The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/
blacks_in_civil_war/blacks_in_civil_war.html
“By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war—30,000 of infection or disease.”
As with most of the Teaching with Documents Lesson Plans on the National Archives and Records Administration website, this lesson does an excellent job of helping teachers introduce and analyze primary documents in the classroom. The struggle faced by African Americans to be allowed to fight in the Civil War is a story oft forgotten in our classrooms. African American soldiers comprised about 10% of the Union Army, but their story and struggles are not often told. Not only were they denied the right to bear arms for quite some time, but once they were admitted into the Union army, they faced unequal pay and other struggles. This lesson provides an excellent analysis of their struggle to fight in the war and their activities once in the army. This topic helps give a fuller and more interesting picture to the topic of the both the Civil War and African American History. BR


Teaching with Documents: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/teaching_with_documents.html#civil_war
These National Archives and Records Administration lesson plans are of excellent quality. Each uses one or more primary documents to explore a topic in American History. Along with the document, there are worksheets and teaching activities provided. (BR)
The lessons plan titles are as follows:
 · Fugitive from Labor Cases: Henry Garnett (1850) and Moses Honner (1860)
 · The Civil War as Photographed by Mathew Brady
 · The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
 · Letters, Telegrams, and Photographs Illustrating Factors that Affected the Civil War

Territorial Kansas Online
http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/cgiwrap/imlskto/index.php
“Explore the turbulent times of ‘Bleeding Kansas.’ Hundreds of personal letters, diaries, photos, and maps bring to life the settling of Kansas during the fierce debate over slavery.”
This site is absolutely loaded with primary documents and images surrounding “Bleeding Kansas,” the debate over slavery, and the territorial process of state formation. It includes digital copies of letter, legislation (the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 et al), the Annals of Kansas, and much more. The website designers also include lesson plans covering John Brown and the Wyandotte Constitution. In creating this site, the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, Kansas State Historical Society, and University of Kansas have done a wonderful job.