High School Division
Click on the title to read a winning essay.
First Prize
Lena Cohen, Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
“One Hundred Years Later: The Failure of the Civil War Centennial”
Second Prize
Joseph Wang, Pennsylvania Homeschoolers AP Online, Kittaning, Pennsylvania (based in Tianjin, China)
“Running the ‘Machine’: How Greenbacks Funded the Union and Nationalized Its Currency”
Third Prize
Naomi Nguyen, Patchogue-Medford High School, Medford, New York
“The Civil War through the Eyes of a Child: Learning to Transition from Playtime to Wartime”
Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order)
Caleb Eliazer, Campolindo High School, Moraga, California
“The Unwelcome Servant”
Emily Lau, Carroll Senior High School, Southlake, Texas
“Food: The Backbone of the Union's Victory”
Tayla McWilliams, Marian High School, Omaha, Nebraska
“Bleeding Kansas: The Civil War Before the War”
Brittany Polevikov, Paul D. Schreiber High School, Port Washington, New York
“The Civil War: No Match for Nativism in 19th-Century America”
Lillian Rountree, Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
“A ‘Military Despotism’ and a Danger: Montréalais Perception of the American Civil War”
Lucy Walker, Georgetown Day School, Washington DC
“The Myth of Belle Boyd”
Middle School Division
Click on the title to read a winning essay.
First Prize
Anna Christiansen, Syracuse Arts Academy, Syracuse, Utah
“War’s Ghosts: A Soldier’s Way Home”
Second Prize
Julianne Freck, Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill (Durham, North Carolina)
“Why Did They Pick Up a Pen?: Former Slaves Writing to Their Former Owners”
Third Prize
Elizabeth Fu, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York, New York
“The Civil War’s Impact on America”
Documentary Film Category
First Prize
Eliza Spinna, Stuyvesant High School, New York, New York
“Landscape Painting: A Reflection of the National Psyche during the Civil War”
Second Prize
Madeleine Hermann, Notre Dame School, New York, New York
“Recipe for War: What Union and Confederate Soldiers Ate during the Civil War”
Third Prize
Zara Banaga, Ernest S. McBride High School, Long Beach, California
“How Melodies Masked Massacre: Music during the Civil War”
Honorable Mention
William Lohier, Stuyvesant High School, New York, New York
“Fort Pillow to Colfax and Coushatta: How Racial Terror during the Civil War Crippled Reconstruction in Louisiana”