Civil War and Reconstruction
“The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War,” a program of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia: http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern It includes thousands of digitized letters, diary excerpts, newspaper articles, speeches, census and church records left by men and women from Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. The website is divided into three sections: The Eve of War (1859 to 1861); The War Years (1861 to 1865); and The Aftermath (1865 to 1870). Documents are divided by type and are keyword searchable.
“The House Divided: American in the Age of Lincoln,” online exhibition by the Chicago Historical Society and Gilder Lehrman Institute: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/ahd/index.html
This online exhibition is based on the book, A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln,by Eric Foner and Olivia Mahoney. It is arranged in narrative fashion, including succinct essays paired with select primary documents and images. Sections include: Lincoln’s America; slavery and the slavery debate; impending crisis; Civil War; War, Politics and Society; and the Aftermath. An additional resource section features several learning modules on related subjects, each with its own succinct historical overview, recommended documents, films, and historic images, and lesson plans and activities. These modules include: The Jacksonian Era; Pre-Civil War Reform; Slavery; Westward Expansion; the Coming of the Civil War; Civil War; and Reconstruction.
“Abraham Lincoln,” a website created to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/institute/lincoln.html
This website serves as a gateway to a variety of teaching and research resources about Abraham Lincoln, his times, and his impact. It includes about ten mini-lectures (ranging from 20 to 35 minutes each) by a variety of historians. It also includes eight short essays (from 3 to 6 pages) on such topics as the meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s Views on Race, and Lincoln and Black Abolitionists, and three ready-to-use in the classroom slide shows on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, letters from the Civil War, and the British abolition movement.
“Gettsyburg: Our Country’s Common Ground,” Gettysburg Foundation: http://www.gettysburgfoundation.org/
Established to provide information about visiting Gettysburg National Park and Visitor Center, this website also offers a range of teacher resources. The Educator’s Section (“Learn”) introduces visitors to the Battle of Gettysburg and Gettysburg Address. It further offers a history of monuments and memorials and explanations of the causes of the Civil War and the relevance of Gettysburg today. Though still under construction, this site should feature teacher lesson plans and a children’s activity guide soon.
“What the Civil War looked like to Soldiers who Fought It: Water Color Sketchbook by Private Henry Berckhoff,” online exhibition by Digital History: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/sketchbook/index.cfm
The pictures in this exhibition were drawn during the wary by Henry Berckhoff, a young, German speaking, Union soldier. . Berckhoff's paintings are divided into two parts. Part 1 features large groups of soldiers marching and fighting (8 images). In part two, there are more personal and solitary scenes of camp life (11 images). Berckhoff was a career soldier. He served in the military almost continually from the time he fought with the Union army until his retirement in February 1894. Twenty-years-old when he enlisted in New York City, Berckhoff became a private in the Eighth New York Volunteer Infantry, Company B, which was also known as the First German Rifles. This was an "ethnic regiment" composed of approximately 1,000 German immigrants. His drawings capture a view of the Civil War from the perspective of a German-American soldier.
“Camp Life at Gettysburg: Civil War Collections” and “Civil War Web Page,” both National Park Service websites at: http://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/gettex/index.htm and http://cwar.nps.gov/civilwar/
These two online exhibitions focus on the material culture and daily life experiences of the Civil War. “Camp Life at Gettysburg” features material from the collections of Gettysburg National Military Park. Objects include those belonging to both Union and Confederate soldiers and are arranged by three themes: Camp Life, Existing Day-to-Day and Battling Boredom. Each theme includes well-written contextual essays, as well as primary document excerpts, historic images, and contemporary images of modern-day recreations. An additional “All Image Gallery” includes high resolution jpegs of all objects featured on the website. The second National Park Service site, the “Civil War Web Page,” is the official National Park Service site commemorating the approaching Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War (2011-2015). The most useful aspect of the site for teachers is on “Civil War Education,” which compiles 15 lesson plans from throughout the National Park System, as well as a separate link to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s collection of Civil War lesson plans (another 15 activity ideas), and a special feature lesson entitled “War for Freedom: African Americans in the Era of the Civil War.”
“America’s Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War,” online exhibition by Digital History:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/index.html
This exhibition focuses on the period immediately following the Civil War and asks how former slaves and slave owners redefined freedom. It also explores the transition to free labor, the programs of Reconstruction, and the political and social reactions to Reconstruction that ultimately led to its demise. A section of additional resources includes links to timelines, fact sheets, and primary documents.
The Freedman’s Bureau Online:
http://www.freedmensbureau.com/
The Freedmen's Bureau was established in the War Department on March 3, 1865 to supervise all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, border states, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory. The bureau records were created or maintained by bureau headquarters, the assistant commissioners and the state superintendents of education. They included personnel records and a variety of standard reports concerning bureau programs and conditions in the states. This website contains documents pertaining to murder and racial crimes, labor and marriage arranged by state.
New York Draft Riots:
http://www.vny.cuny.edu/riots.html
This online exhibition of the New York riots of July 13 to 17, 1863 is part of a larger project entitled “Virtual New York,” a website devoted to the history of New York City and its people. Produced by the New Media Lab at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, the exhibit explores New Yorkers’ reactions to the National Conscription Act, which made all single men aged twenty to forty-five and married men up to thirty-five subject to a draft lottery. The act allowed drafted men to avoid conscription by supplying someone to take their place or paying the government a three hundred-dollar exemption fee. These stipulations exacerbated long-simmering class tensions in the city and proved especially unpopular among New York City’s white working class, many of whom were recent immigrants from Germany and Ireland. Some targets seem obvious given these tensions, and included those perceived as wealthier, both individuals and businesses; Brooks Brothers Clothiers became a particular target. But African Americans, who were actively recruited by the Union Army in the summer of 1863, also came under vicious attack, though few could afford to avoid the draft. The exhibition is divided into three sections: the hotlinks across the top of the website describe and contextualize the causes and the consequences of the riot; those on the bottom of the page trace the daily developments of the riots and its aftermath; links on the bottom left hand side of the screen yield further details regarding what happened on a daily basis, including the attack on the Colored Orphan’s Asylum. Using a combination of a narrative description and primary sources (visual and written), such sites illustrate who was attacked each day and how NYC and federal authorities responded to the unrest.
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