Updated 12/16/10
In Podcast #39 the Trekkers take you to the Museum of the Confederacy right in the middle of downtown Richmond. Here you’ll see the house where Jefferson Davis lived while he was president of the Confederate States of America. It is called the White House of the Confederacy. Explore the grounds of the house, see how things have changed since the Civil War years, examine some primary resources from the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack outside the museum, and find out just how BIG the anchor and propeller shaft of the ironclads were! Come on, let’s go trekkin’!
The Davis family took care of an African American orphan boy named Jim Limber. In February 1864 his wife Varina saw him being beaten on the street and rescued him. He was about the same age as their son Joseph and so they dressed him in Joseph’s clothes. A few months after they “adopted” Jim, 5-year-old Joseph fell off the back porch of their home and died on April 30, 1864. Jim continued to live with the Davis family in the White House of the Confederacy until they evacuated the following year in April 1865. A statue of Jefferson Davis, little Joseph, and Jim Limber is at Davis’s last home, Beauvoir, in Biloxi, Mississippi.
SOL Correlation:
2.3 The student will identify and compare changes in community life over time in terms of buildings, jobs, transportation, and population.
VS.1a The student will develop skills for historical and geographical analysis, including the ability to a) identify and interpret artifacts and primary and secondary source documents to understand events in history;
VS.7b The student will demonstrate knowledge of the issues that divided our nation and led to the Civil War by b) describing Virginia’s role in the war, including identifying major battles that took place in Virginia.
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