Knox College’s Lincoln Studies Center has created a podcast series featuring Lincoln scholars and co-directors of the center Rodney Davis and Douglas Wilson. The podcasts give a brief overview of each debate and then commentary and analysis. The podcasts are each no longer than ten minutes in length. Good content for middle school and high school study of the Debates.

Douglas Wilson’s Lincoln’s Sword won 2007’s Lincoln Prize. The book explores the power of Lincoln’s writing and his development as a writer by exploring notes, drafts, and speeches written by the president. The House Divided Project provided copies of this book to teachers attending its June 13th teacher’s workshop at Dickinson College.

At the recent unveiling of the House Divided project, held June 13th at Dickinson College, Pullitzer prize-winning author and Civil War historian Mark Neely spoke on party politics during the 1850s. He also allowed us a brief interview, during which time we were able to get his impression on Sherman’s March to the Sea and its implication as an example of ‘total war.’ While Professor Neely does not agree that the March was ‘total war’ in a modern sense, Sherman used some of the fiercest tactics yet seen during the war. Indeed, Sherman hoped to have the South “…begging for mercy…” at the conclusion of his march.

This History Channel website provides an interactive map, complete with audio and images, detailing the three campaigns of Sherman’s march. Principal battles of the campaigns and other events are explained, and factoid boxes provide information on little known tactics, events or other interesting things about the March to the Sea.

An interesting, thoroughly 21st century tech exploration of this crucial military movement.

I was reading Mark Neely’s The Boundaries of American Political Culture in the Civil War Era and thought the first chapter had a very interesting story that can be used to provoke discussion among students about politics of the 1864 presidential election in comparison to the politics of the 2008 presidential election.
Neely tells the story of Walt Whitman and his return from Washington D.C. to Brooklyn in order to vote. While at a bar, he noticed the barmaid wearing a McClellan pin. He asked the girl about the pin and she said that all the barmaids who worked at this bar supported McClellan and those that didn’t were not tolerated. Whitman describes how this was “one of those places where the air is full of scent of low thievery, foul play, & prostitution gangrened”*–not a place one would expect much political involvement. Neely uses this anecdote to introduce his point about the high level of involvement of the general public in politics during the Civil War Era.

Some points to take away in order to lead a discussion among students include the fact that barmaids would be so involved in politics when they did not have the right to vote and how that reflects the prevalence of politics on all levels of society. How does this compare to the current election?

There are several points made just even in this first chapter that present a range of ideas and points that can easily create a discussion among students. Neely will be presenting at the House Divided workshop on Friday, June 13 on the Politics of the 1850’s. Look on A House Divided YouTube Channel for an interview of Neely from this workshop.

*Mark E. Neely Jr., The Boundaries of American Political Culture in the Civil War Era (Chapel Hill:The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 2.

The Smithsonian Institute presents an online review of its Civil War collections at its CivilWar@Smithsonian website. The site contains a number of smaller pages offering brief over views and accompanying images. The topics covered range from Slavery & Abolition to Life & Culture of the period. Images include portraits of important characters in each topic, photographs of artifacts, and postage stamps from the Confederacy. Drawings and paintings by Winslow Homer are also included, many of these depicting the Civil War from the battlefront. A sampling of Matthew Brady’s photography is also included. This includes images of the major players of the Civil War and other popular characters of the day.

Certainly a useful site for further illustrating the Civil War era. A virtual field trip to the Smithsonian Institute’s Civil War collections.

The U.S. National Park Service has a wealth of information on some of the key battlefields of the Civil War. Not least among them is Gettysburg, located nearby Dickinson College in Adams County, PA. Along with pages discussing the battlefield itself, the National Park Service features a web exhibit of the day-to-day life of Civil War soldiers. The site includes definitions of some Civil War era military terms and brief descriptions of what soldiers of the time would have experienced during their long encampments. Most interesting are the image galleries included in the site. These are contemporary, high quality digital images of artifacts related to encampment life. Among these artifacts are game boards, musical instruments, diaries, letters, and personal photographs. Certainly a site worth checking out!

Kansas Historical Society has a very comprehensive site that categorizes major events in Kansas history into easily browsed sections. Some of the topics include Civil War and “Bleeding Kansas.” In addition to a search engine the website provides articles and images on the topic pages. This would be a good resource for an expansion on several aspects of the House Divided site. Kansas Historical society website also has a section for teachers.