SOCIAL STUDIES FOR THE

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

4th Edition

Multiple Media for Multiple Intelligences in the Social Studies

Introduction

(Coordinated with Chapter 13: “The New Age of Multimedia—Part I: Multiple Literacy for Many Media: Interpreting Visuals, Documents, Lyrics, and Hybrids”)

The first half of the ‘new age’ of multimedia encourages the use of literary, documentary, and other, mostly written sources that develop skills of reading, comprehension, analysis, and interpretation. Sources can also invite students to ‘go beyond’ writing alone to foray into ethical, moral, and social judgment about philosophical issues such as slavery and freedom. A unit on the U.S. Civil War can combine many genres with history to help students personalize history as witnessed by the participants at the time, concluding with a conversation in letters between a runaway slave and his master that raises quite a number of emotional and fairness issues. This unit can also serve as an alternative model to the new chapter that focuses on Ancient Greece and modern democracy, a world topic, to expand ideas about teaching U.S. history topics. The entire unit is provided below for instructors and students to use as a model for

Planning

Planning a Civil War Unit Employing Multiple Intelligences

Setting Objectives

Your students need to know the facts about the U.S. Civil War. So you, the teacher, turn to references about the Civil War and discover there are far too many bits and pieces of information, and that many of these are connected to particular interpretations of the causes and consequences of the war. Furthermore, some of the more recent books by historians and social scientists seem to wholly reinterpret the event, often offering conflicting theories to explain the same events. Finally, many authors describing the Civil War raise difficult and disturbing value questions, particularly about slavery and race relations, attacking the messages and meaning of both primary and secondary sources. (For an example of this, see D.T. Cornish’s The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865.)5

To give youngsters a sense of the richness of both the data and the theories, you decide on several objectives, starting with information and progressing to interpretation and judgment; written in a behavioral format, these objectives might include the following:

  1. Given a list of the most important names, dates, and places of the U.S. Civil War, students will be able to correctly identify at least 50% more of these items on a posttest than they did on a pretest.
  2. After reading at least three different narratives covering the prewar period, students will compare and contrast the explanations of causes offered, drawing their own conclusions about which factors were most important.
  3. Through an in-depth discussion of slavery from original sources, slave and free, northern, southern, and foreign, students will develop an overview of the different feelings, pro and con, about the institution and the reasons and emotions underlying each position.
  4. By reading, discussing, and analyzing an exchange of letters between a slave owner and a runaway slave, students will decide which party is on the higher moral ground.
  5. Serving on a panel of Supreme Court justices, each of whom has been given a biography or resumé that reflects the pre-Civil War era, students will research the different positions for or against the plaintiff in the Dred Scott case and render a written decision after hearing testimony from witnesses and attorneys, while a second panel retries the case from a present-day perspective.
  6. Subsequent to the trial, students will consider the principles of “equal justice for all” and “equality under the law” in modern contexts with a view to determining whether those principles are followed in the present and examining the consequences of meeting or denying the ideal.

TO DO

Add two goals of your own to those already listed. Are any of the goals not to your liking? If not, why?

Reference

Cornish, D. T. (1984). The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865. Topeka, KS: University of Kansas Press.

Song of the Camps

Two songs of the Civil War Camps

The Civil War produced a great deal of folklore, song, and story before it ended. Much of this material was written or handed down by oral traditions. A camp song and a poem from sources collected just after the war are characteristic of the feelings people had about the event.

The Song of the Camps

Far away in the piny woods, Where the dews fall heavy and damp,

A soldier sat by the smouldering fire, And sang the song of the camp. “It is not to be weary and worn, It is not to feel hunger and thirst,

It is not the forced march, nor the terrible fight, That seems to the soldier the worst;

“But to sit through the comfortless hours,—The lonely, dull hours that will come,—

With his head in his hands, and his eyes on the fire, And his thoughts on visions of home;

“To wonder how fares it with those Who mingled so late with his life,— Is it well with my little children three? Is it well with my sickly wife?

“This night-air is chill, to be sure, But logs lie in plenty around;

How is it with them where wood is so dear, And the cash for it hard to be found? “O, that north air cuts bitterly keen, And the ground is hard as a stone;

It would comfort me just to know that they sit By a fire as warm as my own. “And have they enough to eat? My lads are growing boys,

And my girl is a little tender thing, With her mother’s smile and voice. “My wife she should have her tea, Or maybe a sup of beer;

It went to my heart to look on her face, So white, with a smile and a tear. “Her form it is weak and thin,—She would gladly work if she could,—

But how can a woman have daily strength Who wants for daily food? “My oldest boy he can cut wood, And Johnny can carry it in;

But then, how frozen their feet must be If their shoes are worn and thin!

“I hope they don’t cry with the cold—Are there tears in my little girl’s eyes? O God! say peace! to these choking fears, These fears in my heart that rise. “Many rich folks are round them, I know, And their hearts are not hard nor

cold;

They would give to my wife if they only knew, And my little one three years old. “They would go, like God’s angels fair, And enter the lowly door,

And make the sorrowful glad with gifts From their abundant store. “In this blessed Christmas-time, When the great gift came to men,

They would show, by their gentle and generous deeds How He cometh in hearts again.

“And my sickly, patient wife, And my little children three,

Would be kindly warmed and fed and clothed As part of Christ’s family. “ Well, I leave it all with God, For my sight is short and dim;

He cares for the falling sparrow; My dear ones are safe with Him.”

So the soldier watched through the night, Through the dew-fall, heavy and damp;

And as he sat by the smouldering fire, He sang the song of the camp.*

The Dead Drummer Boy

MIDST tangled roots that lined the wild ravine, Where the fierce fight raged hottest through the day,

And where the dead in scattered heaps were seen, Amid the darkling forest’s shade and sheen, Speechless in death he lay.

The setting sun, which glanced athwart the place In slanting lines, like amber-tinted rain,

Fell sidewise on the drummer’s upturned face,

Where Death had left his gory finger’s trace In one bright crimson stain

No more his hand the fierce tattoo shall beat, The shrill reveille, or the long roll’s call,

Or sound the charges, when, in smoke and heat

Of fiery onset, foe with foe shall meet, And gallant men shall fall.

Yet may be in some happy home, that one, A mother, reading from the list of dead,

Shall chance to view the name of her dead son,

And move her lips to say, “God’s will be done!” And bow in grief her head. But more than this what tongue shall tell his story? Perhaps his boyish

longings were for fame.

He lived, he died; and so memento mori.

Enough if on the page of War and Glory Some hand has writ his name.†

In the camp song, what is the soldier really unhappy about? What are his most deeply felt worries? What are his immediate worries for himself? Are all soldiers faced with the same problems? Did the Civil War produce especially great difficulties for the common soldiers and ordinary citizens? Why or why not?

What attitudes are expressed by the poet in the “Dead Drummer Boy”? Why is the soldier looking down at a boy? What was the boy doing on the field of battle? How would you describe the mood of the poem? What fears and emotions are given expression?

*“The Song of the Camps,” in The Civil War in Song and Story, 1860–1865, collected and arranged by Frank Moore (New York: P. F. Collier, 1882), p. 525.

†“The Dead Drummer Boy,” in The Civil War in Song and Story, 1860–1865, collected and arranged by Frank Moore (New York: P. F. Collier, 1882), p. 51.

Choosing a Strategy

The overall strategy stresses a mystery—why the U.S. Civil War moved from a phase of political negotiation and compromise to one of open warfare among people of the same nation—indeed, even among members of the same families. Slave ownership is discussed in detail, with statistics throwing doubt on the slavery issues because relatively few citizens even in the Deep South owned slaves. Within the overall strategy, other strategies are employed. Data-gathering techniques are used when dealing with the accumulation of historical events and personalities that played a role in fomenting the conflict. A frame-of-reference approach guides the treatment of different viewpoints on slavery. Comparison and contrast is used to analyze the alternative theories advanced to explain the causes and consequences of the war. Drama building is accomplished through the choice of powerful original sources, which are used to make judgments about the veracity of witnesses, the validity of interpretations, and the ethical strengths or weaknesses of those attacking or defending slavery. Throughout, your major strategy is still a mystery as you work toward a satisfying explanation of the Civil War. As the students absorb different bits and pieces of evidence and theory, ask them to generalize or hypothesize about the causes of civil conflict generally. Encourage them to create tentative proposals about human action that can be applied to other historical examples of civil wars. Note that the mystery device proposed as an overall strategy is close to teaching traditions—that is, “causes of the Civil War” lessons, with several twists that make the unit more interesting, demanding, and conducive to critical thought.

Sample Lesson Plan

Other strategies could also have been employed: The Civil War lends itself beautifully to a drama approach using media and literature or to a frame-of-reference strategy using autobiographies and biographies. A controversial issues design could also work, calling attention to the many ethical and moral questions posed by the war, government policy, economics, race relations, slavery, the Bill of Rights, and the question of human dignity. If one strategy is paramount, the others will suffer relative neglect. Some questions will rise to the forefront. Unfortunately, there must be a trade-off among strategies. Your involvement, the questions posed, and the raw material shape students' thinking and channel it into a mystery or an issues orientation. Although much can be done with either approach, you should consider how easily a lesson or unit can get away from you if you try to do too much at once. The more you reinforce a strategy, the sooner students will demonstrate an ability to discuss and debate the causes of the Civil War freely. Much depends on what you want to accomplish and which strategy is given priority.

TO DO

You could easily teach about the Civil War using a different strategy, couldn't you? Redevelop the entire unit using a values or affective strategy. What would change and what would remain the same?

Daily Lessons

Because the overall strategy for this unit is directed at solving the mystery of civil conflict, it should probably contain a sampling from the following categories of data:

  1. One Class Period—Pretest of students’ familiarity with important names, dates, and places in the Civil War, including pretest questions that probe students’ stereotypes concerning causes of the war: slavery, divergent cultures, economic expansion, and so on (to set up a baseline for later comparison).
  2. One Class Period—Major chronological events before, during, and after the Civil War, with a timeline of key events (to build a base of evidence and familiarity with people and actions).
  3. Three or Four Class Periods—Contemporary accounts of North and South; of slavery, culture, and economics by Northerners, Southerners, foreigners, slaves, and slave owners (to create an awareness and understanding of the contrasting attitudes toward the institutions and issues of the nation’s two sections).
  4. Two Class Periods—Statistics, where available, covering the economic structures of the North and the South, armed forces, numbers of slaves, slave owners, and free Blacks (to encourage analysis of the evidence leading to a test of the theory that slavery alone was the key or sole issue in producing conflict).
  5. Two Class Periods—Civil War photographs, pictures of people of the times, famous photos by Matthew P. Brady of the death and destruction characteristic of the battlefield, of “brother fighting brother” (to create a sense of drama and feeling for the war’s participants and to set the stage for raising ethical issues about conflict).
  6. Two or Three Class Periods—Several brief alternative interpretations of the causes of the Civil War by scholars, including at least two or three different, possibly foreign, viewpoints (to demonstrate that the same evidence may suggest different theories to those who have studied the problem, setting the stage for students to decide for them selves which is the best or most reasonable explanation).
  7. One or Two Class Periods—A few excerpts from philosophers and/or social scientists who theorize about justice and social interactions, offering different views of stable and unstable, just and unjust, human relationships (to use as springboards for discussing slavery and warfare as ethical issues; e.g., Does conflict resolve problems? Can an unjust state be stable? How can we define justice and dignity? Which is more important—economic rights, states’ rights, or freedom and national unity?).
  8. One or Two Class Periods—News accounts, information flashes on recent or current civil conflicts, in Rwanda, Somalia, Palestine, and Iraq (to show the persistence of civil problems and questions of rights, justice, and human dignity).
  9. One Class Period—Panel discussion (with several students playing historical roles and several students acting as present-day newspaper or TV reporters, each of whom must review, comment on, and evaluate some aspect of the U.S. Civil War (to recap the previous data aimed at building group consensus on an interpretation).
  10. One Class Period—Posttest of students’ grasp of the basic information and their acceptance, rejection, or revision of previously expressed conceptions “explaining” the Civil War (to assess the degree to which knowledge and understanding of the Civil War period and historical thinking have increased, decreased, or grown more confused).

Let’s Decide

With several others, decide to add one or two new lessons to the overall plan. Are there any features that you think should be filled in, or any omitted? Write one or two additions with your group and share these with other groups.

Expectations

Expectations for student growth may be reasonably optimistic given the choice of materials, the teaching plan, questions posed, and the amount of time and attention given to discussion and student participation. Students will have had the opportunity to analyze, discuss, and evaluate a wide variety of material about the U.S. Civil War. Keep in mind, however, that only a small body of data were used, and there are gaps in both the information given and the theories presented. Nevertheless, you can be satisfied that secondary students have a structure from which to view the Civil War period and its aftermath. They also have a framework for discussing civil conflict in general from both social scientific/behavioral and philosophical/ethical standpoints. Furthermore, students have had the opportunity to think about and make decisions concerning present-day issues. If pre- and posttest results show satisfactory growth by students and participation was high, you may consider that students have reached satisfactory levels of achievement.

Plan A Civil War Film

Write a 20-item multiple-choice test for a Civil War unit that could be used as a measure of student achievement both before and after the unit. Gear questions to the key issues and events. Add at least two essay questions that raise problems about slavery in the United States. Decide how you will evaluate students' answers to these essay topics. Set up clear and precise criteria.

Letters from the Past

Slaveholder’s Letter and Former Slave’s Reply

Planning a Lesson on Civil War Issues through Personal Letters

Looking through both original and secondary sources is a vital part of planning any secondary school unit, and you should familiarize yourself with a variety of different materials that contain the evidence you want students to consider. Art, music, and literature should also be regarded as potential bases for lessons. Students may contribute to the storehouse of knowledge through their own research, but you must build the framework unless students have previous experience carrying out historiographical inquiry.

The U.S. Civil War, although an “old chestnut” of a topic, offers far too much data to deal with easily. In addition, there are many built-in problems because much of the information and many accounts reflect a biased Northern or Southern point of view, sometimes overt and at other times subtle. Therefore, you should review and balance sources to adjust for divergent points of view, both to present a fair sample of opinion and to encourage critical thinking about which sources are trustworthy.

One possible choice is a lesson based on two letters: one from a slave owner, Mrs. Sarah Logue of Tennessee, and the other from her runaway slave, the Reverend J. W. Loguen, now of Syracuse, New York.. Mrs. Logue’s letter is dated February 29, 1860, and the Reverend Loguen’s reply was written March 28, 1860.

Two Letters: An Exchange Between Slave and Slave Owner in 1860

THE SLAVEHOLDER’S LETTER

To Jarm:

I now take my pen to write you a few lines, to let you know how we all are. I am a cripple, but I am still able to get about. The rest of the family are all well. Cherry is as well as common. I write you these lines to let you know the situation we are in— partly in consequence of your running away and stealing Old Rock, our fine mare. Though we got the mare back, she never was worth much after you took her; and, as I now stand in need of some funds I have determined to sell you, and I have had an offer for you, but did not see fit to take it. If you will send me one thousand dollars, and pay for the old mare, I will give up all claim I have on you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines, and let me know if you will accept my proposition. In consequence of your running away, we had to sell Abe and Ann and twelve acres of land; and I want you to send me the money, that I may be able to redeem the land that you was the cause of our selling, and on receipt of the above-named sum of money, I will send you your bill of sale. If you do not comply with my request, I will sell you to some one else, and you may rest assured that the time is not far distant when things will change with you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines. Direct your letter to Bigbyville, Maury County, Tennessee. You had better comply with my request.

I understand that you are a preacher. As the Southern people are so bad you had better come and preach to your old acquaintances. I would like to know if you read your Bible. If so, can you tell what will become of the thief if he does not repent? I deem it unnecessary to say much more at present. A word to the wise is sufficient. You know where the liar has his part. You know that we reared you as we reared our own children: that you was never abased and that shortly before you ran away, when your master asked if you would like to be sold, you said you would not leave him to go with anybody.

MRS. SARAH LOGUE:

Your letter of the 20th of February is duly received, and I thank you for it. It is a long time since I heard from my poor old mother, and I am glad to know that she is yet alive, and, as you say, “as well as common.” What this means, I don’t know. I wish you had said more about her.

You are a woman; but, had you a woman’s heart, you never could have insulted a brother by telling him you sold his only remaining brother and sister, because he put himself beyond your power to convert him into money.

You sold my brother and sister, Abe and Ann, and twelve acres of land, you say, because I ran away. Now you have the unutterable meanness to ask me to return and be your miserable chattel, or in lieu thereof, send you $1000 to enable you to redeem the land, but not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I were to send you money, it would be to get my brother and sister, and not that you should get land. You say you are a cripple, and doubtless you say it to stir my pity, for you knew I was susceptible in that direction. I do pity you from the bottom of my heart. Nevertheless, I am indignant beyond the power of words to express, that you should be so sunken and cruel as to tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you should be willing to impale and crucify us all, out of compassion for your poor foot or leg. Wretched woman! Be it known to you that I value my freedom, to say nothing of my mother, brothers and sisters, more than your whole body; more, indeed, than my own life; more than all the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants under heaven.

You say you have offers to buy me, and that you shall sell me if I do not send you a 1000 dollars, and in the same breath and almost in the same sentence, you say “You know we raised you as we did our own children.” Woman, did you raise your own children for the market? Did you raise them for the whipping-post? Did you raise them to be driven off, bound to a coffle in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can you tell? Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked and cuffed, and whipped, and to groan and die; and where no kin can hear their groans, or attend and sympathize at their dying bed, or follow in their funeral? Wretched woman! Do you say you did not do it? Then I reply, your husband did, and you approved the deed—and the very letter you sent me shows that your heart approves it all. Shame on you!

But, by the way, where is your husband? You don’t speak of him. I infer, therefore, that he is dead; that he has gone to his great account, with all his sins against my poor family upon his head. Poor man! Gone to meet the spirits of my poor, outraged and murdered people, in a world where Liberty and Justice are Masters.

But you say I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to learn that I had a better right to the old mare, as you call her, than Mannasseth Logue had to me. Is it a greater sin for me to steal his horse, than it was for him to rob my mother’s cradle, and steal me? If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall I not infer that you forfeit all your rights to me? Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit your own liberty and life? Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?

If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard my rights, they need but come here, and lay their hands on me to enslave me. Did you think to terrify me by presenting the alternative to give my money to you, or give my body to slavery? Then let me say to you, that I meet the proposition with unutterable scorn and contempt. The proposition is an outrage and an insult. I will not budge one hair’s breadth. I will not breathe a shorter breath, even to save me from your persecutions. I stand among a free people, who I thank God, sympathize with my rights, and the rights of mankind; and if your emissaries and vendors come here to re-enslave me, and escape the unshrinking vigor of my own right arm, I trust my strong and brave friends, in this city and State, will be my rescuers and avengers.

from “Two letters: An Exchange between Slave and Slave Owner.” The Liberator,17 April 1860, 4.

After reading these two letters, you decide to use them in class to personalize the slavery issue and to raise ethical issues. Thus, you consider the following behavioral objectives:

  • Students will review the slavery issues.
  • Students will discuss slavery through the eyes of a runaway slave and a slaveholder.
  • Students will develop arguments on both sides.
  • Students will formulate their own view of slavery within the context of human rights.
  • Students will compare the institution of slavery in the United States with other events and institutions, such as South African apartheid and the Holocaust.
  • Students will identify and define their own view of human rights.

Given these objectives, you decide that the letters call for comparison at least as a beginning.

Strategy (Compare and Contrast)

Ask two students with dramatic abilities to read aloud Mrs. Logue’s letter to the Reverend Loguen and his reply. Before they begin, ask students to take notes on the letters as each reader proceeds, especially the arguments each presented: Mrs. Logue makes the issue one of property and personal hardship, whereas the Reverend Loguen makes it one of freedom and civil rights. Provoke discussion by asking some students to defend Mrs. Logue and others to defend the Reverend Loguen. Develop thought-provoking questions to stimulate discussion, such as the following:

  • Why does Mrs. Logue want $1,000?
  • Why won’t Reverend Loguen give her the $1,000?
  • What has Mrs. Logue done to Mr. Loguen’s family? Why?
  • Why does Mrs. Logue accuse him of being a thief? Is he a thief in your view? Is he a thief in his own view? Why or why not?
  • Who is right here and who is wrong? Why? What would you have done if you were Mrs. Logue? The Reverend Loguen? Who deserves sympathy? Both? Neither? One or the other? Why?
  • Have human rights abuses been committed here? Is the situation like those you have read about in South Africa? In Europe during the Holocaust?
  • Which rights do you think Mr. Loguen, and all other people, were and are entitled to and why? Give examples and defend your view.

Conclusion

Allow one or two periods for a thorough review of your Civil War unit, in which students are asked to judge which materials they found most or least stimulating, and what they see as the overall learning result on this topic. Where do they feel they received too much data? Too little? Too many questions or too few? Too much theory or too little? Do they believe that their understanding of the event has deepened? That their attitudes have changed? That they have reevaluated heroes and villains? Ask for suggestions to extend or cut your presentation of the Civil War and keep a record of the comments in your log book.

Reevaluating Your Lesson. Take a trip to the library or surf the Internet and add U.S. Civil War materials to your resource list. Supplement your repertory with at least four or five new primary resources and at least three or four historical and/or social scientific reinterpretations of events. Decide which of the primary documents and which of the revisionist theories you want to share with students.

Bibliography and References

Interesting resources on the Civil War period are plentiful and provocative, including the following:

Blesser, Carol (ed.). Secret and Sacred, The Diaries of James Henry Itammond, A Southern Slaveholder. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Commager, Henry S. (ed.). The Blue and the Gray: The Story of the Civil War as Told by Participants. New York: New American Library, 2 vols. (paper), 1973.

Davis, Kenneth. Don't Know Much about the Civil War: Everything You Need to Know about America's Greatest Conflict But Never Learned. New York: Morrow, 1996.

De Forest, John W. Miss Ravenal's Change From Secession to Loyalty. Washington, DC: Reprint Services, 1988 (reprint of 1867 edition).

Douglass, Frederick. The Frederick Douglass Papers: Speeches, Debates, Interviews, 1855–1863. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.

Foner, Eric, and Olivia Mahoney. America's Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War. New York: Harper/Collins, 1995.

Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative, 3 vols. New York: Random House, 1986.

Freedman, Russell. Lincoln: A Photo Biography. London: Ticknor & Fields, 1987.

Genovese, Eugene D. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Random House, 1976.

Harwell, Richard B. (ed.). The Union Reader. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1958.

Horton, Bobby. Music and Memories of the Civil War (VHS cassette, 63 minutes). Alabama Center for Public Television. New York: PBS, 1995.

Life in the North During the Civil War: The Way People Live, and Life in the South During the Civil War: The Way People Live. New York: Lucent Press, 1997.

McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

McPherson, James M. His Name Was Lincoln: A Multimedia Biography (2 CD-ROMs with teacher guides). New York: Sunburst Communications, 1996.

Meltzer, Milton. Voices from the Civil War. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1989.

Meredith, Roy. World of Matthew Brady. New York: Crown, 1989.

Meredith, Roy (ed.). Mr. Lincoln's Camera Man: Matthew B. Brady. New York: Dover Press, 1974.

Murphy, Jim. The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk about the Civil War. New York: Clarion, 1990.

Reilly, N. S. (ed.). Civil War Maps. Chicago: Newberry Library, 1987.

Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.

Ward, Geoffrey et al. The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.

Wiley, Bell Irwin. Life of Johnny Reb, and Life of Bill Yank. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1971.

There are a variety of web sites that can also provide useful materials, including:

Civil War Interactive—www.civilwarinteractive.com

The Gilder Lehrman Institute—www.gilderlehrman.org

The History Net—www.historynet.com

The History Place—www.historyplace.com

Library of Congress—www.loc.gov

National Archives—www.archives.gov