Week 14 · Readings & resources

Week 14 — Readings & Resources

U.S. History to 1877 Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 14 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 74–95 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text. Several items describe war deaths, the drowning of people seeking freedom, and the violence of slavery plainly; take them at your own pace.

Pick-one quick path (19–23 min total)

① What the Proclamation did and did not free

Chapter 14, Section “Read what the Proclamation did and did not free” · Session 1, Segment 4, “What the order reached” · Remember: the order of 1863 reached only the areas in rebellion, and the 13th Amendment of 1865 ended slavery everywhere.

Emancipation Proclamation: An Introduction — National Museum of African American History and Culture — a curator's introduction, from a Smithsonian edition of the document, on how the Proclamation was carried into the South as Union armies advanced and on the people who had not waited to be freed. Read the paragraphs on enslaved people fleeing to Union camps and on the order's limits, then check one slip: the page gives the preliminary proclamation of 1862 the wording of the 1863 order, so match each pinned phrase to its proclamation with Chapter 14. The closing paragraphs look far beyond 1865; they are optional. It shows how a national museum explains the order and the freedom seekers; it does not replace the document's own text. (reading, 8–12 min)
Emancipation Proclamation 150th Anniversary at the National Archives — US National Archives — a senior archivist and a conservator show the original pages, explain why the document is shown only a few days a year, and seal it for storage. Notice that the preliminary proclamation of 1862 is a separate signed document, and that the archivist says the order did not by itself end slavery and points to the 13th Amendment. His figure for the people enslaved is his own; the course keys none. Use it while completing the Week-14 module overview. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)

② The people who freed themselves, and Black soldiers

Chapter 14, Section “Follow the people who freed themselves” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Freedom seekers” · Remember: enslaved people fled to Union lines from 1861, before any proclamation, and many went on to serve.

Black Americans in the Civil War: Crash Course Black American History #18 — CrashCourse — the host follows Black Americans from the volunteers turned away in 1861 to the soldiers who served after 1863. Watch for the section on the people who reached Union camps and the Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862, and listen for the preliminary proclamation's pinned phrase, thenceforward, and forever free, which matches Chapter 14. The video names the two Confiscation Acts together; the act of 1861 let the Union seize enslaved people as property, and only the act of 1862 let the government free them, as Chapter 14 explains. This builds on Week 13's work with the declaration of causes, since the opening minutes return to the seceding states' own words. The death toll and the counts of soldiers are the video's figures, not the course's, which teaches the scale in words. (video, 14 min) (captions: creator)
From Slavery to Sanctuary: Corinth’s Civil War Contraband Camp — Project Past — a walk through the site of the contraband camp at Corinth, Mississippi, where people who fled slavery built cabins with gardens, a school, a church, and a hospital. Listen for the men of the camp who formed the 1st Alabama Infantry of African Descent, later the 55th United States Colored Troops, and for the camp's move to Memphis when the army left. The statues on the site are modern; the camp's population and earnings are the narrator's figures. (video, 7 min) (captions: automatic)

③ A speech in five copies

Chapter 14, Section “Compare the copies: a speech without one fixed text” · Session 2, Segment 6, “A speech in five copies” · Remember: five handwritten copies of the speech survive and differ, so name the text you quote.

Gettysburg Address: Exhibition Items — Library of Congress — the online exhibition of the invitation, the photographs, and the two drafts the Library holds. Read the entries for the Nicolay copy and the Hay draft: the Library calls the Nicolay copy the earliest known of the five drafts and says the two differ in many words and in punctuation. Then read Everett's note praising the speech. It shows how the Library documents its two copies; it does not settle which wording Lincoln spoke. (reading, 10–15 min)
273 Words to a New America — Library of Congress — a Library of Congress specialist shows the Nicolay copy, the reading copy with its folds, and a printed facsimile of a later copy Lincoln wrote out on request. Listen for why the word count depends on which draft you count, and for the words naming God that the Nicolay copy lacks. Set his account beside the text the Avalon Project prints, which the course quotes. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)

④ Total war, the home fronts, and the war's end

Chapter 14, Section “Feel the war at home: total war and the home fronts” · Session 2, Segment 7, “The war at home” · Remember: runaway prices, a marching army, and the draft brought the war to people who never held a rifle.

Richmond Bread Riot — Encyclopedia Virginia — the state encyclopedia's entry on the protest of 1863 in the Confederate capital. Read the background on crowding, rents, and wages, the women workers who planned the march in a Baptist church, and the aftermath, when the city expanded relief while sorting the poor into worthy and unworthy. Its comparison of prices in 1863 with 1861 matches Chapter 14. It shows what the record of one city documents; it does not show how every Southern family fared. (reading, 8–12 min)
The Civil War: 1863 Richmond Bread Riots — C-SPAN's American History TV — a short clip from a talk by a historian at the American Civil War Museum. She reads a war-department clerk's diary account of the crowd, describes one of the leaders, a market seller with a son in the army, and explains the women's goal: food at the prices the army paid. Notice how the newspapers of the day mocked the women. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
Sherman's March to the Sea — New Georgia Encyclopedia — the state encyclopedia's account of the march from Atlanta to Savannah in late 1864. Read the opening on why Sherman aimed at civilians' belief that their government could protect them, then the paragraph on Ebenezer Creek, where self-emancipated people following the army drowned after the bridge was taken up. The troop counts and casualty figures are the encyclopedia's own. It shows how one historian explains total war in Georgia; it does not show how every Georgian experienced it. (reading, 10–15 min)
What Happened at Ford’s Theatre? (High School) — Ford's Theatre — the theatre's own short account of the plot of April 1865 against Lincoln, the vice president, and the secretary of state. Listen for why the plot turned from kidnapping to murder: the narrator links it to Lincoln's support for the vote for some Black men. Its count of seceded states covers the whole war, not only the seven that left before the inauguration. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Transcript of the Proclamation — National Archives — the full text of the week's workshop document as the National Archives keeps it. Find where the recited preliminary proclamation begins and ends, then the list of states and the parts left out, and the line opening the armed service to Black men. Use your browser's find tool for the two pinned phrases. The rest of the exhibit is optional. (reading, 5–8 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com