Civil War 150

[ABCDE]

Volume 10, Issue 3 Civil War 150

The question is simply this: can a negro whose

ancestors were imported into this country and

sold as slaves become a member of the political

community formed and brought into existence by

the Constitution of the United States, and

as such become entitled to all the rights, and

privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that

instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is

the privilege of suing in a court of the United

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program A Word About Civil War 150 Lesson: As the United States The Washington Post in its special section, Prelude to War: commemorates the sesquicentennial The Election of Abraham Lincoln, covers aspects of America in of the Civil War, reflection on its the mid-1800s and current attitudes and commemorations of causes and consequences, people and the Civil War. This is the first of periodic Post special Civil War events involved, and impact on culture, 150 issues that will examine the sesquicentennial. technology, economy, and legal and social dimensions of the nation takes place. Activities in this guide focus on material in the November Level: Low to high 2010 and April 2011 Civil War issues and February 2004 Subjects: History, Government INSIDE guide. They are interdisciplinary and appropriate Related Activity: Journalism, English, Business, Economics and Art for many grade levels. The February 2004 guide, part of the illustrated history of D.C. series, gives a real sense of the city before and during the Civil War with special attention to maps, fortifications and the causes of the war. The April 2011 special issue will focus on Fort Sumter and the outbreak of war. In addition to selected reprints from The Washington Post, this guide provides resources, vocabulary, study questions and a wide variety of suggested activities: a Lincoln quiz, personality and technology research projects, and a business-related advertising study. One project combines the research of Civil War personalities, creation of timelines and sending tweets. A reminder to Post INSIDE program teachers: If you plan to use articles in this guide in the e-Replica format more than three months after their publication date, remember to bookmark them. “Design an Event Ad” in this guide give students practice in using the Search and Thumbnail features of the e-Replica Edition.

NIE Online Guide Editor — Carol Lange Art Editor — Carol Porter

Available Online All Washington Post NIE guides may be downloaded at www. washpost.com/nie.

Send comments about this guide to: ABOUT THE COVER: Photo collage by Carol Porter. Sources: Mathew B. Margaret Kaplow, Educational Services Brady Studio photographs, text from Justice Taney majority opinion, Manager, [email protected] Scott v. Sandford

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Post Resources Civil War 150 www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/ The Washington Post’s ongoing coverage of the 150th anniversary of the artsandliving/civilwar/ Civil War began on Sunday, November 7, 2010, with a special section: Civil War 150 “Prelude to War: The Election of Abraham Lincoln.” In April 2011, The Post’s ongoing coverage of the 150th a second special edition reports as shots are fired at Fort Sumter. anniversary. Essays, graphics, photographs, Activities in this guide are provided for use with the articles reproduced book reviews and video interviews. “A in these guides and online Post coverage (www.washingtonpost.com/ House Divided” blog focuses on news civilwar) as well as with future coverage. and issues of importance to Civil War enthusiasts; a Review Sidebars Additional activities and articles panel of respected Teachers are urged to review the relating to President Lincoln are experts debate and resources listed in the sidebars of found in The Post’s INSIDE January dissect historical this guide. They supplement and 2009 guide that focuses on Lincoln issues and explore enrich the material and activities and his legacy. new concepts. found in this guide. “Timeline: The Road Develop Vocabulary to Civil War” is well Use Post Resources The “Timely Diction” sidebar lists illustrated. Tweets Teachers are encouraged to review some of the terms used to express appear daily and the the material in the February 24, divisions of time. Teachers may calendar of events 2004, online guide, “Civil War and review these terms, ask students is updated weekly. the Capital City.” Many of them to use the terms in sentences that can be used with your Civil War relate to specific anniversaries, and study. Rather than repeat lesson assign students the terms to add the suggestions, sidebar resources, etymology. What other words share www.washpost.com/nie handouts and activities, we have the same root? Civil War and the Capital City provided new resources, activities Additional vocabulary can be Under Lesson Plans skim to February 24, and articles in this guide. drawn from the Post articles that 2004, to download this guide. Part of “The A crossword puzzle, “Civil War are reprinted. Unboring Illustrated True Story of the Story,” appears on pages 18 and 19. Washington Area from 1600 to Right Now” The “Map It” activity on page Get Acquainted series, this guide focuses on the Civil War 9 focuses on the ring of forts that Post writer Michael Ruane era. Sidebars provide diverse resources: local were built to protect Washington, compiled short introductions to places to visit, books to read and online D.C. This activity may be done in nine individuals who were known sites. War background is provided by a conjunction with the April 2011 during the Civil War in “Where Q&A, timeline and special issue of The Post that focuses they were then.” This could be used reprints of The on Fort Sumter. “Capital in Crisis” to introduce the idea of certain Post’s “Washington on pages 16 and 17 offers additional days or spans in time having more at War” pages. map reading opportunities. significance then and now as well as Activities include individuals who rise to prominence a crossword puzzle, Take a Quiz to represent different ideas, issues map exercises, “How well do you know Abe?” or causes. “One Day in the is reproduced to test students’ “Who Were They and What Civil War,” an knowledge of the 16th president. John Were They Doing?” is a research- introduction to Kelly’s quiz may also be taken online based activity. The first questions Frederick Douglass (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ get students to think about people and a November 1863 news story reporting content/graphic/2010/10/28/ who they perceive as being more Lincoln’s Gettysburg cemetery dedication GR2010102804045.html) with significant in different fields now speech. immediate feedback. Answers to the quiz are on page 7 of this guide. continued on page 4

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 3 presidential campaign of 1860 to Civil War Resources write an editorial. and to interview people to learn www.fordstheatre.org/home what they recall about different Talk Technology Learning at Ford’s Theatre turning points in recent history. The Civil War brought technological President Lincoln’s presidency and death Teachers could then assign advancement and invention in a exploration individuals or pairs of students number of areas. Use “Civil War to research the lives of the people Technology” for this activity. www.virginiacivilwar.org/ listed. These individuals represent Students are asked to reflect on Virginia Civil War different points of view, professions, previous military engagements “Understanding Our Past, Embracing Our and areas of involvement in the Civil (Revolutionary War, War of 1812 Future,” Virginia’s Civil War site includes War. “Where they were then” could and Mexican War of 1846-48). “Today in Civil War History,” Civil War 150 be used as examples of the kind of What weapons were used? How was Legacy Project, and statewide events information to seek or the starting combat conducted? In what ways point for research of nine of the was engagement and communication www.visitmaryland.org/Pages/ people listed. of outcomes influenced by the CivilWar.aspx technology that existed? Civil War Meet the Press If the Civil War was the “first History and heritage driving tours and Pages 13 and 14 of the February modern war,” what distinguished events 2004 NIE guide provides an activity it? Nine categories are listed for using a Nov. 20, 1863, news article. research. Students could be http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/ The Evening Star reports President grouped, especially in the areas of cwphome.html Abraham Lincoln’s speech for “the “naval vessels” and “weaponry,” to Selected Civil War Photographs dedication of the Cemetery for the conduct research. Students who are Library of Congress online collection and brave soldiers who were slain in the researching medical issues might case studies, “Does the Camera Ever Lie?” battle of Gettysburg.” The activity find Sickles’ leg (http://nmhm. might be used in conjunction with washingtondc.museum/explore/ www.nps.gov/civilwar/ the following activity. anatifacts/2_sickles.html) an Forging a More Perfect Union Give students “Newspapers interesting starting point. Official National Park Service Civil War react to Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 A parent or member of your site: special events, exhibitions, resources presidential win” found in this guide. community who has expertise in one for teachers and students, lesson plans In modern journalism, opinion is of these areas might be an interview developed by education specialists at expected to appear in editorials, source or be a guest speaker. national parks where the Civil War is a columns and letters to the editor — After students have completed primary theme not in news articles. News pieces their research, they might be asked that are labeled “analysis” provide to write a paper, create a school www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/ reasoned and logical appraisal of display, conduct a symposium Civil War Soldiers & Sailors actions and situations. Reading the or series of panel discussions, or Lesson plans and resources opening paragraphs of the selected produce a class Web site. news articles from November 1860, If your school will be involved on www.civilwar.vt.edu/ it is clear that opinion was stated. different levels of commemoration Virginia Center for Civil War Studies As students read each selection, of the Civil War over the next four Housed at Virginia Tech, collections, they may be asked to do a close years, a separate section on the programs and projects, teacher institute, reading and answer a series of school’s Web site might be used for and links to Civil War resources; “Virginia questions. Give students “Press different projects. in the Civil War” DVD Reaction to Lincoln’s Win.” The last Parents of your students may be activity asks students to take their members of military service who knowledge of geographic differences, could discuss the use of technology the clues they have from the selected in today’s combat. To what extent newspapers and their understanding of the issues at the time of the continued on page 5

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 4 tourist opportunities and events that Issues and Actions are related to the Civil War. Use are Civil War technologies still used? “Design an Event Ad” handout to www.nationalgeographic.com/ How have they been improved and guide this project. railroad/index.html what has taken their place? After students have completed the The Underground Railroad worksheet, discuss their answers. Interactive journey allows students to Speak About Speeches Did one ad more than any other make decisions as they learn about the Included in this guide is Sally receive positive feedback? What people and places of the Underground Jenkins’ article “The Speech that qualities did the top responses share? Railroad Sold Candidate Lincoln.” She takes What made the least appealing ad(s) readers to the Cooper Union in so easy to overlook? www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/ New York in February 1860. Have Teachers, note that the final project narrative.html students note the sources that is not included in this handout. This Brotherly Love Jenkins lists at the end of the article. allows you to assign the end product Part 3 of the four-part PBS series, Discuss with students how this is that best meets your goals. Africans in America. Includes narrative, similar to a research-based essay The final project could be art- maps and Teacher’s Guides. Also, use part and what it reveals of the reporter’s and English-related. Students are to 4, “Judgement Day.” preparation to write this piece. design a print advertisement for an “Questions for Consideration: upcoming event. Use the Events and http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/ The Speech That Sold Candidate Commemorations listing printed in almintr.html Lincoln” is provided as a study guide The Post section or go online (www. Emancipation Proclamation for use with Jenkins’ article. washingtonpost.com/civilwar) to History, timeline and drafts of the You may set up this article or the Going Out Guide: Civil War document Lincoln’s later inaugural speech with Events to locate “customers.” this question: What does a president Broadcast teachers could vary www.freedmensbureau.com/ attempt to convey in his first speech this assignment by asking students The Freedmen’s Bureau Online as president? to prepare 30-second PSAs Established March 3, 1865, this Bureau View the swearing in of Barack or commercials for one of these supervised all relief and educational Obama at the 44th president and Civil War-related events. Web or activities relating to refugees and his speech or read the full transcript digital journalism and photography freedmen; thousands of reports and (www.washingtonpost.com/ students could be assigned an records to explore and links wp-srv/politics/inauguration/ online advertisement or slideshow address/). Compare and contrast to promote one of the events. www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/pdf/civil.pdf this speech to Abraham Lincoln’s Medicine of the Civil War first Inaugural Address given on Explore a For-Profit Based on an exhibit at the National March 4, 1861 (www.bartleby. History-Related Business Library of Medicine com/124/pres31.html). Both newly Economics students could be elected presidents faced war begun grouped to form companies to www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/ in the previous presidency, economic take advantage of the 150-year civil-war/prisoners.html uncertainty and divisions within the celebrations. For what clientele Civil War Prisoners of War country’s citizens. (Teachers may or interest might they focus their Records in the National Archives include also refer to The Post’s INSIDE product? What products would be records of prisoners held in Confederate January 2009 guide that focuses on needed? Students should conduct a and Union prisons Lincoln and his legacy.) market analysis and write a business plan. Design an Event Ad For example, Civil War In this activity, students practice reenactments will be conducted in their online search skills using many locations in the next four years. the e-Replica search feature and Who is involved in the reenactments? thumbnails. Students then review and evaluate advertisements for continued on page 6

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 5 battlefield scenes, is considered the Civil War Poster for You father of modern photojournalism. Who attends these reenactments? Photography, journalism and What products do these two groups history students can benefit from need? What is already available? this introduction to Brady and his What new product or service might work. their company provide? Teachers might invite a re-enactor, Read and Create a Timeline perhaps someone from your school The first section of The Road to community, to your class. Conduct War illustrated Timeline is used on an interview to learn more about page 20, accompanying the “The the person’s involvement, the events speech that sold Candidate Lincoln” in which he or she participates and article. The entire timeline appears the products that are needed for a on pages 28 to 33 in this guide. successful day. Read the timeline with students. Questions for discussion might Consider Causes include: The foundation question for this • Note that each entry does not activity is “What was the cause have the year indicated. How do of the Civil War?” Give students student know the year? “Emancipating the narrative” to • What kind of information is read. The article can be used for provided in the text of each discussion and a springboard to entry? Before the Civil War was history, it was study: • In what ways do the illustrations front page news. Teachers can get a FREE • The role of leaders in defining enhance the information provided copy of the Newseum poster, featuring themes and structuring in the timeline? a Virginia battlefield map from an 1861 commemorations; • A timeline cannot provide all edition of the New York Herald. On the • The influence of personal events that take place. Do the back, you’ll find a lesson plan for using background, education and events and individuals included the map in your classroom. To receive culture in forming one’s in this timeline give a balanced your poster, e-mail your name, school and philosophy; picture of the “prelude to war”? mailing address to educationprograms@ • Theories about the causes of • What additional information newseum.org with “Civil War Poster” in secession and the Civil War; would be helpful to better the subject line. • Use of primary documents understand what happened in this such as secession documents, time period? The Newseum is a perfect destination newspapers of the time period Teachers could use the timeline for classes studying the Civil War. See and correspondence of leaders for different purposes. For example, artifacts that bring the conflict to life, and citizens in different students may create a parallel including The 1860 Charleston Mercury geographic areas; timeline on an assigned topic. extra edition famously revealing “The • The influence of contemporary Students might add commentary and Union Is Dissolved.” society on interpreting history. questions they have about the events and individuals in each section. Remember, D.C. metro-area school groups Students could be assigned to get in for free, thanks to WTOP and Meet Mathew Brady create a timeline for the Civil War The Washington Post! The Newseum “The photographer who went personality they are researching. See also offers Civil War-focused professional to war” is reprinted in this guide “Who Were They and What They development workshops for teachers. illustrated with some of Mathew Were Doing” activity. Brady’s work. Brady, who was the For more information on field trips or first photographer to document professional development workshops, continued on page 7 visit the Newseum’s website or call 202.292.6650.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 6 After your students have begun Timely Diction following the Post tweets, they Tweet It should have an understanding that Annual One year Imagine no more what people accuracy and context are essential. Bicentennial 200 years would have known if Twitter had These are the words used, on the Biennial Two years existed 150 years ago. Follow The day that events took place. Centennial 100 years Washington Post’s daily tweets to If teachers are looking for an Decennial 10 years step back in time today. Tweets are educational use of Twitter, read on. Dodranscentennial 75 years drawn from letters, news articles, See “Who Were They and What Nonacentennial 900 years and speeches. They Were Doing” activity to Octocentennial 800 years There are several entry points assign individuals to research. Have Quadricentennial 400 years to access the daily tweets. On the students tweet from the perspective Quinquennial Five years Post’s Civil War Web site: of the people they have researched Septcentennial 700 years ■ http://www.washingtonpost. and documents they have accessed. Sesquicentennial 150 years com/civilwar For the individuals that are appearing Sestercentennial 250 years regularly in The Post tweets, teachers Sexcentennial 600 years By selecting “Follow us” on The might add news sources to be read in Triennial Three years Post’s Civil War page, visitors online archives. gather background information: As students do the research, Study Etymology ■ http://voices.washingtonpost. they are to create a timeline for Knowing the etymology of the parts of a com/house-divided/2010/12/ each individual. For the “Tweet It” word can help students to determine a word’s tweeting_the_war.html application, they need to record, meaning. Begin with the root of “annual” and On Twitter: the situation, date and exact words. the meaning of “cent.” The words “triennial” ■ http://twitter.com/civilwarwp/ Teachers will need to create a class and “centennial” should now be easier to tweeting-the-civil-war schedule for tweets: the days on define. which students have a message or Storify is used to compile the top information to tweet about or by Discuss the following etymologies tweets of the week in chronological their assigned personality. Be sure with students: order. Links take visitors to that students have accurate dates for supplemental material. which to tweet. de, from + quadrans, quarter = Students are able to access the Use the blog in which a panel de-quadrans, “whole unit less a quarter” tweets in the classroom through The of Civil War experts will answer a Post Web site where teachers may question every week. sesqui-, one and a half + centennial, 100 years guide discussion or individually on their cell phones. continued on page 8 sesterius = semis, halfway + tertius, third

ANSWERS. “ How well do you know Abe?”

1. b, Kentucky; 12. a, Because a little girl 2. c, Republican; wrote him saying his face 3. d, The Wind From the West; looked too thin without it 4. a, John Wilkes Booth 13. a, Slaves in rebel-held 5. b, Mary Todd Lincoln territory 6. d, A national cemetery 14. b, His second inaugural 7. d, Our American Cousin address 8. b, “Thus always to tyrants” 15. b, U.S. Senate from Illinois; 9. a, Hannibal Hamlin Douglas won 10. b, Fort Stevens in 16. d, McClellan was his Washington opponent in 1864 11. c, A device to raise boats off sandbars

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

continued from page 8 would be its impact on American Two Amendments society? Study the Thirteenth Amendment The Corwin Amendment, which http://13thamendment.harpweek. Both the February 24, 2004, guide has been described as one of the com/HubPages/CommentaryPage. and this guide provide activities to great evil acts of the nation, was asp?Commentary=02CorwinAmend study the constitutional amendment reported to the full House on January Corwin Amendment process through examination of the 21, 1861. The general assemblies of Thirteenth Amendment. two states — Ohio and Maryland www.lib.niu.edu/2006/ih060934.html “Law and Order — Getting Out — ratified the amendment. Post Abraham Lincoln and the Corwin Amendment of Slavery: From Dred Scott to the writer Philip Kennicott in a review of Thirteenth Amendment” on page the National Archives’ “Discovering www.ourdocuments.gov/doc. 20 in the 2004 INSIDE guide gives the Civil War” Part Two exhibit, php?flash=old&doc=40 background on the Supreme Court describes the amendment as “a 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: decision, citizens’ response and last act of Southern congressional Abolition of Slavery (1865) actions that lead to the Thirteenth bullying that would have dragged the Amendment. entire United States into slow ruin. http://www.historicaldocuments.co Introduce students to the Although it was never ratified, it has m/13thAmendment.htm Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. the signature of Lincoln’s predecessor, 13th Amendment Overview 393 (1856) decision of the President James Buchanan, the ‘B’ in Supreme Court (http://caselaw. his name curiously misshapen like http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/ lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase. the man’s politics.” constitution/amendment13/ 01.html pl?court=US&vol=60&invol=393). The actual 13th Amendment was 13th Amendment Background • What was the situation and passed by Congress on January 31, political climate that lead to this 1865, and ratified on December 6, Corwin Amendment case reaching the Supreme Court? 1865. Provide students with some No amendment shall be made to the • What was the basic question background on the writers of this Constitution which will authorize or give to to be answered by the Court’s amendment. Congress the power to abolish or interfere, decision? • What is the purpose of this within any State, with the domestic • Summarize the Court’s majority amendment? [The 13th institutions thereof, including that of opinion. Amendment forever banned persons held to labor or service by the laws Provide students with a copy of slavery in the United States.] of said State. the Corwin Amendment. Read and • Identify key words and phrases. discuss the amendment. Questions Why are these significant or Amendment XIII might include: revealing of the attitude of the Section 1. • Briefly discuss the Crittenden amendment’s writers? Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, plan and the Washington Peace [The actual 13th Amendment, except as a punishment for crime whereof Convention. handwritten, is striking because the party shall have been duly convicted, • What is the purpose of the it uses the word “slavery,” shall exist within the United States, or any Corwin Amendment? as opposed to the Orwellian place subject to their jurisdiction. [The Corwin Amendment to language found in the Corwin the Constitution would have Amendment (echoing the original guaranteed the right of slavery Constitution): “persons held to in perpetuity and foreclosed labor or service.”] the possibility of any other • With the passage of this amendments abolishing it.] amendment to the U.S. • Identify key words and phrases. Constitution, what was its Why are these significant or immediate impact on American revealing of the attitude of the society? amendment’s writers? • What is the legacy of the 13th • If this amendment to the U.S. Amendment for today’s society? ■ Constitution had passed, what

Aside from George Washington, no president’s name or image is as pervasive as Abraham Lincoln’s. His face is on the penny and the $5 bill. His name graces countless schools across the country. And the Lincoln Memorial is a Washington landmark. Test your knowledge of the 16th president of the United States.

1. In which state was Lincoln born? 10. During the Civil War, Lincoln came under enemy fire. Where? a. Illinois a. Antietam, Maryland b. Kentucky b. Fort Stevens, Washington, D.C. c. Indiana c. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania d. Kansas Territory d. Bull Run, Virginia 2. From which party was Lincoln elected president? 11. Lincoln is the only president to hold a U.S. patent. What did a. Whig he invent? b. Democratic a. A hat with built-in ventilation c. Republican b. A method of separating peanuts from their shells d. Know Nothing c. A device to raise boats off of sandbars 3. Which one of these was not a Lincoln nickname? d. A quieter tractor clutch a. Honest Abe 12. Why did Lincoln grow a beard? b. The Railsplitter a. Because a little girl wrote him saying his face looked too c. The Great Emancipator thin without it d. The Wind From the West b. Because of his religion 4. Who assassinated Lincoln? c. To hide smallpox scars a. John Wilkes Booth d. To more closely resemble Paul Bunyon b. Frederick Law Olmsted 13. The Emancipation Proclamation freed only certain slaves. c. Lee Harvey Oswald Which ones? d. Charles Julius Guiteau a. Slaves in rebel-held territory 5. What was the name of Lincoln’s wife? b. Slaves born in the United States a. Sarah Jane Lincoln c. Slaves who took up arms against the Confederacy b. Mary Todd Lincoln d. Slaves who swore allegiance to Lincoln c. Dolley Sue Lincoln 14. These words are chiseled on the wall of the Lincoln d. Hillary Rodham Lincoln Memorial: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; 6. Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, something. What was it? let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the a. A post office nation’s wounds ….” b. A Union submarine In which speech did Lincoln say this? c. A hospital for free blacks a. Cooper Union Address d. A national cemetery b. His second inaugural address c. The first Lincoln-Douglas debate 7. What play were the Lincolns attending at Ford’s Theatre the d. Gettysburg Address night of the assassination? a. Julius Caesar 15. Some of the most famous campaign speeches ever given were during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. What office were b. Capt. Jack’s Medicine Show of 1865 the candidates contesting and who won? c. Esmerelda, or The Turk on His Island a. Mayor of Springfield, Illinois; Lincoln d. Our American Cousin b. U.S. Senate from Illinois; Douglas 8. After shooting Abraham Lincoln, his assassin shouted “sic c. Kentucky state legislature; Douglas semper tyrannis.” What does that mean? d. Presidency; Lincoln a. “The sickness is expunged” 16. Which ones of these men was not an opponent of Lincoln’s in b. “Thus always to tyrants” the presidential election of 1860? c. “Dinosaurs must be killed” a. John Breckinridge d. “The South will rise again” b. Stephen Douglas 9. Which of these men was Lincoln’s vice president? c. John Bell a. Hannibal Hamlin d. George B. McClellan b. James Buchanan c. Andrew Johnson d. Brutus Armstrong

Name ______Date ______Who Were They and What Were They Doing? Each generation has its significant moment to remember and individuals who standout. When asked, people are likely to immediately recall where they were and what they were doing at those times — if not what they were thinking. They can also recall the people who were involved.

1. December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” has special significance to the World War II generation while December 8, 1980, has associations to Beatles fans. Ask people of different ages to recall their memories of significant days. Possible questions include: What were you doing when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Where were you on 9-11, 2001? What do you remember about Inaugural Day 2001 or Inaugural Day 2009?

2. Who are the people to remember this year in your personal life? In politics? In the arts? In athletics? In the military?

3. What is the most significant event of the last five years to you?

4. As the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War is observed, get to know the people who were involved in different aspects of American life and the war. Do some research. Learn enough about one of the following individuals to be able to answer the questions:

• “Who are you?” • “Where were you in 1860?” • “What were you doing during the Civil War?” • “What are your views on secession, causes of the war and the impact of the war?

Louisa May Alcott Stephen Douglas Abraham Lincoln Army Maj. Robert Anderson Frederick Douglass Herman Melville Susan B. Anthony Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth John Singleton Mosby Clara Barton Antonia Ford Rose O’Neal Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard Thomas Garrett South Carolinian Francis Pickens John Bell Alexander Gardner William Tecumseh Sherman John Wilkes Booth Ulysses S. Grant William Still Belle Boyd Jed Hotchkiss Harriett Beecher Stowe Mathew Brady Julia Ward Howe Harriet Tubman John Breckinridge Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson Walt Whitman James Buchanan Elizabeth Keckly Jefferson Davis Robert E. Lee Civil War Technology Some historians call the American Civil War the first modern war because of the range of technology that was utilized. Some were improvements on existing technology and others were new inventions.

Reflect on what you know about the conduct of confrontation in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War of 1846-48. How was information about encounters and outcomes conveyed?

Research one of the following categories to determine what existed before 1860 and what was developed during the Civil War.

1. Aerial reconnaissance 2. Cartography 3. Medicine 4. Naval vessels Ships Submarines 5. Photography 6. Preservation of foods

MATHEW B. BRADY B. BRADY MATHEW 7. Railroads Ambulance train near Harewood Hospital, D.C. 8. Telegraph communication 9. Weaponry Artillery and guns Canons Topedoes

Be able to answer the following questions as they apply to your research area. HAMILTON U NTY CO LIBRARY HAMILTON Ironclad USS Eastport ran aground in La. • Why is each considered an advancement in technology? • What is its influence on the direction of conflicts? • How did its advancement or creation impact humans?

FRANCES TREVELYAN MILLER COLLECTION FRANCES TREVELYAN Trestle bridge across Potomac Creek. LIBRARY OF LIBRARY CONGRESS Unknown location. 12-pdr. Napoleon canon. Name ______Date ______

Questions for Consideration “The Speech that Sold Candidate Lincoln”

1. Why had Lincoln been invited to New York City to speak at the Cooper Union?

2. What did Lincoln need to accomplish at this event?

3. Explain the legislation that influenced the founding of the Republican Party in 1854.

4. In what ways would the abolition of slavery impact the economy of the southern states?

5. How can today’s readers be sure of what Lincoln said at the Cooper Union event?

6. Summarize events that took place at the Democratic party nominating convention a month after the Cooper Union speech.

7. The frontrunner going into the Republican party nominating convention in Chicago was William Seward. What stands did he take?

8. As Lincoln challenged Seward for the party nomination, what were his stands?

9. Lincoln did not give campaign speeches. Douglas gave “two to three speeches a day” in the later part of the campaign. What did Douglas hope to gain through his appearances in the South?

10. In Illinois, Lincoln learned the election results by telegraph. Was his a major victory? Explain your answer. Name ______Date ______

Inside e-Replica

Design an Event Ad | Use the Thumbnails As significant milestones are reached, organizations, Inside businesses e-Replica and civics groups plan events to celebrate. Nationally important anniversaries are often commemorated by events planned by government departments and the National Park Service. Some of these are commercial endeavors while others are free to the public. Do a search of The Washington Post’s e-Replica Inside issues to e-Replica locate the special sections that focus on the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. The first of these, “Prelude to War,” was published November 7, 2010.

1. After locating the Civil War section, use the thumbnail bar to scroll through the pages of the section. Identify all pages with advertisements. List the ads by page number. Indicate the product or event and word or phrases that grab your attention. The kind of information that is provided would include highlights of activities, location and contact information. Your chart would look like this:

Page Event/Product Art/Photograph Key Words Kind of Information

2. Are all the advertisements in this section, related to the Civil War anniversary? Why do you think that is?

3. Take a closer look at the visual elements. When you select your response to the following, provide a short statement that tells why you selected each ad.

Best use of a photograph

Best use of artwork

Best headline (give the headline)

Best use of typography

Least likely to draw reader to the advertisement

The place or event I would most want to visit based on the advertisement is … Name ______Date ______

Press Reaction to Lincoln’s Win

Read “Newspapers react to Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 presidential win,” excerpts from the beginnings or ledes of six news articles. These were printed in a three-day span, November 7-9, 1860.

1. As you read each excerpt, summarize the main idea.

2. In each excerpt, underline words and phrases that indicate the opinion of the writer.

3. In what way is the geographic location of the newspaper reflected in the point of view expressed?

Stephen Douglas John Bell John Breckinridge Abraham Lincoln

4. Compare and contrast the views of the future provided in the New Orleans and New York newspapers.

5. The Mississippi newspaper refers to Lincoln and Hamlin as “avowed abolitionists,” “both bigoted, unscrupulous and cold-blooded enemies of the peace and equality of the slave-holding states ….” Are there any specific actions or words of Lincoln or Hamlin to support or refute this point of view?

6. Who do you think is the “one of the pair strongly marked with the blood of his negro ancestry”? The Semi- Weekly Mississippian uses what kind of fallacy of logic?

7. Select one of the states or territories that existed in Fall 1860. Pretend you are an editorial writer for a newspaper in that jurisdiction. Write an editorial expressing how you think the election results will influence your readers. Volume 8, Issue 2

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Newspapers react to Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 presidential win

•The Kansas Chief (White Cloud, Kan.) Thursday, Nov. 8, 1860

WHOOP-EE President, ABRAHAM LINCOLN Vice President, HANNIBAL HAMLIN THE MILLENIUM COME!

We have the glorious tidings to proclaim, that Lincoln and Hamlin are our next President and Vice President, by overwhelming majorities. They have carried every Free State this side of the Rocky Mountains, except, perhaps, New Jersey, where the vote is close. Front pages from The Daily Spy, above left, and The Courier, right, reflect different Douglas will probably carry “nary one!” points of view on the election of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president. •Richmond Dispatch those Southern extremists to be driven from power without Thursday, Nov. 8, 1860 any hope of returning to it; but they will submit to necessity and become less dangerous, for the sentiment of the Southern The Presidential Election. people will constrain them to good behavior. Mr. Lincoln will The returns received and published yesterday left little or no be inaugurated peacefully, and we believe confidently that his doubt of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. administration will reproduce the era of good feeling. Today we publish enough to make it certain. The event is the most deplorable one that has happened in the history of the •The Courier country. The Union may be preserved in spite of it. We think (A New Orleans paper published in English it will; but we are prepared to expect trouble. We have already and French editions) one sign from South Carolina, and this may be followed by Friday, Nov. 9, 1860 others of more serious character. THE CRISIS •The Daily Spy, Worcester, Mass. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the chief magistracy Friday, Nov. 9, 1860 of the country by the hordes of fanatics and negrophilists who have been flocking to his standards since the opening THE DISUNION OUTCRY of the Presidential canvass has awakened throughout the The election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency is the South a spirit of stubborn resistance which it will be found is first triumph of a great political revolution. It does not mean impossible to quell. … evil to any section of the country. It is not only regular and lawful, but is necessary to restore the old spirit and policy of the country, and give peace to the land. It comes hard for continued on page 9

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 15 Stretching out our hands to the South over this victory, we have no word of taunt to utter for the threats of disunion The crisis now impending upon the whole country is a which were raised for our defeat. Let those threats be buried necessary consequence of the abnormal condition into which in oblivion; for through the long vista of this success we see our dearest and most sacred institutions have been plunged by a reign of peace from Slavery agitation, established simply by the success of our avowedly unrelenting enemies. … that circumscribing of Slavery within its local bounds, and that The unmistakable fact stares us in the face that we are now firm defence of the integrity of National Freedom, which this in a state of danger unparalleled in the annals of our history. triumph of the Republican party on the 6th of November, 1860, … Of one thing, however, the whole South may rest assured seals now and henceforth. — that the sons of Louisiana will not remain indifferent spectators of the drama about to be enacted, and if the sword is to be drawn, they will be … found in the vanguard of the •The Semi-Weekly Mississippian Southern phalanx. … Jackson, Miss. Friday, Nov. 9, 1860 •Morning Courier and New York Enquirer Wednesday, Nov. 7, 1860 THE DEED'S DONE — DISUNION THE REMEDY The returns before us indicate the election of ABRAHAM The outrages which abolition fanaticism has continued year LINCOLN President of the United States. The result by year to heap upon the South, have at length culminated in anticipated has become a gratifying reality. … It is enough the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, avowed that the great fact stands out clearly … that LINCOLN is abolitionists, to the presidency and vice presidency — both elected president, and that the principle of intimidation, so bigoted, unscrupulous and cold-blooded enemies of the peace persistently and wickedly brought to bear on this election by and equality of the slaveholding states, and one of the pair Southern extremists and their allies the Northern Democratic strongly marked with the blood of his negro ancestry. … In panic makers, has signally failed. … view of the formal declaration, through the ballot box, of a purpose by the northern states to wield the vast machinery of All honor to freemen of this Republic; congratulations warm the federal Government as now constituted, for destroying the and hearty be theirs, for the great principle of the defence liberties of the slaveholding states, it becomes their duty to of freedom within the free territories of the United States, dissolve their connection with it and establish a separate and to establish which the Republican Party entered upon this independent government of their own. canvass, has its complete vindication in signal victory. … — Compiled by Michael E. Ruane

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Where they were then 1. Ulysses S. Grant The military architect of the Union’s triumph

In 1860, he was a 38-year-old West Point graduate and captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry. But in 1860 he was veteran of the Mexican War, but he had resigned from the stationed in far-off Texas, where he chased bandits and Army six years before, lonely, depressed and alcoholic. A Indians and missed his large family back home at Arlington failed farmer who had once built a house called Hardscrabble, House, across the Potomac from Washington. He was 53, he had lately sold firewood on the streets of St. Louis and believed that his career had stalled and saw himself as a failure. worked as a rent collector. He was now clerking in his father’s leather goods store in Galena, Ill., where he did not 4. Walt Whitman own a horse. The poet of the Civil War

2. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson The former printer and newspaper editor One of the Confederate army’s was 41 and an established writer and most brilliant generals commentator living in Brooklyn. In 1860 the third edition of his book Leaves He was a 36-year-old, deeply religious and of Grass was published, expanded somewhat quarrelsome West Point graduate from 12 poems to more than 150. and Mexican War veteran who had left Drawn by the great cataclysm of the Army to take a job as a professor at his generation, he would soon the Virginia Military Institute. In 1859, move to Washington, minister he led a contingent of VMI cadets to to the wounded and steep provide security at the hanging of himself in the war’s the Harpers Ferry abolitionist John grandeur Brown. Jackson noted that Brown and suffering. behaved with “unflinching firmness.” 5. Frederick 3. Robert E. Lee Douglass The legendary commander of the The renowned Confederacy’s Army of Northern abolitionist and former Virginia Maryland slave

A colonel in the United Age 42 in 1860, he was States Army, he, too, back home in Rochester, was a veteran of the N.Y., after fleeing to Mexican War, in Canada and England in which he had been the wake of John Brown’s wounded. A former doomed raid on Harpers superintendent at Ferry. Brown had West Point, he been Douglass’s friend had led the and confidant and had government forces that continued ON page 18

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

continued from page 17 8. William T. Sherman The hard-driving, red-haired Union general who would written his revolutionary “constitution” in Douglass’s home. conquer Atlanta and help bring the Confederacy Lincoln’s election, Douglass later wrote, was “a glorious to its knees assertion of freedom and independence on the part of North.” He was 40, asthmatic, a West Point graduate and a former Army officer. Ten years before, he had been married 6. Jefferson Davis in Washington in a ceremony attended by President Soon to be the Confederacy’s first and only president Zachary Taylor and Sens. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Unsuccessful in banking and business, he had just gone to In 1860 he was a former secretary of war and a former Louisiana to run a new military academy. His view of the regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and was serving crisis was simple: Secession was treason. as a U.S. senator from Mississippi. A graduate of West Point and a combat- 9. John Wilkes Booth wounded veteran of the Mexican War, President Abraham at 52, he believed in states’ rights but Lincoln’s assassin thought secession would be reckless. Booth, 22, was a new 7. Clara Barton acting sensation and Pioneering battlefield nurse and later a Southern patriot. A head of the Union’s “missing in action” member of an acclaimed bureau family of actors, he was on tour in Alabama on She had suffered a breakdown after Election Day; for the first the loss of her job in the U.S. Patent time, he had leading roles Office. The election of Lincoln, a fellow and was packing theaters. Republican, promised a return to He was also recovering Washington and gainful employment for from an accidental gunshot the 38-year-old Barton. On the eve of wound a few weeks earlier the Battle of Fredericksburg, she would that might have killed him write: “Oh northern mothers, wives and — and changed history. sisters, all unconscious of the hour, would to Heaven that I could bear for — Michael E. Ruane you the concentrated woe which is so soon to follow.”

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program The Speech that Sold Candidate Lincoln

By Sally Jenkins rube. He might be informal, and say “reckon,” but any man who mistook him for simple “would very soon wake up with his • Originally Published November 7, 2010 back in a ditch,” said Lincoln’s friend Leonard Swett. Lincoln The candidate stood uneasily on the rostrum, his black had given his powerful Illinois rival Stephen A. Douglas the suit still creased from the valise he had carried on the three-day political fight of his life in the 1858 Senate election. Douglas train trip from Springfield, Ill. As Abraham Lincoln began the won, but their debates over slavery had vaulted Lincoln to speech intended to launch his presidential campaign, his voice national prominence and brought about his invitation to New was strained and piercing, his accent backwoods. “Mister York. Whoever won the Republican nomination would have to Cheerman,” he said, in a scratchy high face Douglas, known as the Little Giant timbre. It sounded like a chair leg being because he combined diminutive stature dragged across the floor. with great political clout and oratorical Many of the 1,500 members of ability. Douglas was the author of the Northern elite who packed the Cooper nation’s most controversial compromises Union in New York on Feb. 27, 1860, on slavery and the presumptive Democratic were shocked by the “involuntary comical presidential candidate. awkwardness” of the speaker, as the New Slavery was the “living issue of the York Herald put it. Was this the political day,” as Lincoln put it, and the political phenomenon they had heard so much landscape was splintering because of it. about? He was a shambling figure of Every current event seemed to further 6-foot-4 with a concave chest and thin fracture political parties and push men to neck. His sleeves were too short, one leg one side or another; the Supreme Court’s of his trousers rode up, and the left side Dred Scott decision appalled slavery’s of his collar had a tendency to flap. His opponents, while John Brown’s 1859 black hair was disheveled, his gray eyes raid on Harpers Ferry, Va., incensed its melancholy. supporters and frightened its apologists. Lincoln was visibly nervous under the The new Republican Party had been gas chandeliers. This was his crucial test founded on antislavery principles in as a presidential aspirant. In the glittering 1854 as a direct response to the Kansas- audience was every important Republican Nebraska Act. Devised by Douglas that “wire puller” and political operative in same year, the act allowed settlers in the BY MATHEW BRADY COURTESY the Northeast, including William Cullen OF NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY new territories to vote whether to permit Bryant, editor of the New York Evening As an up-and-coming candidate, slavery within their borders. Now some Post, and Horace Greeley, editor of the New Lincoln cut a slightly unpolished Republicans wondered if the party should York Tribune and a founder of the young figure before influential Republican de-emphasize its antislavery values in Party members in New York; ten party, which was barely five years old. The weeks later at the nominating an effort to attract voters. Not Lincoln. Republican nominating convention would convention in Chicago, there was Though he was a comparative moderate be held in Chicago in just 10 weeks, and little doubt about his formidability. who would not abolish slavery where Lincoln’s ability to challenge the polished it already existed, Lincoln believed the front-runner, William H. Seward, depended Republicans must have a man “who does on the impression he made. not hesitate to declare slavery a wrong; First, Lincoln had to convince his listeners that he was “a nor to deal with it as such; who believes in the power and duty finished statesman” like the New Yorker Seward, despite what of Congress to prevent the spread of it.” publisher George H. Putnam called Lincoln’s “weird, rough and The stakes were high. Slaves constituted a larger piece uncultivated” appearance. That proved the easiest challenge. As Lincoln warmed to his subject, it was apparent he was no continued ON page 20

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 19 might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it!” of the American economy in terms of capital than even the Applause broke over him. New York’s largest papers railroads or manufacturing. The richest town per capita in all carried the full text of his words — Lincoln made sure the nation was Natchez, Miss. There were 4 million American they had copies. In just 90 minutes, he had made himself a slaves, the vast majority of them in the South, and a single formidable candidate. field hand was worth anywhere from $1,100 to $1,500 — roughly $75,000 to $135,000 in today’s money. Small wonder Splintered politics Southern barons were so vociferous in defense of the “peculiar A month later, the Democratic convention was held in institution.” Charleston, S.C. It proved to be an unfortunate site for Douglas, Northerners, on the other hand, were proud to be free who was struggling to hold together a badly riven party. The laborers, and mass producers. The two cultures were so Little Giant was doomed by the location. The Deep South saw different that the Charleston Mercury said in 1858 that “the his compromises as too weak in protecting of slavery. Alabama North and South … are not only two peoples, but they are delegates called him “a dodger, double tongued,” and derided rival, hostile Peoples.” him as a “bob-tailed pony from Illinois.” Delegates from seven For Lincoln, the issue was not cultural or economic but Southern states walked out when they lost a bid to have the constitutional. He ticked off facts to his Cooper Union audience: party platform include federal protection of slavery. 23 of the 39 men who signed the Constitution registered With the party impossibly split, Northern Democrats votes reflecting their belief that slavery should be federally reconvened in Baltimore in June and nominated Douglas. The regulated, and eventually extinct. George Washington himself Southern bolters convened a “rump” convention in Richmond. said, “There is no man living who wishes more sincerely than They adopted a “Southern rights” platform and nominated I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it.” In seeking to John Breckinridge of Kentucky, the handsome young sitting contain the spread of slavery, Lincoln implied, he was simply vice president. Breckinridge, a reluctant candidate pushed following the path laid down by the Founders. forward by the fire-eaters, understood he was strictly a His voice mellowed and his eyes brightened. When he sectional choice. “I trust I have the courage to lead a forlorn made an important point, he jabbed a long finger in the air, as hope,” he wrote. if to “dot his ideas on the minds of his hearers.” He mocked In contrast, the Republicans presented a united front Douglas and rebuked those Southerners who would “rule or when they convened in Chicago on May 16. On the floor of ruin” through their threats to secede. In a soaring conclusion, the Wigwam, an immense convention center built for the Lincoln contended that if slavery was wrong, no expediency could justify its spread. “Let us have faith that right makes continued ON page 21

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 20 silence. “I rise, Mr. Chairman, to announce the change of four votes of Ohio from Mr. [Salmon] Chase to Mr. Lincoln.” As occasion, thousands of black stovepipe hats waved, making “a Lincoln went over the top, bedlam broke out. black, mighty swarm -- flying with the velocity of hornets over The general election would be anticlimactic. Joining a mass of human heads,” wrote a correspondent. Although the fragmented field was another third-party candidate, the the silken-mannered Seward remained the favorite to win the impeccably conservative John Bell of Tennessee. Electoral nomination, he was not invincible. He had denounced the math all but predetermined the outcome: Lincoln would win. South as backward, claimed there was a “higher law” than the His victory seemed so safe, in fact, that he did not deliver a Constitution that justified slavery’s removal, and warned of an single speech; his Cooper Union address remained his most “irrepressible conflict.” He thus came off as both radical and significant words of the campaign. negative. By October, even the indefatigable Douglas conceded Lincoln’s handlers, led by Illinois Judge David Davis, defeat. “Lincoln is the next President,” he said. “We must try steadily undermined Seward. They conducted a brilliant to save the Union. I will go South.” The Little Giant spent the propaganda campaign, the emblem of which was the split last months of 1860 traveling across the South, giving two or rail paraded by supporters, which Lincoln purportedly had three speeches a day against the breakup of the government. hewn himself. Lincoln didn’t have Seward’s reputation as an He was slurred, pelted with eggs and threatened with death. extremist, or other flaws either. He seemed to personify the On Election Day, Lincoln sank into an armchair in the new Republican platform, which emphasized self-making and Springfield State House to await the results. About 9 p.m., he upward mobility. It called for protective tariffs, the opening walked to the telegraph office as the decisive returns spat out of federal land for homesteads, and federal sponsorship of a rapidly. Lincoln carried just 39.8 percent of the popular vote transcontinental railroad. The platform opposed the extension and did not gain a single elector in the South. But he carried of slavery but left existing slave owners alone, and condemned 18 of 33 states, all of the free states except New Jersey, for an Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid. For Republicans, Lincoln emerged overwhelming margin in the electoral college, with 180 of 303 as the voice of the middle. possible votes, to just 72 for Breckinridge. Douglas carried Lincoln’s operatives labored all night persuading delegates only Missouri. and striking deals. “Make no contracts that will bind me,” Fifty-four days later, on Dec. 20, 1860, South Carolina Lincoln had instructed. Davis ignored the directive. “Lincoln seceded. ■ ain’t here,” he said. Seward gained a plurality on the first ballot but lacked The information and quotations in this article were taken from: “Battle Cry of Freedom,” by James McPherson; “Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made the 233 votes needed to be nominated. On the second ballot, Abraham Lincoln President,” by Harold Holzer; “The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue Lincoln gained New Hampshire, then all of Vermont. There to Civil War, 1859-1861,” by Allan C. Nevins; “The Civil War Archive, The History was a sudden stricken quiet in the Seward camp. Then several of the Civil War in Documents,” edited by Henry Steele Commager; “Three Against Pennsylvania delegates went for Lincoln. On the third ballot, Lincoln: Murat Halstead Reports the Caucuses of 1860,” edited by William B. the wave crested. A delegate from Ohio rose and cleared Hesseltine; and “Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life,” by William H. his throat, and for a moment the Wigwam lapsed into near Herndon and Jesse William Weik.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program The photographer who went to war Mathew Brady was famous for his portraiture. Then the fighting started.

By Jacqueline Trescott candidate Abraham Lincoln, they took caricatured him as a wild frontiersman. him to Brady’s studio on Broadway in Yet here he was — extremely tall, • Originally Published November 7, 2010 New York City. Brady looked at the standing erect, an imposing gentleman In 1860, Mathew Brady was one of the tall, gangly man with the rugged, clean- in a long frock coat. The Brady photo world’s best-known photographers. shaven face. He pulled up his shirt was used for engravings and reprinted in His book, The Gallery of Illustrious collar so his neck wouldn’t look so long. the major weeklies of the day, Harper’s Americans, published 10 years earlier, He brushed down his hair and placed Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated had made him famous. Those who had his hand on a book. Later, as Brady Newspaper. It also appeared on a sat in his studio and faced the large box developed the photo, he retouched it campaign button. on the wooden tripod included Daniel so Lincoln’s facial lines wouldn’t be so The same day he sat for Brady — Feb. Webster, Edgar Allan Poe and Henry harsh. 27, 1860 — Lincoln gave one of his most Clay. Brady produced a remarkable image. important speeches, the Cooper Union So when Republican operatives wanted At that time most Americans hadn’t the perfect picture of presidential seen Lincoln, and his opponents had continued ON page 23

PHOTO COURTESY OF MATHEW B. BRADY STUDIO Photographer Mathew Brady with members of his studio team Silas Holdmes, H. Hodges, E. T. Whitney and David Woodbury at a military camp in Berlin, Md. Brady was the first photographer to go to a battlefield and document what he found there. As a result, he is widely considered the father of modern photojournalism. He described his decision to step out of the studio into the war as preordained: “My wife and most conservative friends had looked unfavorably upon this departure from commercial business to pictorial war correspondence, and I can only describe the destiny that overuled me by saying that, like Euphorion, I felt I had to go.” 22 December 14, 2010 © 2010 THE WASHINGTON POST COMPANY Volume 8, Issue 2

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued FROM page 22 He operated his studio like a painter’s workshop, assigning colleagues and apprentices to various tasks. Studio personnel address. He spoke 7,000 words to an audience of influential operated the cameras after Brady set up the shot, a practice businessmen, ministers, scholars and journalists. The speech he may have adopted because of the poor eyesight that was front-page news the next day. In an interview years later, had plagued him since childhood. The photographer and very aware of his role in history, the photographer repeated his assistants posed their subjects. They became skilled what Lincoln reportedly said about the confluence: “Brady at injecting personality into the images, much like formal and the Cooper Institute made me president.” portrait painters. Brady was born in Warren County, N.Y., in 1823. As Brady’s artistry was leavened with promotional acumen. As a young man in New York City, he studied photography was the custom of the times, the studio’s photographs were with Samuel Morse. (In addition to inventing the electric reprinted on tiny cards called “cartes de visite,” making his telegraph and Morse code, Morse is credited with bringing work greatly accessible. the daguerreotype process from France to the United States.) “Brady developed a reputation because of his quality and When Brady was introduced to daguerreotypes in the 1840s, his marketing skills,” said Ann M. Shumard, curator of photography was still a new art form and — at a time when photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. “He was a good most newspapers still relied on sketches — an extremely promoter and supplied images that could be reproduced. He uncertain business venture. Nonetheless, Brady opened his adapted to the times.” first photography studio in 1844; by the following year he had won a national competition for the best colored and best plain daguerreotypes. continued ON page 24

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MATHEW B. BRADY STUDIO Sojourner Truth, left, was among the many famous names who sat for portraits by Brady, seen in his own portrait, above right. After the Civil War — and his shift to battlefield photography — the demand for Brady’s work waned.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued FROM page 23 Brady realized early on that the pictures were not mere memorabilia but were footnotes to history. In 1862, he Edward McCarter, supervisory archivist for still pictures at displayed gruesome battlefield scenes taken by his studio the National Archives, concurred. colleagues Alexander Gardner and James Gibson in his New “Brady was the best-known entrepreneur of the day,” York gallery. The images of decaying corpses after the Battle McCarter said. “You might get an argument on whether he of Antietam appalled viewers and galvanized the anti-war was the best photographer.” movement. In 1858, Brady set up a second studio on Pennsylvania After the war, the demand for Brady’s work waned. Avenue in Washington, across the street from the present Photography was changing rapidly, incorporating new location of the National Archives. (He did his printing on equipment and techniques, and the public no longer wanted the roof.) He came to the city seeking greater proximity to the Civil War images for which Brady was best known. A the power brokers of the day, and his subjects included John skilled promoter but an inept businessman, Brady had invested Quincy Adams, Dolley Madison, Washington Irving, James much of his capital in the studio’s war coverage. Ultimately it Fenimore Cooper, Jenny Lind, Sojourner Truth, Thomas J. proved his financial ruin. “Stonewall” Jackson, William Cullen Bryant, Jefferson Davis, In late 1864, Brady began selling off his assets, including Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. He even photographed a half share in his Washington gallery. He sued his business the actor Edwin Booth and his brother John Wilkes Booth. partner when it fell into bankruptcy in 1868, then bought His interest in documenting the era’s notables foreshadowed it back at public auction. But his affairs continued to spiral the art of celebrity portraiture. downward. The courts declared him bankrupt in 1873, and “From the first I regarded myself as under obligation to by 1875 his New York studios were closed. Brady petitioned my country to preserve the faces of the historic men and Congress to buy his collection, which it did, for $25,000, in mothers,” Brady said in a 1891 article in the New York World. 1875. Despite his political associations, he failed to get a (Historians think the interview, one of the few given by hall of prominent Americans — with his work as a critical Brady, is greatly embellished. It also includes a rare physical source — started. His last known Washington address was description of the aging photographer: “Mr. Brady is a person 484 Maryland Ave. SW. of trim, wiry, square-shouldered figure, with the light of an Brady died an indigent in New York on Jan. 15, 1896. His Irish shower-sun in his smile.”) funeral was paid for by friends and a veterans association. He When the Civil War began in 1861, Brady decided to step is buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington. outside the formal setting of his studio. Because he was the Today, Washington is the epicenter of Brady scholarship. The first photographer to actually go to a battlefield and document National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of what he found there, he is widely considered the father of Congress and the National Portrait Gallery — where two walls modern photojournalism. He later attributed his decision to of his work are on permanent display — house thousands of destiny. After he returned from the first Battle of Bull Run, photographs and glass plates that have survived for more than Brady recalled, “My wife and my most conservative friends 150 years. Taken together, they provide a haunting glimpse of had looked unfavorably upon this departure from commercial the city and its nearby battlefields during the Civil War and an business to pictorial war correspondence, and I can only illuminating history of early photography. describe the destiny that overruled me by saying that, like That fateful sitting with Lincoln remains a pivotal departure Euphorion, I felt that I had to go.” point for the study of Brady and the Civil War. Even then, Brady seemed intent on establishing his legacy from the copies of the photo were scarce and quickly became collector’s outset, in some cases even inserting himself into the studio’s items. wartime photographs. In a letter written on April 7, 1860, to a person requesting “He’s in one taken at Gettysburg,” said Carol Johnson, a the Brady photo, Lincoln wrote: “I have not a single one now photography curator for the Library of Congress’s Civil War at my control; but I think you can easily get one at New York. collections. Johnson said her staff still occasionally finds While I was there I was taken to one of the places where they the photographer in the images, particularly as they are get up such things, and I suppose they got my shadow. …Yours digitized. truly, A. Lincoln.” ■

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program In Richmond, a Civil War expert seeks to emancipate history’s narrative

By Fredrick Kunkle Americans have always interpreted the Then came World War II, which Civil War to reflect their times. seemed to teach again that some causes • Originally Published November 7, 2010 In the late 19th century, W.E.B. Dubois are worth dying for. By the time of When the young Edward Ayers left argued that the war, and its enormous the Civil War centennial in 1960, the his Tennessee home for Yale to study death toll, had been a necessary sacrifice war’s legacy had been reshaped by the history, his mama asked him why. “You to end slavery. That view changed struggle for civil rights, with Southerners already know what happened,” she said. after World War I’s horrors encouraged emphasizing the centrality of states’ But history, Ayers already knew, is best revisionists who questioned whether the rights and Northerners the need for understood through the lens of time. Civil War had been unavoidable or worth federal intervention to right an enduring History is always changing. the price. The literary critic Edmund wrong. Now that he’s president of the University Wilson went so far as to compare Lincoln Even this year, when Virginia Gov. of Richmond, he’s become an agent of to Lenin in using violence to reshape the Robert F. McDonnell (R) issued a that change. As a leader of Richmond’s world according to his politics. sesquicentennial commemoration of the continued ON page 26 Civil War, he hopes to reshape America’s understanding of the bloodiest conflict in its history. Ayers wants Americans to see beyond the battlefield maneuvers and battle flags, the pat narratives of brothers reluctantly taking up arms against brothers and the kitsch of Stonewall Jackson bobbleheads, and reimagine the conflict from the perspective of its most important consequence: the emancipation of 4 million slaves. “I am trying to get us to rethink what the war is about, and what we’ve being doing in Richmond is instead of talking of one sesquicentennial, one anniversary, it’s really two: One’s the Civil War, and the other’s Emancipation,” Ayers says, with the faintest drawl. “The main thing that happened, the consequence of the war, was freedom for 4 million people who had been held in bondage for over two centuries in this country.” His broader approach has earned him praise in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederate States of America, but also denunciations from some whose ancestors fought on its behalf. To those JAY PAUL FOR THEWSHINGTON POST who accuse him of politically correct Edward Ayers, a Civil War historian and president of the University of Richmond, is helping to revisionism, Ayers points out that organize anniversary commemorations of the Civil War in the onetime capital of the Confederacy.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued FROM page 25 has examined the conflict in several books and a groundbreaking online proclamation honoring Confederate project called “The Valley of the Shadow: History Month that omitted any Two Communities in the American Civil reference to slavery, the widespread War.” outrage demonstrated once again that Born and raised in the South’s mountain the past is not yet past. After apologizing, culture, he was the son of textile workers McDonnell pledged that from now on who settled in Kingsport, Tenn. Like the the state would commemorate the Civil rest of the South, his town was deeply War in all its complexity, not just the racist and segregated by law. Confederacy. Rock and roll music, and magazines That is almost exactly the approach such as Rolling Stone, opened a window Ayers has championed for Richmond. on the ferment of the broader culture. As a member of the leadership team of He toyed with the idea of becoming a “The Future of Richmond’s Past,” he journalist like Tom Wolfe, but instead, has helped bring together blacks and after a degree in American studies at whites, historians and lay people, to plan the University of Tennessee, headed to events for the next five years. Among postgraduate studies at Yale. the first was last April’s “Civil War and Ayers, who began teaching at the Emancipation Day” which drew 4,000 University of Virginia in 1980, has people to explore the history of slavery written or edited 10 books, including and the Civil War, from the grounds of The Promise of the New South: Life the city’s former slave market to various After Reconstruction, which was a museums in the city. finalist for the National Book Award But Ayers, who often talks of going and the Pulitzer Prize. But he’s hardly against the grain, of resisting the the supercilious scholar of stereotype. smugness that comes of judging dead Chatty, affable and self-deprecating, with people, can also frustrate those who a head full of gray curls, for the last insist that the Civil War was fought couple of years he’s been one of the over slavery alone. He sees slavery as American History Guys on public radio’s the primary cause, but he also wants FRITZ HOFFMAN—NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION “BackStory,” a sort of “Car Talk” for Display at the Museum of the Confederacy in to move beyond the notion that the Richmond, Va., the former Confederate capital. history buffs. explanation for the most important “He’s an amazing guy, the amount conflict in American history, one that of energy he has to do what he does,” claimed 620,000 lives and rededicated said James M. McPherson, the Pulitzer the republic to its founding principles, Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of could fit on a bumper sticker. Freedom: The Civil War Era. “And “People will spend more time and he’s always chipper and cheerful. I’d be energy explaining a car wreck than exhausted.” they will that: ‘It was just states’ One thing Ayers never tires of discussing rights.’ Or, ‘It was just slavery.’ Any is slavery and its role in U.S. history. “I answer we give ‘just’ to explain say that slavery is more central to the the actions of 40 million people nation than we recognize, not less,” he is wrong,” he says. “We have to says. “But the thing is that, very often, have the courage to say: No, it’s people will say, ‘Okay, that answers complex, and it’s changing.” it. It was disputes over slavery.’ But how did disputes over slavery turn A history guy into a war that ended slavery? Ayers, 57, brings to the task Nobody thought that was a Southerner’s perspective and impressive Civil War credentials. He continued ON page 27

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued FROM page 24 possible at the start. Slavery is at the core of everything, from start to finish, but I think, ironically, just the assertion of it prevents us from understanding all its dimensions.” Ayers delights in challenging every simple theory of the war. To those who blame slavery alone, he responds that only 2 percent of Northern whites were abolitionists. Had the war ended at First Manassas, slavery would likely have remained intact, because ending it was not yet the Union’s goal. As to the theory of modernism — that an industrial economy built on wage labor was destined to collide with an agrarian feudalist economy based on slave labor — he points out that the South had railroads, telegraphs and cotton, which was like the petroleum of the 19th century. If the South had achieved independence, it would have joined the JAY PAUL FOR THEWSHINGTON POST ranks of the top four economies in the A fish sculpture with paintings related to the Confederacy adorn the entrance to the Museum of world. To those who argue states’ the Confederacy. This is one of many places that will commemorate Civil War events. rights, Ayers acknowledges that even Thomas Jefferson believed states over the complicated moral issues raised “I was never able to grasp what he might have the right to leave the union. by a war that left hundreds of thousands was driving at there,” McPherson says. But what’s the one right that most of people dead. The risk is that we no What else is history but the imposition divided North and South? The right to longer worry about the Civil War.” of pattern, order — in short, a story own slaves. Just look at the secession Instead, he prefers to explain the — on a universe of seemingly random proclamations. In recent years, Ayers has war’s cause by “deep contingency,” or and interconnected events? McPherson been respectfully critical of the reigning the notion that every element of social asks. view of the war, as presented by Ken life is contingent, unpredictable, and Ayers has heard this criticism. But if Burns’s PBS documentary series The intertwined with others in ways that no one has ever been able to bind the Civil War, McPherson and others. He can work together mysteriously, even nation’s wounds from the Civil War, expresses discomfort with an Olympian improbably, to cause surprising and Ayers says, it’s perhaps because the good-vs.-evil narrative of the war that earthshaking events. “The shortest way Civil War presents a paradox: Although can sometimes seem self-congratulatory to understand it,” he says, “is that it’s a the conflict did not begin as a war to and triumphant. perfect storm.” end slavery, that is what it became. And “It may be . . . that we like the current It is a compelling answer in the that itself was a new beginning. story too much to challenge it very post-modern era of nonhierarchical “The Civil War is at the heart of deeply and that we foreclose questions thinking, chaos theory, Wikipedia, the what this nation is about,” he says. by repeating familiar formulas,” Ayers Internet and collective intelligence — or “Freedom, and respect, and possibility wrote in an essay. “The risk of our collective folly. His answer, critics say, is for all Americans.” ■ apparent consensus is that we paper an evasion itself.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Academic Content Standards

This lesson addresses academic content standards of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Maryland Virginia Washington, D.C.

United States History: Examine the U.S. History to 1865: The student will Social Studies, U.S. History and Geography: consequences of interactions among groups demonstrate knowledge of the causes, major Students summarize the causes and conse- and cultures in Maryland events, and effects of the Civil War by quences of the Civil War. Indicator 3. Analyze regional differences in a) describing the cultural, economic, and 1. Describe the extension of and controversy the Civil War and its effects on people in constitutional issues that divided the about slavery into the territories, including Maryland nation; popular sovereignty, the Dred Scott a. Describe the economic interests in b) explaining how the issues of states’ rights decision, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Maryland, such as agricultural v. and slavery increased sectional tensions; 2. Explain the role of abolitionists, including industrial and slave v. non-slave c) identifying on a map the states that reformers Frederick Douglass, William b. Explain why loyalties to the North and seceded from the Union and those that Lloyd Garrison, Harriett Beecher Stowe, South were divided in Maryland remained in the Union; Martin Delany and John Brown Indicator 4. Analyze how the institution d) describing the roles of Abraham Lincoln, 3. Describe the emergence of Abraham of slavery impacted individuals and Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert Lincoln as a national political figure and groups in Maryland (Standard 5, Topic E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and the secession of Southern states (The Civil C, Grade 4) Frederick Douglass in events leading to War and Reconstruction — 1860-1877) and during the war (Civil War: 1861 to Social Studies, History: Analyze the 1865, USI.9) Social Studies, D.C. History and Government: political, economic, and social goals of Students describe the effect the Civil Reconstruction Virginia Studies: The student will War had on life in Washington, D.C., and b. Explain how the 13th, 14th and 15th demonstrate knowledge of the issues they explain the effects of Compensated Amendments addressed the issue of civil that divided our nation and led to the Civil Emancipation and the Emancipation rights through abolition, the granting War by Proclamation on the city. of citizenship and the right to vote a) evaluating the multiple causes of the Civil 1. Describe how the Union Army (Standard 5, Topic B, Grade 8) War, including the role of the institution of transformed the city into an armed camp. slavery as a principal cause of the conflict; 2. Describe the conflicting loyalties of people b) identifying the major events and the roles living in the city. of key leaders of the Civil War Era, with 3. On a map, trace the creation of a ring of emphasis on Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson forts to defend the city. (Slavery, War and Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Emancipation, Grade 12, 12.DC.7) and Frederick Douglass (Civil War and Reconstruction: VUS.7) U.S. History and Geography II: Industrial Virginia and United States History: America to the Present: Students analyze The student will demonstrate knowledge the significant events in the founding of of the organization and powers of the the nation and its attempts to realize the national government by philosophy of government described in the c) examining the ways individuals and Declaration of Independence. groups exert influence on the national 5. Analyze the shortcomings of the Articles, government. and describe the crucial events leading to the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, including the debates over slavery. (United States to the 1800s, Grade 11, 11.1)

Standards of Learning currently in effect for The Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum Con- Virginia Public Schools can be found online at Learning Standards for DCPS are found online at tent Standards can be found online at http:// www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_ http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/In+the+Classroom/ mdk12.org/assessments/vsc/index.html. docs/index.shtml What+Students+Are+Learning