Harriet Tubman Warns "Kill the Snake Before It Kills You" (with text supports)
Harriet Tubman was among the best known conductors of the Underground Railroad, a network of enslaved people, free blacks, and white sympathizers that assisted thousands of runaway slaves escape north. During the Civil War, Tubman offered her [...]
A Runaway Slave Predicts "Freedom Will Reign" (with text supports)
During the Civil War, John Boston took advantage of the nearby presence of Union troops to runaway. But in this case, Boston had run into a Union camp in Maryland, a slave state fighting on the side of the Union. This meant that the regiment from [...]
Analysis Worksheet: Harriet Tubman Warns "Kill the Snake Before It Kills You"
This worksheet helps students analyze a letter in which Lydia Maria Child describes Harriet Tubman's vivid allegory about the necessity of destroying slavery during the Civil War.
Active Viewing: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided
PBS American Experience’s Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided is a 6 episode mini-series available as a 3 DVD set. The following activity focuses on the causes and consequences of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation through an active [...]
"In Defense of My Race and Country": African-American Soldiers on Why They Are Fighting
In this activity students read three letters written by African-American soldiers during the Civil War to determine why black soldiers felt compelled to join the Union Army.
Running for Freedom: The Fugitive Slave Law and the Coming of the Civil War
This activity compares a runaway slave ad and an abolitionist poster to explore the causes and effects of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. The law changed how many northerners viewed slavery and intensified conflicts that brought the nation closer to [...]
What This Cruel War Was Over: Slavery and the Civil War
In this activity students will examine how attitudes towards slavery and the Civil War changed between 1860 and 1865. What began in the minds of President Lincoln and most northerners as a war to preserve the union changed, over the course of the [...]
Before-and-After Photograph of an African-American Union Recruit
This Civil War photograph shows Private Hubbard Pryor, an escaped slave from Georgia, before and after his enlistment in the 44th U.S. Colored Troops, a Union Army regiment of African-American soldiers. Congress passed legislation allowing some [...]
Map of Free and Slave States in 1856
This map identifies which states and territories of the United States allowed slavery and which did not in 1856, five years before the start of the Civil War. The slaveholding border states included Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and [...]
Background Essay on Why They Fought
This essay explores the motivations of soldiers on both sides of the U.S. Civil War.