The Lincoln Bicentennial Teacher Network

4th Grade: Lesson 2

Lesson Topic/Focus: Kentucky and Lincoln during the Civil War

Lesson Essential Question(s): Why was Kentucky so important to Abraham Lincoln during his presidency?

Estimated duration of lesson: 3 class periods (60 minutes each)

Academic Expectations: 2.20 Students understand, analyze, and interpret historical events, conditions, trends, and issues to develop historical perspective.

Program of Studies Understandings

Program of Studies Skills

Core Content for Assessment

SS-4-HP-U-2

Students will understand that the history of Kentucky can be analyzed by examining the connected events shaped by multiple cause-effect relationships, tying past to present.

SS-4-HP-S-1

Students will demonstrate an understanding of the nature of history using a variety of tools (e.g., primary and secondary sources): examine cause and effect relationships that influenced Kentucky’s history.

SS-04-5.1.1

Students will use a variety of primary and secondary sources (e.g., artifacts, diaries, and timelines) to describe significant events in the history of Kentucky and interpret different perspectives.

DOK 2

Targeted Lesson Essential Question(s):Why was Kentucky so important to Abraham Lincoln during his presidency?

Students Will Know……

Students will be able to…..

  • Kentucky is a border state.
  • Geographic importance of Kentucky during the war (i.e. Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, other waterways in the state).
  • Major roads and railroads and the goods transported along them.
  • Kentucky was initially a neutral state but sided with the Union after a few months.
  • Kentuckians had diverse ways of earning a living as a result of its geographic features (agriculture, industry).
  • Some Kentuckians owned slaves while others did not.
  • Many KY soldiers fighting for the Union were themselves, slaveholders.
  • Kentucky families were divided by this conflict. (Fought for both Union and Confederacy).
  • Kentucky wanted to stay in the Union but keep slavery as an institution.
  • Lincoln was not politically popular among Kentuckians.
  • Use geographical tools to locate Union, Confederate, and Border States,
  • Explain significance of the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware during the Civil War.
  • Compare the resources of the Border States and justify Kentucky’s political and geographic significance to President Lincoln.
  • Analyze the effect of the Civil War on Kentucky’s families.
  • Use evidence to explain why Lincoln was not politically popular among Kentuckians.

Lesson Summary

Brief overview of the lesson

Kentucky was a border state with access to many waterways. It was an important state in trade and commerce due to the access to waterways and roads and railroads. There was agriculture and industry. The population was mixed on the slavery questions. Some owned slaves, some didn’t. The population was divided on who it supported in the Civil War.

In this lesson, students will work as a class and in small cooperative learning groups to analyze the importance of Kentucky, relative to the three other Border States. Students will be able to do the following after this lesson:

Day 1/3: Building Background Knowledge

Previous instruction

Students need a prior knowledge of the economies of the Southeast, Northeast, and Midwest regions of the US, as well as Texas (Southwest) and California (West).

Instructional Set/Bell Ringer

“Introducing the Balance of Power”

For this portion of the lesson, you will need a scale, two baskets of equal weight and size (one marked blue, the other red) and one marble for each student. (Small balls or coins can also be used).

Place the scale, with the blue and red basket on either side, at the front of the classroom. Tell students that today, the class will be playing a game for classroom power. The procedures for the game are very simple. Each student will receive one marble and must decide if they want to be on the blue team or the red team. Teams do not have to have an equal number. Once a student has cast his/her marble for the color of choice, he/she cannot switch teams. The team that has the heaviest basket at the end of the game will receive the ‘Classroom Power.’

Script

“In this game, each of you will have to make a choice. Do you want to be on the red team or the blue team? You will signify your alliance with the chosen team by coming forward and placing your marble in the corresponding basket. At the end of the game (or when all marbles have been placed on one side or the other) the team with heaviest basket wins and will receive power over the classroom. This means you will be able to make important decisions that affect all of us.

Watch as the scale switches from side to side. At the end of the game, ask students why it was important to have the heaviest basket? What does having all the power really mean in a classroom setting? (Possible responses: The teacher currently has the power, so if students took that power they could make the types of decisions the teacher makes like what field trips to take, whether to eat lunch in the classroom or cafeteria, what homework to give, what concepts to study, etc.)

Transition

Explain to students that the scale represents the balance of power in the United States Legislature from 1800 to 1861. The baskets represent slave states and free states. Why was slavery such a big deal? Even though to some it may have been a moral issue, the question of right and wrong, to many more, slavery was a financial issue, the right to be economically stable. It all comes down to the money. The livelihood or way of life of the South depended upon the institution, or system, of slavery. Its very riches were born from free labor of enslaved Africans. Without them—there was no South. If we are to understand Kentucky’s role in the Civil War we must understand the balancing act of power that ultimately caused it.

Today’s lesson is all about the struggle, overtime, to keep the US legislature balanced. Some states felt the federal government should have more control than state government to dictate laws concerning slavery. Other states, Kentucky included, felt states should have the power to create its own laws regarding slavery. It was our very own, Abraham Lincoln who ultimately had to deal with this struggle for power.

Lesson Assessment

Students will be assessed on their identification of slave, free, and Border States in 1861. Label an 1861 map of the US, identifying slave, free and Border States.

Lesson Activity

Students will need:

Other materials needed:

The Entrance Slip

Give each student an outline map of the US 1861 (Refer to Resource A). Ask, “What do you notice about this map, compared to the current day map of the United States?” Students should notice that there are fewer states on this map and the Western and Southwestern portion of the US looks different. Have students list the states that they recognize initially. Students should use a map from a text or other source to complete the states. Students should recognize that West Virginia is still part of Virginia at this time.

Assign each student a state. Ask students to make a prediction as to whether their state is a free state or slave state in 1861. Shade the state red if it is a slave state and blue if it is a free by 1861. Students will use the following questions as they research their state to make a prediction.

Guiding Questions:

  1. What was the economy of your state dependent upon?
  2. What type of industry or agriculture does your state have?
  3. What natural resources does your state export?
  4. Do you think the use of free labor would have benefited your state?

Be sure to tell students a working definition of free and slave states.

When students have located and shaded their assigned state, they should continue shading the other states based on prior knowledge of the economy of each state/region, until all states are shaded. Allow students to share and justify their predictions. Shade the classroom map based on student response.

Day 2/3 and 3/3

Previous instruction

In the previous lesson, students explored the issue of state vs. federal power and became familiar with the struggle for power between Slave States and Free States. Students should be able to identify and explain the difference between slave, free and Border States at this point.

Instructional Set/Bell Ringer

During Lincoln’s campaign for presidency, he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” What do you think he meant by that statement? The teacher will allow the students an opportunity to think, pair, and share.
The teacher should explain that the United States could no longer be half free and half slave.

Transition

When Abraham Lincoln was elected as President, southerners feared that Lincoln would end slavery in all areas of the United States. Therefore, southern states seceded from the Union and formed their own government. The joined states called themselves the Confederate States of America.

Yesterday, you had to make predictions if the states would become slave or free. Let’s find out today whether our predictions were accurate. The teacher will share with students a map of Secession 1860-1861. The class will compare. The teacher will ask the students, “How did Kentucky stand?” The students should quickly recognize that Kentucky was considered a border state, not joining either side. Was Kentucky the only state to not join either the Union or the Confederacy?

The country was separated into the Union, led by Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln and the Confederacy, led by Kentuckian Jefferson Davis in 1861. Kentucky had ties to both the North and South, yet declared neutral. Lincoln and Davis knew how important Kentucky was to each of them.

So let’s find out why Lincoln said, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game (war.)”

  1. Pass out a blank Venn diagram (Refer to Resource B) and ask the question: What resources are needed to fight a war? Have students write their responses in the middle of the diagram since their responses will represent similar needs for any war.
  2. Although student responses will vary, guide the discussion toward soldiers, weapons, transportation, and supplies as common needs in any war. Write these four resources on the class Venn diagram.
  3. Thinking about these four major needs, prompt students to identify differences between “War Today” and the ”Civil War”. Have students record each difference in their Venn diagrams. Likewise, the teacher should record the class response on the class Venn diagram. Notable differences may be as follows:

    Differences in Resources Needed in War

    War-Today

    • more high-tech
    • smart missiles
    • satellites that can target the enemy
    • you don't actually have to see the enemy
    • better weapons
    • tanks and jets to move soldiers around
    • planes to move around goods
    • better medical care for wounded soldiers
    • US soldiers fight against a different country.

    Civil War

    • used horses
    • soldiers got from one place to another mainly on foot
    • rivers and trains were the main way to ship goods and supplies
    • had to get close to the enemy
    • more people died from injuries
    • US soldiers were fighting against one another
  4. Now ask students to consider the following: The objective of war is to over-power your opponent. During the Civil War, how could one side become more powerful than the other?

Teacher Note: It should make sense to students that the side with the most resources would have a better chance of defeating the other side. Both, the Union President, Abraham Lincoln, and the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, understood this. This is why controlling the borders states was important to both leaders.

Lesson Assessment

Prompt: Lincoln understood the importance of the border state of Kentucky. He repeatedly said, “I hope to have God on my side but I must have Kentucky.”

  1. Identify 3 of Kentucky’s resources during the Civil War.
  2. Discuss how each of the resources listed above made Kentucky an important border state.

(Refer to Resource D for rubric.)

Learning Experience

Inform students: “By the end of today’s lesson, you will be able to identify the resources within each border state of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware and explain why of the four border states, Kentucky was the most important to Abraham Lincoln.”

  1. Divide students into cooperative learning groups. You will need a total of 4 groups, one for each Border State. If this creates unmanageably large groups, more than one group can be assigned the same state.
  2. Distribute envelopes with Task Cards (Refer to Resource C).
  3. Explain each task, and familiarize students with the available resources. Each team will also need a large piece of chart paper with the following state chart.

Border State of: ____________________________________

Major Waterways Transportation Manufacturing
     

As students find information, they should record it in their state chart.

Lesson Wrap Up

Hang all four charts side by side and review the resources of each state. Group discussion should focus on the benefits of controlling any or all of the Border States and lead to the discovery of Kentucky’s crucial importance.

Additional Lesson Activity Notes

Materials:

Resources