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Elmira's Role in the war: Activities

 

 

 

Elmira as a draft and rendezvous site:

 

  • Ask: What were the causes of the Civil War?

    • Slavery: disagreements over whether to confine it to the South, phase it out, keep it, or abolish it

    • Taxes

    • States’ Rights: Southern states wanted to be free to govern themselves and argued that they had the right to break away from the United States and form their own government.

 

  • Ask: Who were the two sides fighting in the Civil War?

    • South (Confederacy): South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee

    • North: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, California, Oregon

    • Border States: Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky

 

  • Ask: When did the war begin?

    • April 1861

 

  • Ask: When did the war end?

    • April 1865

 

 

 

Elmira's Prison Camp: Activities

 

  • Examine the drawings and photographs of the prison camp.  What do they tell you about the life of a prisoner of war?

 

  • Based on what you know about Elmira’s prison camp, pretend you are a prisoner of war and write a letter to your family.

 

  • Writing exercise or discussion: For a brief time people could pay to climb up observation decks and view the interior of the camp.  Would you pay money to view the prison camp?  Why or why not?

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