Lesson Plan The Soldier's Experience: Letters from Four American Wars 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this four-lesson unit.
Essay "Your Late Lamented Husband": A Letter from Frederick Douglass to Mary Todd Lincoln David W. Blight 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ On March 4, 1865, Frederick Douglass attended President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration. Standing in the crowd, Douglass heard Lincoln declare slavery the "cause" and emancipation the "result" of the Civil War. Over the crisp...
Essay Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877 Eric Foner Government and Civics, World History 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In 1877, soon after retiring as president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, embarked with his wife on a two-year tour of the world. At almost every location, he was greeted as a hero. In England, the son of the Duke of...
Essay The Failure of Compromise Bruce Levine Government and Civics K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the spring of 1861, the United States of America split into two hostile countries—the United States and the new Confederate States of America. The two opposing heads of state agreed about what was causing the rupture—the long...
Essay The American Civil War Gary W. Gallagher 6, 7, 8, 9 The Civil War marked a defining moment in United States history. Long simmering sectional tensions reached a critical stage in 1860–1861 when eleven slaveholding states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. Political...
Essay The Civil War and Reconstruction in the American West Elliott West 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ The histories of the Civil War and of the emerging West were tangled together from their beginnings. Although the war was fought mostly in the East, the events that set it off were born of the expansion of the 1840s, and in turn the...
Lesson Plan What Events Led to Lincoln’s Assassination? 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Overview Fourth-grade students often associate Abraham Lincoln with three things: He wore a tall hat, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and he was assassinated. The murder of Lincoln, whom most historians consider one of the...
Lesson Plan An "Unconstitutional" Act? The Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Background At the beginning of the Civil War, as the number of dead increased daily, a force of opposition to the war efforts began to intensify in the Congress and in the voices of the American people. Abraham Lincoln, in an effort...
Lesson Plan Traitors and Spies in the Time of War: How the Supreme Court Determined Who Would Live and Who Would Die Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 Overview In April 1865 over 600,000 Americans lay dead from battle wounds and other causes directly related to their service in the armies of the Confederacy and Union during the four-year Civil War. If we adjusted the number of dead...