Classroom Documents

Here are a series of primary source document sets from the Civil War era in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley, provided courtesy of the House Divided Project at Dickinson College, designed especially for instructional use with Common Core standards.

Confederate Invasion (1863)

A series of newspaper articles from the period help capture what was for most Cumberland Valley residents the most terrifying moment of the Civil War –the Confederate invasion of the region in the summer of 1863.

Local Families (Cumberland Valley)

This set of personal letters and local newspaper articles can help introduce students to the immense pressures each family experienced during the wartime period.

Dickinson College (Carlisle)

Letters and recollections from college students who participated in the Civil War or experienced the Confederate invasion of Carlisle –and who lived to tell about it.

Lincoln Cemetery (Carlisle)

Nineteenth-century newspaper articles that help detail the story of a local cemetery for black soldiers that was abandoned and redeveloped, but whose story is well worth remembering.