Teaching the Civil War in Texas
guest blog post by Timothy Seiter, Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas at Tyler
I am a Texas historian who specializes in the colonial period, particularly the powerful Native peoples who dominated the region. As a result, I can quite happily spend hours unpacking the intricacies of eighteenth-century Texas. The mid- to late-nineteenth century, by comparison, are periods where I feel far less at home. So, when preparing lessons for my upcoming undergraduate courses, I did what any historian worth their salt should do—I read. And then I read some more.
In searching for strong secondary literature on Texas during the Civil War era, I worked through a number of well-known texts. Of all of them, Texas: An American History proved the most valuable for building high-quality, engaging lesson plans in a timely manner. That’s largely because each of Johnson’s chapters thoroughly address essential topics in our state’s past, while remaining impressively concise and compelling.
I have attached the lesson plan I developed for my classes using Texas as a main source. I have also included my PowerPoint, and I encourage other educators to adapt both to use in their own classrooms.
In this lesson, I was especially eager to highlight the concept of “civil wars within the Civil War,” showing students that this insurrection was far from universally accepted in the South. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people living in Texas, especially when we include Tejanos, enslaved Black Americans, and Native peoples, opposed secession and the violence it entailed. This helps explain why one of the earliest monuments to the conflict in Texas was a German memorial that declared “True to the Union.”
Johnson’s book, and the subsequent lesson plan, also highlight a diverse cast of historical actors from all walks of life. Some of these individuals included Juan Cortina, a Tejano rancher and political leader who resisted Anglo domination; Preely Coleman, an enslaved man from Tyler, Texas; and the more familiar figure of Sam Houston, whose refusal to swear allegiance to the Confederacy cost him his governorship.
If you are looking for a text that allows you to quickly develop high-quality lectures for Texas and U.S. history courses, Johnson’s Texas is the right choice.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
To access the lesson outline, click here.