Abolition and the Civil War

Battle of the Wilderness

Slavery was indeed America’s greatest curse, and the Civil War its greatest crisis.  Before the war, Hoosiers argued long and hard about slavery and race. Could their nation endure half slave and half free? Were blacks worthy of justice and equality? These questions rocked Indiana as they did all states. Eventually war came, a war of great heroism and of great tragedy.

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Suggested search terms

abolitionists – Indiana Constitution of 1816 – slavery – Indiana Colonization Society – Indiana Constitution of 1851 – Schuyler Colfax – Civil War – Copperheads – Oliver P. Morton – Morgan’s Raid – Underground Railroad – Jesse D. Bright – Indiana Infantry Regiment, 28th – Lew Wallace – Soldiers and Sailors Monument

Read about this subject in Hoosiers and the American Story

Chapter 4: Abolition and Civil War

Related Content

• Destination Indiana
• Civil War Materials from the William H Smith Memorial Library
• Bicentennial Minute- Levi Coffin
• Bicentennial Minute- Oliver Morton
• Bicentennial Minute- Morgan’s Raid

Related Books

• A Heart Divided (YA Historical Fiction)
• Yours: The Civil War, A Love Triangle, and the Sultana (YA Historical Fiction)
• Affectionately Yours: the Civil War Home-Front Letters
• Captured! A Boy Trapped in the Civil War (Youth Historical Fiction)
• By Freedom’s Light (Youth Historical Fiction)
• Gallant Fourteenth 
• The Sword & The Pen: A Life of Lew Wallace (Youth Biography)
• Well Done, Indiana: Tales of the Tragedies & triumphs of Indiana and the Civil War (DVD)
• Shadow of Shiloh: Major General Lew Wallace in the Civil War  (Youth Biography)

Related Indiana Academic Standards for Social Studies (2014)

Grade 4: 1.7, 1.8, 1.17, 2.7
Grade 8: 1.24, 1.25, 1.27, 1.29, 1.30, 2.1, 2.6
USH: Standard 1, 1.3, 1.4

Additional Resources

• Indiana’s African American Heritage: Essays from Black History News and Notes
• Hoosier Soldiers in Civil War (IN.gov)
• Abolitionist Literature and Black education  (IN.gov)
• The Underground Railroad (IN.gov)
• Political Abolitionism (IN.gov)
• Confrontation and Violence (IN.gov)

• Emancipation Proclamation (Primary Source Image)
• Outbreak of Rebellion in United States, 1862 (Primary Source Image)
• Let the North Awake! (Primary Source Image)