America and American History
Day Eight – Jamestown
Guess what? Jamestown really is a town! Today we spent our time at two Jamestown sites. The first is the actual site of Jamestown Colony: England sent 118 men to create the first English permanent settlement in the New World in 1607. At first the site looked like a perfect place. It was … Continue reading
Day six Chancellorsville and Spotsylvania
If you read my blog yesterday you know that I explained Appomattox Court House is a town. Today I am going to tell you that Chancellorsville is not a town, it is a house! Go figure. The battle of Chancellorsville is really interesting. The Union was defeated, mostly by itself, and had about 17,000 … Continue reading
Day five – Appomattox Court House
First off, I’d like to explain that Appomattox Court house is not a courthouse. It is a town that is the county seat of Appomattox County. This is important because if Grant would have asked Lee to meet him at the courthouse, Lee would have assumed he was going to be arrested and tried … Continue reading
Day Four –Confederate Relic Museum and Greensboro, North Carolina
In 1896 members of the Daughters of the Confederacy founded a museum in Columbia, South Carolina. The point of the museum was to do two things. First, to keep and protect the history of the Confederacy and second, to help the history of the Confederacy to become a part of the whole history of the … Continue reading
Day three- Fort Sumter and a kayak trip!
Fort Sumter was built in 1829. It is an island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, and perfectly positioned to defend Charleston from invaders coming from the Atlantic. The island is man-made. They sunk 70,000 tons of granite plus bricks from local plantations to create the foundation of the island. In April 12th at 4:30 … Continue reading
Day two- Boone Hall, Gullah Culture, walking tour of Charleston and Old Slave Market
This morning dawned partly cloudy, very warm and humid. I, however, was sleeping at the time! We had an 8:45 start to our day today. We started out at Boone Hall. This is a plantation with amazing history. The original plantation house was built in 1681 on 500 acres that was granted to John Boone … Continue reading
Day one of the 2013 Teaching American History Grant Trip
I’ve been up since 2:30 am this morning. We hit the airport in Denver by 3:30. The good thing about that horrible time of the night is that there was no waiting at security! We flew first to Chicago and then transferred flights and ended up here in Charleston, South Carolina. Thirty teachers plus … Continue reading
I was robbed!
The snow is melting. The sun came out today and miraculously the prairie has lost the eight inches of cold white that had covered it. The larger drifts have shrunk, now there are only about two to three feet of snow in front of the house, covering most of the driveway. It sounds as if my hopeful … Continue reading
Cliff? What cliff?
During the recent presidential campaign, I frequently wore a button that said “George Washington for President”. I picked it up when I visited Mount Vernon last summer with the Teaching American History group. I thought it would be a fun conversation piece with my students, especially since I couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to, really) share … Continue reading
