under attack, then occupation in what became a dangerous border area between Federal and Rebel control.
By focusing on the period from secession (April, 1861) to the battle and occupation of Williamsburg (May, 1862), limiting the time span and scale, allows students to focus more deeply on how the war impacted society. Glimpses of politics, decision-making, and national leadership through excerpts from nearby Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia are included, allowing students to frame historical thinking within the context of national issues playing out locally from opposing perspectives.
—Jeff Drifmeyer, Ph.D. MPH
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