Lesson Plan The Gettysburg Address Literature, Religion and Philosophy 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click here to download this four-lesson unit.
Spotlight on: Primary Source A proclamation on the suspension of habeas corpus, 1862 The doctrine of habeas corpus is the right of any person under arrest to appear in person before the court, to ensure that they have not been falsely accused. The US Constitution specifically protects this right in Article I, Section...
Spotlight on: Primary Source "Men of Color, To Arms! To Arms," 1863 After the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted on January 1, 1863, black leaders including Frederick Douglass swiftly moved to recruit African Americans as soldiers. "A war undertaken and brazenly carried on for the perpetual...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The price of war: A letter from Mary Kelly to Sarah Gordon, 1862 James Kelly served with the 14th Indiana Volunteers beginning in 1861. In March 1862, his wife, Mary, traveled to the field hospital in Virginia where he lay wounded after the Battle of Winchester. She described the terrible...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on the Siege of Vicksburg, 1863 One of the Union’s top military objectives was to gain control of the Mississippi River, and thereby split the Confederacy in two. General Ulysses S. Grant took up this challenge late in 1862 but was frustrated for several months by...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Lincoln speech on slavery and the American Dream, 1858 Economics, Government and Civics 4 Through the 1830s and 1840s, Abraham Lincoln’s primary political focus was on economic issues. However, the escalating debate over slavery in the 1850s, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in particular, compelled Lincoln to change his...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Civil War and early submarine warfare, 1863 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Civil War combat foreshadowed modern warfare with the introduction of the machine gun, repeater rifles, and trench warfare, and the use of trains to quickly move troops. However, one of the most celebrated tactical innovations of the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Sergeant Francis Fletcher of the 54th Massachusetts on equal pay for Black soldiers, 1864 Government and Civics 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ Francis H. Fletcher, a 22-year-old clerk from Salem, Massachusetts, enlisted as a private in Company A of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment on February 13, 1863. One year after the regiment left Boston with great fanfare,...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A Ku Klux Klan threat, 1868 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ This page contains language that may be offensive or inappropriate for some viewers. Reconstruction politics was a catalyst for widespread racism and hatred that freed people experienced throughout the South. The Ku Klux Klan, founded...
Spotlight on: Primary Source My Country, ’Tis of Thee Samuel Francis Smith was a twenty-four-year-old Baptist seminary student in Massachusetts when he wrote the lyrics of "America (My Country, ’Tis of Thee)," the patriotic song that would serve as an unofficial national anthem for...