While researching the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, I uncovered a video on YouTube that would great for teaching younger audiences about the debates.  “The Lincoln Douglas Debates” condenses an overview of the 1858 debates into a simple format designed to keep children engaged. The video’s runtime reaches only two minutes, fourteen seconds and uses both voice-over acting and background music to catch and maintain the audience’s attention.  I recommend this site for anyone who wishes to gain a basic background of the debates through a simplistic and entertaining format.

The Abraham Lincoln Association homepage currently houses links to sister-sites with curriculum-boosting ideas on how to approach the topic of Lincoln within the classroom.  Although entirely document-based, the material still offers an engaging experience through the site’s innovative intertwining of primary documents with textbook style descriptions.  Structured mainly for teachers in the state of Illinois, the site also acts as a advertising resource for the group’s Illinois-based, Lincoln-themed events.  However, even if you’re an outsider, don’t let the association’s focus on Illinois steer you away from this site because it provides great ideas for immersing students in the history of one our nation’s greatest preisdents, Abraham Lincoln.

Northern Illinois University’s site Lincoln/Net offers scholarly interpretation of Lincoln with a focus on both biographical information about Lincoln and historical themes relevant to his endeavors.   The format of these items includes texts, images, sound clips and videos.  Lincoln/Net also provides classroom help for teachers in the Teacher’s Parlor.  This section of the website lays out lesson plans focused on engaging students through the use of primary documents as well as scholarly video and audio interviews.  Lincoln/Net would be a great resource for any teacher to consider incorporating into their classroom repertoire.

In an interview available on House Divided’s YouTube channel, Kate Larson explains several myths surrounding the famous Underground Railroad conductor, Harriet Tubman. “The most important ones to talk about,” she explains “is the myth about returning to the south nineteen times and rescuing 300 people.” She further expounds that these myths developed from an early Tubman biography by Sarah Bradford. If interested in following the development of such a myth, Bradford’s book, “Harriet, the Moses of Her People,” is available at the ever expanding Google Books, a great place resource for early Tubman historiography and myths.

The National Park Service is looking to expand upon its Underground Railroad stops in its National Register of National Historic Places.  By visiting , “Aboard the Underground Railroad: A National Register Travel Itinerary” you can help the NPS. At the website, one can explore stops on the Underground Railroad, both in the North and South, and even a few stops in the territories. The site is also useful in offering a “Learn More” page, , where additional sources regarding the Underground Railroad can be found, including web resources.

With your help, by applying to the National Register of Historic Places to add your historic Underground Railroad site, this website and tool can only grow and become more useful.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln website recently inlcuded a link to samples of New Lincoln Documents.  The site offers a sample of pieces that Lincoln either authored or upon which he penned “substantial” endorsements.  Any fan of Lincoln should be intrigued to learn that none of these documents appeared in prior collections of Lincoln’s papers.  Although personal letters make up the bulk of this new subset, the compilation also includes government documents and endorsements.   For those who simply cannot get enough Lincoln, this is certainly a site to visit in the near future!

The Gilder Lehrman Institute just added a new podcast on Abraham Lincoln’s political career during the early 1850s. In “Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point,” Lewis E. Lehrman explains how in October 1854 Lincoln “argu[ed ] that slavery was incompatible with the Founders’ vision of America as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.”  While House Divided does not have a transcript of Lincoln’s speech, one is available through the University of Michigan Digital Library.

Other lectures are also available at the Gilder Lehrman Institute (full list here), including James McPherson’s “Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam” and David Blight’s “The Civil War in American Memory.”

Late last year, Michael Burlingame published a two volume collection titled Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Civil War Memory, another Civil War era focused blog, has a post relating to this publication and Mr. Burlingame himself. More importantly, the post contains a great video (separated into Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4) of Mr. Burlingame speaking at Illinois College. For anyone who has used the book in a class or is interested in his work, I think watching this video would be of great value.

To see naval officers in uniform walking around New York city in 2009 is unremarkable. Yet in November 1859 a lieutenant wrote the New York Herald to address the fact “that a great number of naval officers are seen daily in the streets and public places in uniform.” While careful to note that he was not “ashamed of [his] uniform,” this officer believed such public display was wrong. “In our republican country,” as he explained, “it is not customary for offices of either “arm of national defense” to war their uniforms, save on special occasions.”

This letter is available on House Divided – while a transcript has not been posted, you can access the page image.

One of the better resources on the website for the Civil War Preservation Trust are the very interesting, informative, and entertaining animated battle maps. Rather than just show the course of a battle through static maps, these flash-based animations such as Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville show highly detailed troop movements while providing all the information necessary to explain the battles. These maps are very useful for visually understanding the course of a battle.

Other maps include Chantilly, Cedar Creek, and Bentonville. All are worth a look.