Great Battles of the Civil War Animated
© 2003 TravelBrains
This program talks a close look at three key battles that took place during the Civil War -- Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and Second Manassas. The heart of the program is its carefully crafted battle maps, which are displayed with a tape-recorder-like set of controls, making it possible to move through each battle one hour at a time (one minute = one hour), fast forward, or rewind if you like. As the battles progress, red or blue lines representing squads of soldiers move on the screen (hence the word "animated") as a narrator describes the events of the war. The maps also contain icons leading to in-depth interviews with historians, historic photographs, or panoramic views (that use QuickTime) of the scene as it looks in present time. Features include a detailed look at each weapon found on the battlefield, a quiz for one or two players, profiles of key leaders and links to the present battlefield web site. Missing is the ability to search by keyword, an important feature for any history program. Also, the menu system looks pretty, but it is confusing at times, especially on the installation CD. These are minor problems, however, and they don't prevent you from learning a lot about how amazingly destructive these battles were to human life. The program ran fine on an older Windows 98 computer. We did not test it on Mac OSX, however.
$29.99, Macintosh, Windows
Teaches: history: the Civil War, warfare, social studies