Hi Portia,

I wish I could be more helpful after the kindness you've shown me.

A Civil War book your DS might enjoy is this visual encyclopedia produced jointly by DK and the Smithsonian:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Civil-War-Visual-History/dp/075667185X

Idea-wise, these themes/activities might fit in well with a discussion of the Civil War:
- Rewriting the endings to various key battles or changing key variables and imagining how results might have changed
- Reenacting battles
- Introducing basic game theory concepts: Prisoner's Dilemma, zero sum games, Nash Equilibria in pure and mixed strategies
- Introducing introductory cryptography and ciphers

What is to give light must endure burning.