Ranger Mannie

Teaching the Civil War with YouTube.

by fifer1863 on March 21, 2009

I have to admit right up front that I am not a big user of YouTube.   I have viewed some clips that people have sent me but I’m not a regular user. That being said, someone sent me a link the other evening to a video of a Civil War Fife & Drum group playing and I thought, “hmm, how can this be used in the classroom”?

So, I started doing some searches on YouTube for Civil War related videos and came up with some interesting results that I thought I would share. These videos are a unique way to show clips of various topics on the Civil War to your classes that may otherwise be inaccessible. The following is a list of a few videos and how you may want to integrate them into your classroom.

Fife and Drum: Here is a nice video of the Excelsior Brigade Fifes & Drums playing a medley of several tunes. This video provides a pretty good view of the corp playing. Take notice of the drummers and ask your students if any of them are drummers in a band. There are four snare drums and a bass drum. How about those fifers? Loud and clear over top of the drums and there are only two of them.

Antietam: The following videos were created by a park ranger from the Antietam National Battlefield. This ranger also has a blog entitled My Year of Living Rangerously which I really enjoy reading. The first video is from the 2006 Antitem Artillery Weekend and it shows pictures and video clips of how cannons are loaded and fired. The next video shows the 27th Virginia, a Civil War reenacting group, demonstrating how soldiers would load and fire their muskets as a unit.

Gettysburg: Simply doing a search in YouTube for the word Gettysburg yields pages and pages of videos. These videos range from school projects to vacation videos. There are several that show brief tours of the battlefield or are slide shows of the monuments. I found a few with clips from different movies including Gettysburg, ones of ghost tours and one of a GNMP tour guide.

My favorite is from the 2006 Remembrance Day ceremonies in Gettysburg. This video shows a great representation of the different types of uniforms that both Union and Confederate soldiers would have worn.  There are several fife and drum groups shown (including members of Camp Chase Fifes and Drums around the 5min mark) and even a brass band. Best of all is starting at about 5:25 of the movie you can hear a great fife and drum group playing the tune Garry Owen. That group is made up of fifers and drummers from reenactors including yours truly.

As a follow up to this, there is a video of the Gettysburg Address from the ceremony as well.

So, as you can see, there are many videos out on YouTube for viewing. Try some different searches for different battlefields and see what you can come up with to share with your students.  Hopefully it’s not blocked by your school filter.

Until next time…

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Civil War Artillery

by fifer1863 on February 21, 2009

Park Rangers at the numerous Civil War battlefields are a wealth of information. Unfortunately, it is difficult (if not impossible) and expensive for classes of students to venture out to a Civil War battlefield. So, how about bringing a Park Ranger to your classroom? Well, here is one way to do just that.

Many of you know that I enjoy reading the My Year of Living Rangerously by Antietam Park Ranger Mannie. He has posted several great videos on Civil War artillery. In addition to that, you can actually listen to Ranger Mannie giving a talk on Civil War artillery for some visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park.

Ranger Mannie talks about Civil War artillery:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2jayy_touring-gettysburg-with-ranger-mann

In addition to this, there are several videos of Civil War canon firing available via YouTube:

12-Pound Napoleon Cannon

Finally, Ranger Mannie has also posted some excellent photographs of the firing of a Civil War canon entitled Muzzle Blast Revealed. In this post Ranger Mannie shows and discusses some additional aspects of artillery such as the fuse and how it fits into the projectile.

What is also interesting about this post is that it shows some photos of cannons being fired from directly in front of the cannon!

During the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate soldiers marched shoulder to shoulder across an open field toward cannons just like the ones shown on Ranger Mannie’s website in what would become known as Pickett’s Charge. Have your students consider that situation for a moment and perhaps have them write a letter home as a Confederate soldier having survived the charge and faced the cannon.

The Gettysburg Daily Blog has two great posts on Civil War Artillery with Licensed Battlefield Guide George Newton

For more information about Civil War Artillery, be sure to check out: http://www.civilwarartillery.com

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