HS: Restoration

Our Lives…

 Last week I made the announcement that we received our orders to Texas. Not what we wanted, but within 24 hours we were pretty excited. I even had a small dream sheet of homes ready, knowing none would be available by the time we got there. We knew it was possible, we had been warned that if ever a military order could change, this would be it. Well, it did…

We are no longer going to Texas, we are heading for Stuttgart, Germany. We are so stoked!! I am trying to hold it loosely, because the orders have changed once, it could happen again 😉 But holy cow, so much more involved with this sort of overseas PCS. We are trying to work several issues at one, including selling appliances, considering car shipments, and booklet passports. Don’t worry, I will be blogging about that PCS process, so much to learn and share!!!

Our homeschool…

We are trying to get ourselves done with school by May. It may not actually happen for us, but there is no way that we will be abel to do summer school this year!! So we are trimming back on the peripherals and working the new concepts as best we can. We will still be doing our annual exams in April and I am hoping we get our results back before we move. Here’s for hoping!!

We have Macs and I wasn’t able to find a good newspaper layout this week, but the kids have been writing articles and ads for a Civil War Newspaper. They enjoyed it, I just don’t have it to show you 🙂

History:

This week we finished up our study on the American Civil War and the Restoration of the South. Boy, if I could do an era of our history over again, this would be pretty high on the list!! It could have been done so much better and been a true restoration of a war torn America. 

~ The first battle of the Civil War was fought on XX property in Virginia, and the surrender of General Lee occurred in his front parlor at Appomattox. He often told people that the Civil war began and ended in his home.

~ CSA General ‘Stonewall’ Jackson wanted to use extreme measures of burning homes and crops at the beginning of the war (now called Scorched Earth, or total war tactics). The CSA command chose not to employ such harsh tactics.

~ Union General Sherman wanted to employ exactly such tactics to “break the spirit of the southern cause”. President Lincoln and General US Grant agreed (with reservations). Sherman began his famous march from northern Georgia, through Atlanta, and finally, burning everything in his path, employing the Scorched Earth tactic.

~ President Andrew Johnson did not call a special session of congress to deal with the issue of Reconstruction. Instead, he began handling the process by himself while Congress was on break.

~ Restoration struggled through bipartisan trauma: Democrats wanted full segregation and to limit the freedoms of the freed blacks, while Republicans called for former slaves to be allowed to vote and hold office.

~ Republicans won the majority of the House and Senate to pass the 14th Amendment in 1868. The Amendment took at 2/3 votes in Congress to overturn President Johnson’s veto of the bill.

Books:

Videos:

• Ely Parker: A Forgotten Hero. He was an aid to US Grant and penned the surrender terms of the American Civil War.
• Reconstruction and 1876. If you have never watched/used any of the Crash Course history videos, please consider it! They are informative and humorous and short! Though he talks so fast that we had to watch this one twice to catch it all.
• President Andrew Johnson: 17th

Praying for…

Our move, my father’s shoulder surgery, our missionary friends who were in Ukraine who are safely in Poland now.  Also praying for more light to be shed onto the slavery that still exists in the world today. Have you heard about it?? Yesterday I didn’t get my post up highlighting the issue, but you can read more about that at #enditmovement.

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