Looking Beyond the Letters

A Blog Exploring the Backstories of the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project

Annotation Nation: Bringing Context to Mississippi’s Civil War and Reconstruction Governors’ Records

June 6, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Over the past year, CWRGM Assistant Editor Andrew W. Hoffman has led a major effort to annotate thousands of individuals named throughout the CWRGM scholarly edition. His work helps users more easily navigate the collection and better understand the people who shaped the Civil War and Reconstruction era in Mississippi. In the following post, Hoffman shares guidance developed through this process to help CWRGM annotation team members—and genealogists and editors working on other projects—more efficiently and accurately identify, research, and annotate the people referenced in digital scholarly editions.

By Andrew W. Hoffman, Mississippi State University

Annotating the people mentioned in the Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi (CWRGM) scholarly edition is more than identifying names – it is the process of uncovering the experiences of people who would otherwise be lost to history and providing that information to the general public. As a result, annotation can be one of the most frustrating yet rewarding parts of preparing a digital edition. The following guide offers documentary editors several strategies to alleviate some of the frustration, avoid common pitfalls, and make the process more efficient while maintaining precise and accurate annotations of the people mentioned in the CWRGM.

Beyond serving as a transcription platform, CWRGM uses FromThePage (FtP) to manage and organize the annotation process, enabling careful review of subject tags and their associated materials. After you navigate through FtP and locate a subject tag, it is essential to pay close attention to contextual details. Indeed, ensure you read through all the documents in the “reference” section of the subject tag to gather any information about the person, which will expedite your research. Pay close attention to even minor details; small clues can point you toward additional sources and a more comprehensive understanding of the individual.

Reviewing Subjects in CWRGM

William Henderson Curtis’ subject tag demonstrates how this process works. As shown in Figure One, Curtis’ tag contains seven referenced documents. The second figure further illustrates how the transcription of these documents provides context, including Curtis’ political affiliations, officeholding, and places in which he lived. By reviewing each document, it becomes clear that “W. H. Curtis” served as the probate clerk for Carroll County, Mississippi, during the 1860s. Taken together, these references provide the foundational information necessary to begin additional research in census records, newspapers, and other online databases.

Figure One: Screenshot of the CWRGM subject tag for “Curtis, William Henderson, 1830-1912” in FtP
Figure Two: Screenshot of a CWRGM document page within FromThePage.

Researching Subjects in External Databases

Once you have obtained enough context about the subject, there are a plethora of digital research tools to utilize to conduct your research. For this guide, the four most useful research tools are Ancestry.com, FindaGrave, Newspapers.com, and Fold3. While research can be conducted in many ways, one of the quickest and most reliable methods is to search for the individual in the United States federal censuses on Ancestry. When doing so, it is important to use carefully selected search parameters, particularly name and location, with a preference for county-level searches rather than specific towns. This approach accounts for individuals who moved within local regions rather than remaining in a single town, while still effectively narrowing the results.

Once a potential match is identified, researchers should verify the entry by cross-referencing Ancestry’s transcription with the digitized census record, as transcription errors are extremely common. After confirming the individual in the census, the next step is to search for them in FindaGrave. Because of inconsistencies in nineteenth-century record-keeping, birth dates often vary. Discrepancies of up to three years between census records and FindaGrave entries are generally acceptable. A similar logic applies to geography because people moved locations within their lifetime, but often only within a county or two. Indeed, if the census places someone in a particular area and their FindaGrave entry shows them buried in or near that same location, that is typically strong enough to confirm you have the correct person.

Handling Duplicate Subjects, Categorization, & Other Errors in FromThePage

After you have accumulated enough information regarding a subject, you must add their birth and death dates at the end of their name, attach the URL in the “URI” section, and then add your annotation to the “description” section. When entering the subject tag’s name, triple-check that the name is spelled correctly, includes proper spacing, and uses correct capitalization, as even minor inconsistencies will generate multiple entries in FtP. For instance, entering “MCCardle, William H., 1815-1893” instead of “McCardle, William H., 1815-1893” will result in two separate subject tags for the same individual. Likewise, “McCardle, William H, 1815-1893” — which omits the period after the middle initial — will also create a duplicate entry. By paying close attention to these minor details, you will avoid this common pitfall. Then add the child categories — “Men,” “Confederate Veterans,” and “Widowers,” for instance — before you remove the parent category of “People,” so you can more efficiently assign subcategories before it is removed from the broader grouping. Always refer to the Annotation Protocols to enter this information into FtP correctly.

Separating Subjects

Some of the subjects that you will encounter are linked to multiple individuals with the same name; when this occurs, create new subject tags to distinguish between them. For instance, the subject tag “Smith, John” is a fairly generic name and may refer to multiple individuals, requiring distinct tags to separate each person accurately. To do so, you must carefully review each document attached to the subject tag and use identifying clues such as location, military rank, author of the document, and the dates the document was written to determine which individual each record refers to. When you identify a reference to a different individual, navigate to the “Transcribe” section, locate the subject tag within the brackets, and edit the left-hand side of the pipe character (|) to update the tag with the corrected birth and death dates or other distinguishing details (see Figure Three for an example). Remember to click “save” when finished; this will either attach the document to the correct existing subject tag or create a new one. If a new subject tag is created, annotate that individual according to this guide and the annotation protocols document.

Figure Three: Screenshot of the CWRGM transcription editor showing a highlighted subject tag, [[Oakley, David N., 1835-1890| D N Oakley]]

Combining Subjects

On the other hand, there will be multiple subject tags that are all referring to the same person. Clues that indicate this include documents linked to the same location, records written by the same individual, or consistent details such as military rank or other identifying biographical information. When this happens, you need to combine these subject tags into one. While you can combine these tags manually through each document in the “transcribe” section, a more efficient way is to check the “Possible Duplicates” on the subject tag’s setting page. If the subject tags are “West, Absolom Madden, 1818-1894,” “West, Absalom Madden, 1818-1894,” and “West, A. M., 1818-1894,” combine them from the most complete and accurately identified subject tag — in this case, “West, Absolom Madden, 1818-1894.” In so doing, it will pull all document references under the correct tag, automatically update the subject tag in those documents and delete the duplicate subject tags. Be careful to combine duplicates from the correct page; if you instead combine them while working from a less complete tag, such as “West, A. M., 1818-1894,” FtP will delete the more detailed subject tag, which can be especially problematic if an annotation has already been drafted within it. To combine duplicates, click the white box in the “Possible Duplicates” section, then click “Combine Selected.” In some cases, both subject tags will already be annotated, and those annotations will merge. If this occurs, ensure that only one accurate annotation remains by copying the preferred version into a separate document, deleting the merged annotation, and then pasting the correct text back into the “description” section.

Fixing Uncategorized Subjects

Occasionally, FtP will not move every document correctly and may place some records into a separate tag under the “Uncategorized” section. When this happens, navigate to the uncategorized subject tag, open the affected document, paste the correct subject tag into the left-hand pipe character in the transcription, then click “Save.” This process will merge the document into the correct subject tag. After verifying that the uncategorized tag no longer contains any attached documents, delete the empty tag. Only delete subject tags with zero documents under the “references” on the right-hand side of the page, as deleting a tag with attached documents may result in the loss of those records. Subject tags will only need to be deleted if they were created in error, combined with another tag, or have no document attached. As part of your weekly routine, check on this “uncategorized” tab to ensure all documents are properly categorized and accounted for. In cases where multiple subject tags refer to the same individual, do not simply move them into the correct child categories. Instead, first ensure you are working within the already annotated and correctly categorized tag. From there, combine multiple duplicate tags so that all related records are merged accurately under a single subject entry.

Annotating Families Together

As a general guideline for efficient annotation, some documents refer to multiple members of the same family. When this occurs, annotate all identifiable family members mentioned in the document, as they are often connected through the same records and can be researched more efficiently together. The subject tag “Harrison Turner” – a freedman also known as “Rabbit” — for instance, appears in documents that also reference other members of his family. In one letter written to Turner by Mary Shaifer, Shaifer refers to “your mother,” which identifies an additional individual connected to Turner. In that case, you should research and create a subject tag for Turner’s mother after you have completed and verified the annotation for Turner himself (see Figure Four for an example of this). Moreover, if Turner’s mother was initially tagged as [[Turner, Unknown]] but subsequent research uncovers her name and biographical details, revise the tag accordingly rather than creating a duplicate subject tag. In many cases like this, individuals can be cross-referenced through sources such as the United States Federal Census or FindaGrave entries, which often list family members together and help confirm relationships while streamlining the annotation process.

If some individuals remain unknown, copy and paste the pre-written CWRGM-approved annotation indicated in the annotation protocols document and place the phrase “(multiple unidentified entries)” behind the subject tag’s name. Unfortunately, some individuals will remain unidentified due to limited available information online. While the instinct may be to continue searching indefinitely, avoid spending excessive time on a single person who may yield no results. Instead, set a reasonable time limit for your research; if no additional information is found, mark the individual as unknown or make a note to revisit the tag later and move on.

Figure Four: Screenshot of a page in the CWRGM showing a March 1, 1868, letter from Mary Shaifer to ‘Rabbit,” also known as Harrison Turner

By paying close attention to the details, following this guide, and regularly consulting the annotation protocols document, the annotation process becomes much smoother and more efficient. While this is not a comprehensive guide to bring context to the Mississippi Civil War and Reconstruction Governors’ records, it does help to avoid common pitfalls in the annotation process.

Please direct any questions regarding annotation to CWRGM Co-Director Dr. Lindsey R. Peterson.

Andrew W. Hoffman is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at Mississippi State University, specializing in the Civil War era, the American South, and historical memory. His research focuses on the intersection between the Lost Cause, Progressive-era reform, and New South Boosterism. He has received several research fellowships, including the War, Power, & International Affairs Fellowship from Mississippi State University and the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History fellowship from the University of Virginia. He also serves as an assistant editor of the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project, which digitizes, transcribes, and annotates nearly 20,000 records from Mississippi’s governors’ offices, making them freely accessible online.

Reflections from a Student Intern: Solomon Miner

May 12, 2026 / / 0 Comments

By Solomon Miner, University of South Dakota

While completing my bachelor’s degree in English at the University of South Dakota, I worked as an intern for the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project (CWRGM) on the Annotation Research Team. As a digital scholarly edition, CWRGM provides brief biographies of the people named in its collection to help users understand the positionality and historical context of the information contained in the archival document. This work typically requires identifying a person’s entire name, birth and death dates, their military service, and other biographical details through researching in digitized historical newspapers, state and federal census records, and military service and pension files. I began my work for the project with little knowledge of how to find or compile accurate historical information about the people mentioned in CWRGM’s collection, but I left with the ability to do just that.

As someone with a specialization in English and creative writing, I was unfamiliar with many of the databases used for research of this kind, like Ancestry.com and FindaGrave, which typically support historical and genealogical research. Unlike the academic journals and book chapters I was used to researching in, these are large, digitized collections of primary sources. Consequently, the time it took for me to complete the research and writing portions for my first assignment, a short biography of a man named Milton Edgar Bacon, was about nine hours. But by the end of the semester, my work was far more efficient and accurate. The latest two people I’ve annotated, Joshua Bourne and Enoch Bennett, required a little over three hours each to fully research and write biographies, thanks to my increased understanding of how to research biographical information and compile it for users. 

For this internship, my main task was to use online historical databases to collect accurate biographical information, so I could write brief biographies for people named inside the CWRGM collection. Considering the nature of nineteenth-century archival collections, this task is more challenging than it first seems. I would begin by looking up the name listed in a CWRGM letter—which was sometimes incomplete—in databases like Ancestry, the Library of Congress, Genealogy Bank, FindaGrave, Google Maps, and more. I would branch out from there by looking for information matching not only the subjects’ names, but I also used things like their ages, counties of residence, and occupations to help narrow my search. Researching people with more common names, like George or Smith, was rather difficult because they would generate search results for numerous people with the same name living in the same area.

To identify the correct person, I relied on the context clues found within the CWRGM documents and the digital databases:

  • One good marker that I used for all my searches was birth and death dates, which I could typically find from sites like FindaGrave or Ancestry. Using ages found in census records, I determined when people were born. Many nineteenth-century Americans didn’t know the exact year they were born, so records commonly fluctuated by a few years. Then, I could use age as a verification guide.
  • Most people died in the county or nearby counties where they were born and lived, so I could also match the counties referenced in cemeteries and census data to the locations mentioned in the CWRGM collection.

These methods helped me verify whether the people I found in databases were, in fact, the correct people I was searching for from the CWRGM collection.

Consider this example from E. R. Bennett, who was mentioned in six CWRGM documents. Based on the already transcribed documents from CWRGM, I could gather that the E. R. Bennett I was searching for was a Confederate veteran who had survived the war. I initially searched for any E. R. Bennett who had lived in Mississippi around 1860, and found a promising result on FindaGrave that ultimately led me down the wrong path.

Screen capture of search results from FindaGrave for E. R. Bennett

The search only generated a few results for an E. R. Bennett in the area, and considering that CWRGM’s letters mentioning him were written between 1860 and 1863, I assumed that the Bennett I was looking for was in my search results. Three people appeared: Edwin Ruthven Bennett, Sr., Edwin Ruthven Bennett, Jr., and Enoch R. Bennett. I instantly dismissed Edwin Jr. from consideration because he had died before 1863. The headstone for Edwin Ruthven Bennett was promising and included an accompanying headstone application, which identified him as a veteran of the 10th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Company B. However, the Ancestry headstone application page also listed his death date as 1862, but the original digitized source listed it as 1872. It was an important reminder to always verify the information transcribed on the website against the original digitized document, as the headstone transcriptions were also incorrect.

The location details then helped me identify which E. R. Bennett was the correct one. Thanks to the CWRGM resources, I know that the Bennett I was searching for had lived in Simpson County sometime around 1860. Edwin Ruthven Bennett was buried in Adams County, and his military service record lists Natchez as his enlistment location, neither of which is near Simpson County. Searching through the 1860 U.S. federal census, I discovered that Enoch Bennett had lived in Simpson County, but Edwin Bennett had not.

Screen capture of Enoch R. Bennette’s 1860 United States Federal Census page on Ancestry.com

From there, I searched for Enoch Bennett on Ancestry and could not identify him in any census after 1860, which aligns with the suspected death year of 1863. After sleuthing through the records, I had finally identified the correct person.

Screen capture of Enoch R. Bennett’s Confederate Officers Card Index page on Ancestry.com.

From my internship with CWRGM, my ability to read cursive and edit historical texts has improved. CWRGM editors utilize FromThePage, a transcription software, where researchers draft, edit, and format document transcriptions. Reading the original documents and comparing them to cursive letters, I began to understand and see previous errors in the transcriptions. I used the new information I had gathered from my annotation research to improve these transcripts by editing several transcribed names and updating subject tags from the People category. My ability to read cursive is poor, which is why I was happy to work on other aspects of the project when given the opportunity, but it has improved, thanks to the countless original documents and records I used to research annotations.

My work on CWRGM was also adjacent to my degree in English and meaningful to me personally. Now more than ever, CWRGM’s collection seems especially historically relevant. Today, we’ve seen a noticeable increase in white supremacist beliefs throughout our nation’s government, reminiscent of those beliefs that brought about the American Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. Learning and researching about Reconstruction and life in the South after the war was interesting and something that I had not previously encountered in academia or sought out personally. As a writer, story research is also critical because it helps to ground the narrative. The type of research I did over the course of the semester while interning with CWRGM also helped me appreciate and understand the work that supports literary and documentary editions. The research skills I learned here will improve the quality and accuracy of any future writing I pursue that features real people, places, or events. The internet contains a wide net of historical information, and it was an interesting, relevant, and powerful experience to comb through these different repositories to find pieces of historical information that were almost entirely forgotten. Piecing the past together one bit at a time is something that I have a lot of respect for, and in my opinion, this project is an invaluable resource for the preservation of history.

My internship on the CWRGM Annotation Research Team also helped me to better understand myself and what I want in a career after graduation. Although I initially found the lack of clearly defined project deadlines and benchmarks hard to adjust to, the ability to take multiple weeks researching a person’s biography to the best of my ability was important. Throughout the internship, I could choose when I would complete my required hours, which I soon found to be liberating. As someone trying to check off boxes for graduation, being able to take a step back and become enveloped in the research was a nice change of pace. This internship opened my eyes to what I can pursue in terms of a career and the possibilities that being a professional researcher might entail. I wish I had known that this internship and research opportunities like it were available to students before my last year here at the University of South Dakota, because I found the experience interesting, academically engaging, and would recommend it to others.

From Archive to Exhibit: South Dakota Students Complete Immersive History Education Institute

December 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D.

This fall, five college students from the University of South Dakota, South Dakota State University, and Augustana University completed an intensive, hands-on institute — From Archive to Exhibit: Project-Based History Education Institute — hosted by the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi (CWRGM) and funded in partnership with the Library of Congress: Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium.

Led by historian Lindsey R. Peterson and educator Stephanie Puhrmann, the institute brought together emerging historians and future educators to explore how primary sources can anchor rigorous, complex, and engaging history education. Over the course of the institute, participants analyzed digitized documents, experimented with innovative teaching strategies, and ultimately created original digital museum exhibits using nineteenth-century sources. 

Peterson demonstrates how to incorporate iterative research questions, thesis statements, and secondary and primary source evidence into lectures.

Participants worked extensively with CWRGM’s six-week open access curriculum on the historical research process and the CWRGM digital archive, which contains thousands of letters written to Mississippi’s governors during the Civil War and Reconstruction, as well as complementary materials from the Library of Congress. Participants stepped directly into the role of students, completing the same kinds of tasks they might later assign from the CWRGM curriculum in their classrooms.

Participants practiced strategies for teaching emancipation as a process, not a single moment. Letters from formerly enslaved people, Union soldiers, widows, immigrants, and students revealed how freedom was negotiated differently across time, geography, and social position. These sources became the foundation for lessons on historical context, close reading, and argumentation.

The capstone of the institute asked participants to synthesize their learning by creating online digital museum exhibits using primary sources from CWRGM and the Library of Congress. Each project required students to develop a research question, select and interpret evidence, and present their findings in an accessible, visually engaging digital format intended for a public audience. 

Isabella Purzol, a senior History major with an Education minor at the University of South Dakota, created “The Civil War’s Impact on Irish Immigrant Life,” which traced how Irish immigrants in Mississippi and beyond navigated loyalty, labor, and identity during the war. 

Sophomore History major with a teaching specialization at South Dakota State University, Kiya Williamson, created “Southern Widows & the Civil War.” Her exhibit centered women’s voices to explore loss, resilience, and survival in the context of war and Confederate nationalism, highlighting how widowhood reshaped family structures and economic realities. 

Patrick Wadley, a University of South Dakota student majoring in History and International Studies with a minor in Russian Studies, developed “University of Mississippi’s ‘University Greys’: The Student Experience in War—A Story Told in Letters.” His project examined students’ motivations for enlisting and how they experienced the war intellectually and emotionally, revealing the costs of conflict on young men and educational institutions.

Screen capture of institute attendees, Peterson, and Puhrmann after presenting their digital museum exhibits to the group.

Another highlight was playing Brine & Blood, an educational role-playing game that uses primary sources to immerse players in the moral, political, and personal stakes of emancipation in Civil War Mississippi. Through gameplay, institute attendees grappled with many of the key realities of historical decision-making: constrained choices, incomplete information, and competing perspectives.

For many participants, the institute served as a bridge between academic history and public-facing education. As one participant reflected, “I found the task-based learning—by doing what our students would do—to be extremely valuable. Also the experienced viewpoints on making things accessible will be incredibly valuable and helpful for myself going forward with any digital or educational project.” 

Several noted that the experience expanded their sense of who history education is for and where it can happen. Peterson, Puhrmann, and the institute, according to one participant, “were extremely useful.” They continued, “I now have an entire class structure and documentation to use and/or build from as opposed to starting from scratch. They also give me tips and guidance on more informal educational opportunities and approaches.” The institute’s emphasis on digital exhibits, informal learning environments, and collaboration with cultural institutions underscored that history education extends well beyond the traditional classroom.

By engaging directly with backward-designed curriculum, accessibility considerations, and authentic assessment, students left with tools they can immediately adapt for student teaching, museum work, or community-based projects. As the five participants move forward in their academic and professional careers, the institute’s impact will extend into classrooms, museums, and community spaces across the region. Whether guiding high school students through a National History Day project, designing interactive lessons on emancipation, or developing public history exhibits, they carry with them a model for teaching history that is evidence-based, inclusive, and deeply engaging.

The From Archive to Exhibit institute demonstrates what is possible when historians, educators, and students collaborate across institutions to rethink how history is taught—and who gets to tell its stories.

Slaveholder Compensation after Emancipation: The Widow’s Claim

September 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Amanda Kleintop, Ph.D.

On July 14, 1865, about three months after the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox, Nannie Denman wrote to the Governor of Mississippi, William Sharkey, from Valley Home, her plantation near Yazoo City. In 1860, Denman was a planter with $40,000 in real estate and an estimated $66,635 in personal estate. She claimed sixty one enslaved people, including infants and the elderly.[1] A widow, Denman had run her plantation consistently with the business practices of the time. Hers was a large enterprise, but it was built on debt. She had purchased forty people and 1,000 acres of land in 1860 with a mortgage, paying $30,000 up front with $50,000 remaining to be paid over four years. Of course, the war intervened. As the cost of farming expenses rose, she extended the first payment. The war went on and, as she told Sharkey, “you know the sad fate of our country.” She was still indebted, but now she asked: “do you think that I will be compelled to pay for the negroes when they have been a tax upon me”?[2]

Denman’s predicament was typical for widows and former enslavers alike after the Civil War. The U.S. government’s wartime decision to abolish slavery without compensation to former enslavers left many insolvent after the Civil War and diminished the South’s wealth by sixty percent. Certainly, the mortgage system that undergirded the South’s plantation economy did not predict immediate, uncompensated emancipation. Denman explained, “There was a mortgage taken upon the land & negroes,” but, she suggested, “I believe all bills of sale garentees a negro, Slave for life.” She referred to the written or unwritten warranty that usually accompanied the purchase of an enslaved person. However, as long as the seller had fulfilled their part of the bargain by surrendering, in this case, the land and enslaved people whom Denman purchased, the contract for their sale and therefore Denman’s mortgage was also valid. Similar to Denman, many other debtors appealed to the courts for relief, insisting that, by destroying their property rights in people, emancipation invalidated their original contracts for the purchase of an enslaved person.[3]

Letter from Nannie Denman to Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey; July 14, 1865. Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

With the rise of married women’s property laws before the war, slaveholding widows may also have been especially insolvent. States began to shield women and children from their husbands’ or fathers’ indebtedness with new property laws. After a serious financial panic, Mississippi passed the first U.S. married women’s property law in 1839, followed by a number of states in the next decades. Yet, as historian Laura Edwards has argued, married women’s property acts “were not designed with women’s individual interests in mind.” These antebellum legal practices were designed to keep the wealth from human property in the family. Savvy slaveholding families took advantage of married women’s property laws to shield assets, particularly property in people, from seizure in the event that a patriarch defaulted on his debts.[4]

No longer able to leverage the value and bodies of enslaved people against their debts, debtors petitioned their states and the federal government to invalidate contracts for the purchase of enslaved. As I argue in my recent book, Counting the Cost of Freedom (UNC Press, 2025), debtors’ appeals were part of a widespread effort on the part of white southerners to seek compensation or relief from the cost of immediate, uncompensated emancipation. Many insisted that the Constitution, doctrines of property law, principles of fairness, and the need for regional economic stability dictated that they be reimbursed for the loss of the value of the enslaved humans they legally held as property prior to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. In addition, widows like Denman and their representatives made unique claims on their states and the federal government revealing that their claims for relief were in fact attempts to stabilize the southern economy by adapting the gendered logics of the slaveholding household.[5]

Denman’s letter to Sharkey demonstrates many of the ways in which widows and politicians claiming to work on their behalf mobilized widows’ unique gendered and legal status to appeal for relief. Sharkey had been appointed governor by President Andrew Johnson to usher the state back into the Union. Formerly a member of the Whig Party, Sharkey opposed secession and remained a Unionist despite living in Mississippi throughout the Civil War. After his appointment, he called a convention to write a new state constitution, where delegated maneuvered to secure federale compensation for freed slaves. But in the summer of 1865, before the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, few knew how the federal government would carry out emancipation. Delegate to the convention pushed for policies other than immediate, uncompensated emancipation.

Records of the Field Offices for the State of Mississippi, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1872, Subordinate Field Offices, Yazoo City (Subcommissioner), Register of Plantation Census in Yazoo County, Volume (329). Courtesy of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Widows’ unique claims for federal compensation provided a powerful rhetorical tool for proponents of compensation and relief, tying the two different legal issues together. Denman suggested that uncompensated emancipation placed a particular hardship on debtors. She wrote, “If I had paid for the place & negroes I should not care, but to be forced to give up my home & all I had” in the event that she defaulted on her debt “will be too hard.” She emphasized her sound fiscal decisions and capability, telling Sharkey, “I am & have been a widow for 12 years I have lived economically & tried to manage judiciously to make a home for my little family.” As historian Ariela Gross has shown, the law might side with enslavers, particularly men, if they could demonstrate their “good business sense” in a legal conflict. This is one reason that Denman stressed that her indebtedness was no fault of her own, but a tragedy of circumstance.[6]

Similarly, Denman attempted to shield herself from any blame for the situation she was now in. She would not be impoverished, she insisted, if it were not for emancipation. In the summer of 1865, when many southern white men were still barred from voting or otherwise participating in formal politics, emphasizing the innocence of widows and other women was a way to dissociate the issues of the war — especially slavery — from the politics of reunion. Widows were dependents like other women and children, but as a result of their widowhood, they were no longer sheltered under the same private household relationships as wives or single women. At the same time, the idea that dependents were nonpartisan, nonpolitical beings, loyal to their patriarch and not to their governments, enabled politicians to claim compensation on behalf of “innocent” widows and orphans, but not other enslavers.[7]

However, as women’s historians of the Civil War era have pointed out, women mobilized the politics of loyalty to their own ends. At the end of her letter, Denman alluded to her cousin, who had recently been appointed the provost marshal of her region. She told Sharkey that “the country is quiet & getting along slowly” because he had “no guard to enforce his orders, so has to use policy.” The report would have tied Denman to a U.S. army officer, emphasizing her loyalty by proxy if not by practice.[8]

U.S. Senate Report 45–310, May 1, 1878, Congressional Serial Set 1790. Courtesy of the Law Library of Congress.

The widow’s appeal also had some basis in nineteenth-century law. Especially in the North, states had enacted wrongful death statutes that made widows, dependent children, and next of kin the exclusive beneficiaries of payments in death actions for their patriarchs. The logic was that upstanding families required income from a male provider. Conversely, widows whose husbands and fathers had once provided for them deserved social support. Courts had also traditionally considered the economic consequences of property confiscation to determine whether someone should receive compensation under the takings clause. Wartime relief programs for war widows, for example, may have consolidated this legal logic in the South. Many Confederate states had sponsored relief programs for widows and families whose patriarchs had joined the army or died in war. Denman’s letter similarly portrayed widows as a protected group to beg relief.[9]

There’s much we don’t know from Denman’s letter alone. Did Sharkey answer? Did Denman sell the land or maintain it, particularly by hiring freed people? Did she agree with those Mississippians who did pursue federal compensation for slaves, as well as debt relief? Nevertheless, it’s clear that these questions about compensation and relief affected the economic reconstruction of the South. As she ended her letter, Denman asked Sharkey for business advice, which would have enhanced her gendered approach by appealing to him as a patriarch and focusing the issue back on her business. “I will greatly depend upon your advice or suggestions the course to persue.” She could “give the place back or hold on if the levees are rebult the land will be as valuable as ever.” I don’t know what advice Sharkey gave her, and it’s difficult to identify her in the 1870 Census. It’s possible that the two young girls who lived with her in 1860 moved to Carroll County sometime before 1870, suggesting that the household did not remain intact.[10]

It’s unlikely that Denman received any relief. When it was ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment invalidated any claims for compensation for the value of formerly enslaved people. Although many southern states enacted a series of debt relief laws, including debts for the value of slaves, these laws only went so far. After Denman appealed to Sharkey, many southern courts and, eventually, in 1871 the Supreme Court ruled that emancipation was an act of God that did not constitute a broke contract. They did not agree that a public act should affect private contracts. So Denman and others in her predicament were legally bound to pay their debt, but we also do not know whether they did. They may have defaulted, simply unable to pay.[11]

Map of the Mississippi Delta. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Denman’s letter represents the uncertainty of emancipation policy in the contingent moment of the summer of 1865 and the many legal questions surrounding emancipation that Americans had to confront in Reconstruction. Denman may have been able to maintain her plantation with a different form of labor and eventually pay her debts for slaves, but that possibility was riskier in a world without the antebellum guarantees of slave mortgages and credit valued with property in people. Facing financial instability and new social realities, slaveholding widows and their political allies wielded their local influence and understanding of antebellum law and financial practices to claim the right to relief from the costs of emancipation.

That said, those costs were not evenly distributed. Denman’s Valley Home plantation was near Yazoo City, possibly in Holmes County and near one of the poorest communities in the U.S. today. The area is situated at the southeastern edge of the Mississippi Delta and part of the Black Belt where African Americans were forced into coercive labor conditions and disenfranchised by Jim Crow. Thanks to these practices, most southern families who had claimed enslaved people invented new forms of coerced labor and plunder to recoup their financial losses from emancipation within one generation.[12] Whether Denman was among those planters is a new research question, inspired by the GWRGM project.

Amanda Laury Kleintop is an assistant professor of History at Elon University. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2018. Her first book, Counting the Cost of Freedom: The Fight for Compensated Emancipation after the Civil War, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2025. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Historical Association, and more.

[1] 1860 Federal Census, Mississippi Yazoo, Dwelling 281; Slave Schedules.

[2] Nannie Denman, “Letter from Nannie Denman to Mississippi Governor William L. Sharkey; July 14, 1865,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Sharkey Series 771: Box 955, Folder 3 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed September 12, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_771-955-03-45.

[3] For more an overview of slave mortgages and the plantation economy, see: Richard Kilbourne, Debt, Investments, Slaves: Credit Relations in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, 1825-1885 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1995); Bonnie Martin, “Slavery’s Invisible Engine: Mortgaging Human Property,” Journal of Southern History 76, no. 4 (November 2010): 817–866; Bonnie Martin, “Neighbor-to-Neighbor Capitalism: Local Credit Networks and the Mortgaging of Slaves,” in Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development, edited by Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 107–121; Justin Simard, “Slavery’s Legalism: Lawyers and the Commercial Routine of Slavery,” Law and History Review 37, no. 2 (2019), 571–603. Letters similar to Denman’s include: Letter from Martha Deery Churchwell to Andrew Johnson, July 17, 1865, in Papers of Andrew Johnson (PAJ), vol. 8, edited by LeRoy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 416; Annie E. Hutchcroft to Andrew Johnson, July 25, 1865, in PAJ, vol. 8, 471; Ann H. Kincheloe to President Andrew Johnson, January 8, 1866, in PAJ, vol. 9 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991), 578.

[4] Laura Edwards, Scarlet Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Southern Women in the Civil War Era (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 28–31, quote from 29; Kirsten E. Wood, Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows from the American Revolution through the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Andrew Kull, “The Enforceability after Emancipation of Debts Contracted for the Purchase of Slaves,” Chicago-Kent Law Review (1994), 528; William Calderhead, “How Extensive was the Border State Slave Trade?: A New Look,” Civil War History, 18, no. 1 (March 1972), 47; Kilbourne, Debt, Investments, Slaves, 99–100; Richard H. Chused, “Married Women’s Property Law: Reception of the Early Married Women’s Property Acts by Courts and Legislatures, 1800–1850,” 1398–1400, 1399n207–209; Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, They Were her Property: White Women a Slave Owners in the American South (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 25–56, 197.

[5] Amanda Laury Kleintop, Counting the Cost of Freedom: The Fight for Compensated Emancipation after the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2025), 4–5, 75–86, 123–125.

[6] Ariela J. Gross, Double Character: Slavery and Mastery in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 98–99, 120.

[7] Gregory P. Downs, Declarations of Dependence: The Long Reconstruction of Popular Politics in the South, 1861–1908 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caroline Press, 2011), 4.

[8] Edwards, Scarlett Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 66–70, 71–84, 97–99; Stephanie McCurry, Women’s War: Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 35–54; John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (New York: Free Press, 2012); Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (Lieber Code), articles 155–157.

[9] Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies (New York: Wolters Kluwer, 2015), 663; John Fabian Witt, “From Loss of Services to Loss of Support: The Wrongful Death Statutes, the Origins of Modern Tort Law, and the Making of the Nineteenth-Century Family” Law & Social Inquiry 25, no. 3 (2000), 736–7, 744; John Fabian Witt, “Toward a New History of American Accident Law: Classical Tort Law and the Cooperative First-Party Insurance Movement” Harvard Law Review 114, no. 3 (2001), 690–841; Edwards, Scarlet Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 91–92, 120–121; Gross, “’And for the Widow and Orphan’: Confederate Widows, Poverty, and Public Assistance,” in Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas, edited by Leslie J. Gordon and John C. Inscoe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 217–223.

[10] 1870 Federal Census, Mississippi, Carroll County, Township 20 Range 6, Households 85 and 86.

[11] For more studies on courts’ decisions, see: Giuliana Perrone, Nothing More Than Freedom: The Failure of Abolition in American Law (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023); Aviam Soifer, “Status, Contract, and Promises Unkept,” The Yale Law Journal 1916–1959; Edwards, The People and Their Peace; Kull, “The Enforceability after Emancipation of Debts Contracted for the Purchase of Slaves,” 493–538; Diane J. Klein, Naming and Framing the “Subject” of Antebellum Slave Contracts: Introducing Julia, “A Certain Negro Slave,” “A Man,” Joseph, Eliza, and Albert, Rutgers Race & Law Review 9 (2008), 243–283; John C. Williams, Slave Contracts and the Thirteenth Amendment, Seattle University Law Review (2016), 1009–1029; Kilbourne, Debt, Investments, Slaves, 99.

[12] Ager, Boustan, and Eriksson, “The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners After the Civil War.” The American Economic Review 111.11 (2021), 3767–94. 

African American Families’ Fight Against Apprenticeship Laws in Reconstruction Mississippi

August 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Alessandra Diaz

Alessandra Diaz began working with the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi transcription and tagging team as a high school student from Queens, New York in 2023, and has continued through completing her first year of studies at Columbia University. She authored the following blog post exploring Black parents’ efforts to reconstitute their families and demand due process when faced with the unlawful apprenticing of their children.

In December 1876, a formerly enslaved African American man named Jacob Hodges wrote to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone regarding an ongoing investigation into the kidnappings of two African American children.[1] One of these children was his twelve-year-old son, Thomas Hodges. The other, nine-year-old Alexander Ward, was the son of a formerly enslaved woman, Harriet Ward. Hodges and Ward went to insurmountable lengths to spur Mississippi and Tennessee state authorities into returning their children after they had been kidnapped and forced into unlawful apprenticeships. A series of letters from December 1876 to June 1877 between Hodges, Ward, their lawyers, and the Mississippi government showcase the harrowing yet resilient battle many African Americans fought against discriminatory laws that were meant to keep them in a cyclical state of enslavement. To have a family outside of racialized state control—after enslavers tore apart enslaved families for centuries—was a right African Americans sought relentlessly during enslavement and after national emancipation.

Hodges and Ward’s legal battles came in the wake of the Mississippi Black Codes, signed and passed in the state legislative sessions of November and December of 1865. These laws, which ranged from criminalizing the unemployment of formerly enslaved men to banning all freed people from carrying firearms, explicitly aimed to limit their civil and economic rights and control their livelihoods. One of these laws targeting the labor of formerly enslaved people was entitled “An Act to regulate the relation of master and apprentice, as relates to freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes.” This allowed law enforcement to assign those African American children whom they deemed to be abandoned to a “master or mistress” (court’s legal term) to preside over them, which in turn exerted oppressive control over African American families and their subsequent fracturing.[2]

Former enslavers exploited this law further, creating illegal apprenticeships through kidnappings, coercion, or against the will of the children’s families. If the Hodges and Ward children had been abandoned or if their parents had consented, the apprenticeship would have been lawful. However, because the parents did not consent, and made it clear that they did not, it was an illegal kidnapping. While this law outlined the rights of parents to recover their children if they were illegally apprenticed, former enslavers continued to subvert this law, as exhibited by the Hodges and War case. These loopholes diluted emancipation’s promise by creating legal opportunities for the effective re-enslavement of African American children.

Apprenticeship was the “abusive indenture of children that came in the immediate aftermath of emancipation.”[3] Specific language in the Hodges and Ward letters indicates an apprenticeship case as opposed to a regular kidnapping. Hodges explicitly used the word “bondage” about the children’s kidnapping in a January 10, 1877, letter to the governor’s secretary.[4] The terminology used to describe enslavement indicates the true aim of these apprenticeship laws: effectively re-enslaving African American children against the will of their parents by forcing them to do unpaid labor. Mississippi Judge B. C. Sims, who presided over the case and issued the warrants for the arrest of the kidnappers, wrote to the same governor’s secretary on December 29, 1876, that the two children had been taken by the two white men to “be held in service by them” against the “dignity and peace of the State of Mississippi.”[5] One witness had also described the children, in a letter written on January 28, 1877, as having been “driving a gin,” or cleaning and separating cotton before traveling eight miles to Celina, Tennessee.[6] To the parents, this is an illegal kidnapping and forced bondage. Under the apprenticeship law, however, this could have been perfectly legal.

Legal Document from Jacob Hodges; January 28, 1877. Courtesy of the Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project. 

Furthermore, while it is not explicitly stated that the men who kidnapped the children, William Williams and Stokes Wilhite, had previously been the enslavers of the two parents, Hodges and Ward themselves had previously been enslaved. Former enslavers commonly sought to immediately apprentice the children of families they had previously enslaved.[7] There is also evidence in census records that Williams enslaved people while a farmer in the 1860s in Franklin, Tennessee. He had enslaved, among others, one male, aged 24 years old, and one woman, aged 18 years old.[8] Hodges and Ward were, at the time of the kidnapping, farm laborers under the employment of a man named George C. Coleman. Coleman owned the farm where the two parents worked in 1876.[9] There is no evidence of George C. Coleman in the 1860 slave schedules that indicates he knew or enslaved Hodges or Ward.

Historian Mary Niall Mitchell asserts that former enslavers commonly used apprenticeship as a justification for kidnappings. She states that planters or sharecroppers exploited “the dependency of children…and tried to create for themselves a pool of unfree labor.”[10] Williams and Wilhite’s actions and the parents’ reactions were similar to cases wherein African American parents, especially mothers, would try the case in court. Mothers like Harriet Ward would be denied the rights to their children because they were seen as unfit, usually due to poverty and unemployment. Mitchell cites an example of a New Orleans judge, who said, in an 1864 case, that “we think it very probable our course has been misrepresented by some mothers, who think they can support themselves & family.”[11]

The American legal system seldom sided with women and families who attempted to regain guardianship over their children and were seen as being unfit or unreliable. However, as Harriet Ward did, these mothers did not submit their children to these laws. Mitchell explains how family members “all appealed to the Freedmen’s Bureau for assistance in obtaining custody of children.”[12] The Freedmen’s Bureau was an especially common resource that many families sought for legal representation when appealing to the courts. Although sometimes the Bureau would side with the former enslaver and allowed them to keep the children who had been kidnapped, they also sent letters and petitions on behalf of families to authorities. Regardless, African American families sought legal representation and fought incessantly for their right to their children throughout the presence of apprenticeship laws.

The kidnappings of Alexander and Thomas were thus contextualized by a pattern of African American families pushing against apprenticeship laws that allowed for the legal separation of them from their children. Even after the kidnappers, Williams and Wilhite, were correctly identified, authorities took a negligent approach towards the case. Initially, a chancellor named L. Haughton issued a writ of Habeas Corpus for the children in early January 1877 and hired officers to deliver the writ to the kidnappers, which would hopefully lead to an arrest.[13] A writ of Habeas Corpus meant that whoever was being detained must appear in front of a court to determine the legitimacy of their detention (this writ was issued for the children, not the kidnappers).

For an unknown reason, Ward and Hodges were required to pay the officer an extra ten dollars on top of his daily salary to go to Tennessee and rescue their children. Following their payment to the officer, the parents felt “assured that [their] children would be returned to [them].”[14] However, as Hodges explained in the January 10th letter, after three days, the officer had not succeeded. The officer had remained in Aberdeen and did not attempt to uphold the agreement. Unfortunately for Ward and Hodges, “it was entirely too late to put the papers into the hands of another officer,” and they were not reimbursed or given another opportunity to request this kind of investigation again. Hodges “complained” (as described in the cover of his letter) to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone that the officer’s negligence was a violation of their civil rights. He claimed that had the kidnapped children been white, “the action of the officer would have been different; this is in direct violation of the pledges made on the stump by all democratic speakers before the two Elections prior.”[15] Hodges was livid at the law enforcement that had failed their families. He was adamant that the law had been violated, and he deserved due process.

The parents also had a white attorney, M. M. Cummings, and the aforementioned Judge B. C. Sims, a white justice of the peace, who acted as intermediaries between the parents and the state. Cummings had encouraged Hodges to file a request for the writ of Habeas Corpus. This places the kidnapping in the category of detention and forced servitude, as once again, the writ was issued for the children. The point of the writ would be that law enforcement could legally obtain the children and bring them before the court. Cummings also requested on January 19, 1877, that Justice Sims and Chancellor L. Haughton place a warrant out for the arrest of the alleged kidnappers.[16] The warrant was issued after the aforementioned failed attempts to arrest the kidnappers. Cummings also delayed in his request that the Governor of Tennessee be involved in the case, while also denying the Judges’ culpability in the late issuing of the warrants. Two other authority figures, Aberdeen Mayor Thomas S. Sykes and state senator R. O Reynolds, were also sent letters enclosing the documents of the case for them to review. Sykes would later petition Secretary Kinloch Falconer and Governor Stone on behalf of the parents.[17]

 On June 11, 1877, Mayor Sykes wrote a brief letter to Governor Stone, saying that “Thomas & Alexander have been gone ‘till yesterday when they were returned by F. E. Stout into their custody, and that they now have the said Thomas and Alexander in their parental care.”[18] Stout was another police officer hired to deliver the writ and the warrant of arrest. After nearly six months of working with authorities and wrestling with indifferent law enforcement, while also fighting against centuries of law and psychological backing for the forced servitude of African American children, Hodges and Ward had reunited their families. At every opportunity for their intervention, the two parents made their voices heard, seeking their legal representation with their own money. They also exhibited no hesitancy in taking their case to the highest authority in the state. While the ultimate fate of their family is not documented, Hodges and Ward had nonetheless succeeded in keeping their family units whole. Their case joins the powerful historical tradition of African American families advocating for themselves and their families despite injustice.

Alessandra Diaz is a rising sophomore at Columbia University in the City of New York, studying History with a specialization in urban history of the Americas. She worked on the Civil War on Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project as a Transcription and Tagging research assistant from September 2023–June 2025. You can read her other CWRGM-related blogpost, “Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn’s Impact on Education During Reconstruction,” here.

[1] Jacob Hodges, “Letter from Jacob Hodges to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone; December 29, 1876,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 03 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-03-19.

[2] Laws of the State of Mississippi, (J.J. Shannon & Sons, 1866), 4-6, https://transcription.si.edu/project/42074.

[3] Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976), 403.

[4]  Jacob Hodges,”Letter from Jacob Hodges to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone; January 10, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 05 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-05-15.

[5] Hodges to Stone, December 29, 1876.

[6] Jacob Hodges, “Legal Document from Jacob Hodges; January 28, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 06 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-06-16.

[7] “Mississippi Authorizes “Sale” of Black Orphans to White “Masters or Mistresses,”” A History of Racial Justice, Equal Justice Initiative. https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/nov/22

[8] “1860 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedules, Schedule 2, page 41,” U.S. Census Bureau, Ancestry, accessed August 1, 2025, https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/25450302?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a227373306273722b446e586545515547366741475368524b4f5039627153534774374957424f326c2f3643553d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d

[9] Thomas B. Sykes, “Legal Document from Thomas B. Sykes; January 20, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 06 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-06-13.

[10] Mary Niall Mitchell, “Labor: Tillie Bell’s Song” in Raising Freedom’s Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future after Slavery (New York: NYU Press, 2008): 143–87.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.13944196.8, 168.

[11] Mitchell, Raising Freedom’s Child, 169.

[12] Mitchell, Raising Freedom’s Child, 159.

[13] L. Haughton, “Letter from L. Haughton to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone; January 15, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 06 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-06-01.

[14] Jacob Hodges, “Letter from Jacob Hodges to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone; January 10, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 05 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-05-15.

[15] Hodges to Stone, January 10, 1877.

[16] Jacob Hodges, “Letter from Jacob Hodges to Kinloch Falconer; January 19, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1008, Folder 06 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1008-06-09.

[17] Sykes, January 20, 1877.

[18] Thomas B. Sykes, “Letter from Thomas B. Sykes to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone; June 11, 1877,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stone Series 807: Box 1010, Folder 101 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed August 1, 2025, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_807-1010-11-23.

CWRGM Presents: “Emancipation: A Comprehensive High School Research Curriculum”

July 29, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D. and Stephanie Puhrmann

We are excited to introduce our backward-designed curriculum that uses authentic tasks to help high school students develop historical research skills in:

  • drafting and revising research questions and claims;
  • analyzing history and historical arguments from multiple perspectives;
  • and using digital tools to research and communicate findings
  • while learning about emancipation — and how historians grapple with its significance — during the Civil War and Reconstruction era.

To better assist educators, it includes pre-created but fully editable materials such as activities, note-taking guides, daily lesson plans, presentation slides, and more. This active and authentic approach promotes deeper learning and fosters student agency in their exploration of history.

Read on to learn more about the curriculum, including tips and information not published at the website, which have been emphasized in bold italics throughout this post.

Peterson introducing Iowa and South Dakota educators to the curriculum’s timeline assignment at CWRGM’s 2024 Educator Institute

Value & Overview

This curriculum addresses the need to not only convey historical content but also help students develop meaningful research, writing, and critical thinking skills. Consequently, it is appropriate for social studies and civics/government classrooms.

Designed with teachers and students in mind, it:

  • places students in historically and contemporarily grounded scenarios that encourage them to grapple with the same constraints and decisions faced by historical actors;
  • follows the thread of emancipation during the Civil War and Reconstruction to help them study change over time and better analyze historical context;
  • strengthens their skills in analyzing tertiary, secondary, and primary sources in relationship with one another;
  • helps students navigate multiple — often competing — perspectives, including those of enslaved people, women, veterans, civilians, and government officials; and
  • sharpens their synthesis and writing skills by helping students make and revise claims while also learning to develop accessible, digital museum exhibits in an authentic manner.

Rooted in Authentic Tasks: Final Project Preview:

Snippet of the Final Project Prompt: You are a historian who works for the Smithsonian Institution. They just received a large collection of primary resources about the Civil War and Reconstruction from the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project. They would like you to curate a digital exhibit appropriate for one of their four museums’ websites: the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History, the National Museum of American Women’s History, or the National Museum of the American Indian. They left the exhibit’s topic up to you, so long as it is appropriate to that museum’s mission and your exhibit will 1) create hype for the new collection and 2) provide historical knowledge to individuals who can’t travel to one of their museums.

Outline & Length:

The curriculum is designed to be spaced out over six weeks, though the exact pacing can be adjusted to fit your classroom and students’ needs. The daily lesson plans are written to cover Mondays–Fridays, and will need to be adjusted if you begin on another day besides Monday or have any shortened class periods or vacation days.

While six weeks may seem like a significant amount of time to spend on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the primary goal is to help students develop their historical inquiry and research skills while using content from this era as a vehicle for that learning. Also, please note that the curriculum does not aim to provide comprehensive coverage of the Civil War and Reconstruction (an impossible task); instead, it centers on exploring the theme of wartime and postwar emancipation, while developing research and communication skills:

  • Week 1: Introducing Historical Research and the Importance of Inquiry
  • Week 2: Beginning the Research Process
  • Week 3: Historical Analysis
  • Week 4: Historical Analysis and Writing Interpretations
  • Week 5: Writing Interpretations and Argument Mapping
  • Week 6: Wrap-Up Final Projects

Due to the curriculum’s coverage of emancipation during the Civil War and Reconstruction — as well as the interplay between private citizens and their state and federal governments — the content is not only appropriate for social studies class but also civics and government classrooms. It would also be appropriate for those who teach Mississippi history, African American history, and military history.

Equitable Design

Resources for special education students and English language learners have been incorporated, including:

  • English and Spanish transcriptions at the CWRGM website and audio recordings of select primary source documents at YouTube; 
  • Simplified, reader-friendly English transcriptions of those same documents in Word files;
  • Spanish translations of select secondary sources in Word files; and 
  • Accommodated note-taking guides and lesson plans for additional learning tools in Word files.

Learning Standards

The curriculum includes daily lesson plans that fulfill the following standards, but with editable files, any state’s learning objectives can be substituted.

  • C3 Framework Standards
  • Iowa’s learning standards in content, inquiry, literacy, and 21st century skills

Getting Started

Accessing the Curriculum:

Navigate to CWRGM’s Educator resources and begin by downloading the zipped Emancipation Curriculum file. Unzip and save a version of the files locally. The files are designed to work in Microsoft Word, but can be adapted to other formats, such as Google Drive.

Note:

  • When downloading the zipped files on a PC, users will receive a default security warning when they click on hyperlinks.
  • Hyperlinks will not work while the file is still zipped or if it is opened in Apple Pages.
  • When opening hyperlinks in Word on a Mac for the first time, users will need to grant file access. To do so: click “Select…” and then “Grant Access” in the second window.
  • If you download the files and then upload them to a cloud enivroment, you will need to manually update all of the links directed to other curriculum files (not the web links, however).

Exploring the Curriculum:

Look through the files to familiarize yourself with the curriculum and it’s structure before making edits. Beging with the (1) Getting Started file, which contains a unit-level overview featuring the curriculum’s Stage 1 Desired Results, Stage 2 Assessment Evidence, and Stage 3 Learning Plan, as well as a slide deck overviewing the unit. You can also use this slide deck to introduce students to the unit.

Weeks 1-6

The Weeks 1–6 Folders contain:

  • Daily Lesson Plans (6) for five days each, for six weeks total with learning standards and objectives, materials, bellringers, teacher-directed lessons, guided practice, independent work, closings, differentiation and accommodations, and assessments.
  • Student Note Taking Guides (6) covering the daily objectives, built-in frameworks for note taking, and assignment instructions and rubrics for the week.
  • Weekly Slides containing pre-made slide decks with presentation notes covering historical content for teachers are embedded in the Presentation Notes section throughout (Note: unlike all other materials, they are not hyperlinked in the daily lesson plans).
  • Activity Materials include copies of assignment instructions and rubrics, additional simplified English transcriptions of primary sources, and activity handouts.
  • Accommodated Materials features accommodated note-taking guides for students (Week 1–4) and sentence frames for those who need additional structure and other templates.
  • Back-up PDF copies of the Guelzo and Foner articles are found in the Secondary Readings folder.

Final Project Materials

The Final Project Materials folder contains:

  • The Guidelines and Rubric, which details the final project task for students and how they will be evaluated.
  • The Final Project Packet, which includes templates of all project activities for students to complete, instructions, and resources.
  • The Final Project Packet (Accommodated), which is is a copy of the above Final Project Packet, but also pre-includes a bank of research topics, research questions, and tertiary and secondary sources.

Learning Tools Mini-Lessons

The Learning Tools Mini-Lessons folder includes lesson plans and handouts for the following accommodation tools:

  • Natural Reader: Free online tool to convert spoken words into computer text
  • PaperRater: Free online tool for providing students with feedback and suggestions for revision
  • Rewordify: Free online tool that changes the reading level/text complexity
  • ScreenPal: Free online screen and camera recorder
  • Speech-To-Text on Google Docs: Instructions for converting spoken words to text in a Google Doc
  • YourDictionary: Free online, student-friendly dictionary

Using the Curriculum:

Frequently Asked Questions:

  • Can I use the curriculum in Google Drive or another cloud-based platform? These files have been provided in Word format. You can upload them to a Google Drive instead, but if you do, you will need to update all of the internal hyperlinks (those attached to other documents in the curriculum, not webpages).
  • Which files should I share with the students? Students should receive copies of the Weekly Note-Taking Guides (6 templates total) and the Final Project Packets (1 template total) and save a version locally. Do not share any additional “Materials” files with the students, as copies of the assignment templates, guidelines, and rubrics are already pasted into their guides/packets.
  • Will students need to access any of the other files not mentioned above? Students have almost everything they need in their Weekly Note-Taking Guides or the Final Project Packets, with a few exceptions. The following exceptions can be found linked in the Daily Lesson Plans and teachers should share them with students at the appropriate time and in whatever format (print, virtual, projected) that they prefer:
    • Materials/Handouts:
      • Why Study History Activity Cards (Week 1)
      • Abraham Lincoln in Historical Context (Week 1)
    • Handout Assignment Instructions:
      • CWRGM Scavenger Hunt (Week 1)
      • Clinton Activity (Week 3)
  • If students already have access to the assignment instructions, frameworks, and rubrics, why are there additional copies of these files in the Daily Lesson Plans? The Weekly Note-Taking Guides and Final Project Packets are meant to be resources and templates for students to work directly in: taking notes and completing in-class and out-of-class assignments. However, back-up, stand alone copies of all materials have been provided and linked in the Daily Lesson Plans so that teachers have editible copies. Notes:
    • In fact, most items found in the Daily Lesson Plan’s “Materials” section are for teacher use and should not be provided to students.
    • If you make changes to these files, however, you will also need to reflect those changes in the students’ Weekly Note Taking Guides and/or Final Project Packets.
    • We strongly suggest that educators explore all of the materials and how they are structured from the perspectives of the students and educators before editing anything.
  • What is the best way for me to monitor student progress? Whatever platform (Word or Google, etc.) you choose, it may be beneficial to have students upload their individual, locally-saved copies of their Note Taking Guides and Final Project Packets to their Google Drives (etc.) and share the links with you in a master file to help track student progress.
    • Note: Make sure students add their names to the documents and file names before sharing them with you.

National History Day (NHD) Integration

While this curriculum can be taught as a stand-alone unit, it can also be used to integrate NHD into the classroom for the entire class or for those select students who would like to participate in the program as individuals or groups. The steps built into the curriculum reflect most of NHD’s website category requirements. When completed, students will have curated a website that complies with NHD’s website category, excepting the process paper and word count requirements. Learn more about participating in National History Day and the Website category here. Note: those who want to create a website for NHD, should use NHDWebCentral instead of Weebly to create their websites; resources for accessing NHD WebCentral have been included throughout.

Credit & Sponsors

Curriculum designed by historian Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D. and master educator, Stephanie Puhrmann. Spanish language transcriptions provided by Frida Ramirez.

Curriculum development was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium.

Training the Next Generation of Humanities Professionals: Reflections from DHSI 2025

May 29, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D.

Peterson conversing with DHSI instructors

This week, I had the privilege of attending the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s course on conceptualizing and designing a digital scholarly documentary edition. It provided an informative and thoughtful overview of the design process behind digital editions from documenting editorial workflows to creating protocols for metadata, transcription, and annotation. But the clearest lesson I learned was just how well my time working at Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi (CWRGM) has prepared me for a career in the cultural heritage field.

Work on a scholarly edition as a student researcher is more than just becoming a cog in a document-publishing machine. It’s a teaching tool, a platform for professional development, and a rich, collaborative environment. And it’s one that universities should invest in.

During my time studying history at my undergraduate and graduate alma maters, brilliant historians and educators prepared me to study and write about the past. Yet, humanities disciplines like history are too often criticized for lacking clear professional pathways and not equiping students for careers in the so-called “real world.” Working on a digital scholarly edition like CWRGM, however, builds precisely the kinds of skills that translate directly into careers in libraries, archives, museums, publishing, and cultural heritage, to name a few.

Screen capture of CWRGM student alumni

Since its launch in 2019, CWRGM has trained more than 75 high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in almost all aspects of digital archival work from transcription and indexing to metadata creation and editorial decision-making. While the DHSI course taught me many new skills and strategies, it also reaffirmed something I’ve long felt: that digital documentary editions are one of the most effective tools we have for preparing students for the workforce.

I know firsthand how powerful that training can be. While completing my PhD under CWRGM’s founder and director, Dr. Susannah J. Ural, I joined the project as its lead researcher in 2020. That experience didn’t just make me a better historian or teach me the nitty-gritty details of the digital editing and publishing world. It also taught me how to manage a complex project, communicate across disciplines, and lead a team working toward shared scholarly and public goals.

Screen capture of an item’s metadata showing students listed in the contributer field

For institutions that involve students in digital projects, it’s crucial to go beyond simply assigning tasks or seeing students as hourly workers. We must recognize and support the full range of students’ contributions. They are researchers and editors. At CWRGM, every student who contributes to the publication of a document is credited by name in the item’s metadata. Our full student team is also featured on our project website. These credits are more than symbolic. They help students build a record of their work that they can point to in resumes, CVs, and job interviews.

But credit alone isn’t enough. At CWRGM, we actively train students to talk about their experience professionally. We teach them how to describe digital editing and metadata creation in ways that resonate with employers, how to frame project contributions as evidence of collaboration, attention to detail, technical skill, and research experience. We also encourage students to present their work at academic conferences, author blog posts, and connect their project tasks to their own research interests. These opportunities allow students to see themselves not just as assistants or interns, but as scholars and professionals in their own right.

This kind of preparation is what workforce development in the humanities at universities can look like. Students who work on digital editions learn how to manage deadlines, write for different audiences, problem-solve in real time, and use digital tools that are increasingly central to the cultural heritage sector. Whether they go on to work in academic settings or public institutions, they are better equipped because of the hands-on, collaborative, and publicly engaged work they’ve done.

Screen capture of the summer 2025 CWRGM student research team

Libraries, archives, and digital humanities centers should continue and expand student participation in digital projects. Whether supported through federal grants, credit-bearing internships, work-study programs, or campus-based initiatives like those our university partners offer for CWRGM, student roles in documentary editions provide profound educational value. They offer real experience in cultural heritage fields moving students beyond theory and into practice. They give students something tangible to show for their time, and, perhaps most importantly, they empower them to contribute to meaningful public scholarship that will last beyond their time in school.

And students recognize and value this. In May, five of CWRGM’s current and former student researchers presented at the Library Publishing Coalition’s annual forum, where they offered strategies for structuring digital publishing projects to support both student learning and scholarly outcomes. For Mariah Cosens, a USD History graduate student, the project was transformative: “I jumped at the opportunity to explore primary sources, elevate my research skills, and make a tangible impact on the historical and archival communities,” she said. “It’s honestly such an impactful experience for any student who joins, no matter their current skill set or major.”

For many CWRGM students, the skills they acquire extend well beyond their time with the project. Amiracle Funches, a recent history graduate from Millsaps University, found that her experience with CWRGM translated immediately into her work at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, where she now serves as a Historic Objects Contract Cataloger. “Working on the CWRGM project has significantly impacted my other professional endeavors,” Funches explained. “The information I have gained from the CWRGM project has become directly applicable to my work, especially in understanding prominent figures and events from the war.” Alessandra Diaz similarly leveraged her experience with CWRGM to secure an internship at Columbia University’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.

Screen capture of CWRGM presentors at the Library Publishing Coalition’s 2025 Forum

But their motivation goes deeper than skill-building. The project’s commitment to preserving the voices of marginalized people often leaves a lasting impression on students. “The biggest thing that motivates me in this project is the importance that’s placed on preserving the voices of marginalized individuals,” Funches said. “Being part of preserving the voices of these marginalized groups means a lot to me, as it allows their stories to be told by them, rather than for them, as much as possible.”

As we look ahead to completing CWRGM and creating new editions, we’re more committed than ever to ensuring that students are not just part of the process. They are at the center of it. Because when we invest in students as researchers and editors, we are not just employing students. We are building the next generation of digital humanists, cultural workers, and knowledge-makers.

Exploring Gamifying Emancipation in the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project

March 25, 2025 / / 0 Comments

By Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D.

On a chilly winter morning in South Dakota, my husband and I were looking for something to pass the time when we stumbled across a series of short role-playing games created by Oliver Darkshire. We selected Battle of the Brontës and soon found ourselves rolling dice to see whether we—playing as Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—could produce and publish a masterpiece before our brother Branwell’s debauchery derailed our literary dreams. As Branwell repeatedly set fire to our home, drank too much, and stole our horses, we became fascinated by the Brontë family. We were hooked and wanted to learn more.

Role-playing games like Battle of the Brontës are undeniably fun, but their ability to pique curiosity also makes them powerful tools for active learning.[1] Inspired by this experience, I began investigating how gamification could enhance student engagement with the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project (CWRGM). As a digital documentary edition of over 20,000 letters written to Mississippi’s governors during the Civil War and Reconstruction, CWRGM offers a wealth of primary sources to support student learning and research (see our educator resources here). Yet, access to accessible resources does not automatically translate into student interest. Gamification, however, could be the key to bridging that gap.

Designing educational role-playing games, nonetheless, is no easy task. To prepare, I surveyed existing literature on the representation of the Civil War in tabletop and video games, including Patrick Lewis and Trae Wellborn’s recently edited collection, Playing at War: Identity and Memory in Civil War Video Games. Their scholarship emphasized the importance of ensuring that Civil War games represent the agency of enslaved people and avoid perpetuating harmful narratives about slavery and African Americans, particularly those rooted in Lost Cause ideology.[2] I also explored the history of video games, game design theory, and gaming praxis and pedagogy. Unlike traditional assignments, scholars argue that games encourage active engagement and help students move beyond linear, teleological views of the past.[3] Play stimulates learning, according to Stephen Mallory, “by using the rules of the game to encourage deeper engagement, by appearing to challenge the existing cultural standards of schooling.”[4]

Letter from Colonel Benjamin King to Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus; December 16, 1862

Yet, as enlightening as reading was, playing games proved equally important. In one of the most delightful tasks of my career, I set to work playing a series of educational games to help me determine which would best align with the CWRGM collection and our existing curriculum on emancipation while minimizing barriers to game creation, student access, and play.[5] Digital games like those available through Mission US, for instance, can immerse students in dynamic, simulated historical environments, but they are costly to develop, require advanced coding skills, and may be less accessible in schools with limited technological resources.[6] I also quickly ruled out designing a Reacting to the Past-style game. Although these games emphasize student agency—an element I plan to incorporate in the game we ultimately develop—they typically require large class sizes, cater to more advanced audiences, and assign each student a historical character.[7] Given our budget, development timeline, and the careful planning necessary to navigate the ethical complexities of assigning students roles as enslavers and enslaved people, this format was not a practical fit.

As I played a variety of games, I began to notice key patterns. Chance-based games like Battle of the Brontës, for example, stood out for their simplicity and lack of barriers to play. They are fun, easy to set up, involve minimal resources, and are not overly involved, but they also offer less educational depth. Thoughtful lesson planning, however, can help mitigate this issue. These games are excellent for exploring a single concept with students and conveying messages about the odds or difficulty of certain tasks. For example, game mechanics can help students understand how historical context shaped the odds of success, such as the overwhelming challenge of launching a successful slave revolt during the antebellum era. Importantly, they also offer newcomers to game development, like myself, an opportunity to explore game design, clarify the game’s central argument, and experiment with potential mechanics for a larger, more expansive game.

Consequently, I decided to begin by designing Brine & Blood: 7th Grade Edition, a simple one-page role-playing game built entirely around chance. Its development was a foundational step toward our larger goal of creating a game that incorporates student agency and primary source analysis. Integrating primary sources into future gameplay will deepen students’ understanding of how historical context shapes choice and narratives within specific environments. Games that present historical content, according to Dawn Spring, “illustrate not only how history informed environments, narratives, game play, mechanics, and strategies,” but also reveal that “primary source research can become these elements.”[8] For the time being, however, I had plenty to tackle just by considering the central argument our eventual game would convey.

Brine & Blood is a collaborative role-playing game designed to expose seventh-grade students to some of the advantages and disadvantages the Confederacy faced prosecuting the war as a slave society, and as such, it offers students a chance to understand how enslaved people impacted the war and emancipation in their own right. In the game, students take on the role of the Mississippi State Salt Works, which is tasked with producing enough salt to sustain both the Confederate war effort and local civilian needs. Their challenge lies in balancing production demands while navigating rising public unrest and the threat of defeat by Union forces. Students gain insight into the broader challenges the Confederacy faced, particularly its failure to foster a unified sense of nationalism in the face of Black resistance.

Building the game around salt production was a natural fit. My colleague, CWRGM Senior Assistant Editor Sarah West, suggested using the collection’s extensive array of salt-related letters because salt was a vital wartime resource that was essential for preserving food, especially meat, and for processing animal hides. Many games revolve around resource allocation, and salt could serve as a crucial nexus for exploring key challenges the Confederacy faced, including the production and transportation of war materials, the difficulties of supplying both troops and civilians, and the tensions between state and federal authority that exacerbated unrest on the home front. Significantly, this focus also highlights the Confederacy’s dependence on enslaved labor, revealing both the advantages it conferred and the inherent vulnerabilities it created. This opens the door to examining enslaved people’s agency during the war and the ways they exploited these vulnerabilities to resist and reshape their circumstances.

As such, games like Brine & Blood—just like historical monographs and articles—make arguments.[9] For Brine & Blood, the key argument became that emancipation was a process shaped by both enslaved people’s agency and the Confederacy’s structural weaknesses. While the game is entirely chance-based, its mechanics emphasize several key historical themes. The Confederacy relied heavily on enslaved people to perform essential labor for the war effort, including salt production. However, enslaved individuals’ acts of self-emancipation, which increased as Union forces advanced deeper into the South, made this task increasingly difficult and hurt Confederate morale. Furthermore, the Confederacy’s efforts to exert centralized power—such as impressing enslaved laborers to work in the salt mines—undermined white Southerners’ commitment to the Confederate cause, further exposing cracks in Confederate nationalism.[10]

Salt Mine on Avery Island, Louisiana (Courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection)

As a streamlined, one-page, chance-based game, however, the seventh-grade edition of Brine & Blood will not introduce students to these key historical themes without post-game discussion and reflection (see the corresponding freely available lesson plan and game here). After the game, the class gathers to reflect on their experiences, beginning with a quick poll to determine which groups won or lost. Students then explore why they succeeded or failed, considering what advantages and disadvantages shaped the Confederate or Union war effort. The conversation incorporates real historical conditions by assigning primary and secondary source reading, which helps students draw connections between the game’s mechanics and their effect on the lived experiences of Mississippians during the Civil War.

To deepen their understanding, students engage with additional readings and videos about the Confederacy’s reliance on enslaved labor, acts of resistance by enslaved people, and the impact of resource shortages and Confederate policy on morale. They analyze primary sources from the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi (CWRGM) collection by selecting one letter from a curated list of seven documents related to salt production and the Confederate war effort. In a written response, students then reflect on one idea they learned from the game and evaluate how accurately or inaccurately it was represented in Brine & Blood, citing evidence from their CWRGM primary source and outside readings.

Their responses may explore several cause-and-effect themes, such as how slavery provided a critical labor advantage for the Confederacy, but this advantage weakened as enslaved people self-emancipated, especially with the arrival of Union troops. Others might discuss how Confederate attempts to impress enslaved laborers for the war effort sparked resentment among white Confederates who wanted to maintain control over enslaved populations. Students might also analyze how enslaved people resisted by slowing work, breaking tools, escaping, or seeking freedom and examine how these acts of defiance, combined with the presence of Union forces, contributed to the Confederacy’s defeat. Others may reflect on the impact of resource access—such as inflation, blockade runners, and poverty—on public morale, highlighting the growing divisions and hardships that shaped pro-Confederate and pro-Union sentiment in Mississippi. This post-game work reinforces the historical lessons embedded in the game and strengthens students’ ability to connect primary sources to broader historical narratives.

By blending gameplay, discussion, and historical analysis, this lesson plan encourages students to connect the past to broader historical narratives while developing essential critical thinking and interpretive skills. While we plan to expand the concepts introduced in the 7th-grade version of Brine & Blood into a more interactive game that directly integrates primary sources into the gameplay, designing a small-scale game allowed me to explore key themes, experiment with game mechanics, and brainstorm ideas for future development. In the process, I learned that games can be powerful tools for helping students understand how historical context shaped the choices available to different groups of people. By simulating the pressures and constraints of life during the Civil War, Brine & Blood encourages students to engage with history in an active, immersive way, allowing them to grasp how agency, causation, and historical outcomes were deeply intertwined.

[1] See Mark C. Carnes, “Reacting to the Past” Pedagogy Manual (New York: Priscilla McGeehon, 2005); Jeffrey Lawler and Sean Smith, “Creating a Playable History: Digital Games, Historical Skills and Learning,” IDEAH, 2, no. 1 (2021), https://doi.org/10.21428/f1f23564.22225218; and  Stephen Mallory, “Playing as People: Critical Pedagogy and Historical Role Immersion Games,” Visual Arts Research 49, no. 2 (2023): 102-114, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/911918.

[2] Patrick Lewis and James Hill Welborn III, eds, Playing at War: Identity and Memory in Civil War Video Games (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2024.

[3] Lawler and Smith, “Creating a Playable History.”

[4] Stephen Mallory, “Playing as People: Critical Pedagogy and Historical Role Immersion Games,” Visual Arts Research 49, no. 2 (2023): 102-114, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/911918.

[5] I played a series of one page RPGs by Oliver Darkshire, student-created Twine games from Critical Play, Reacting to the Past, Mission US’ interactive digital narrative games, and Nations & Cannon, among others.

[6] Jos´e Carlos Pi ˜nero Charlo, Mar´ıa Teresa Costado Dios, Enrique Carmona Medeiro, Fernando Lloret, eds, “PrefacetoTrends on Educational Gamification: Challenges and Learning Opportunities,” Education Sciences (March 2022), https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-0365-3539-5.

[7] See Carnes, “Reacting to the Past” Pedagogy Manual.

[8] Dawn Spring, “Gaming History: Computer and Video Games as Historical Scholarship,” Rethinking History 19, no. 2 (2015): 207–221. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2014.973714.

[9] Spring, “Gaming History.”

[10] See Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).

Teaching Text Encoding using the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project

June 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

By Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D.

Humanities departments in post-secondary educational institutions are rapidly recognizing the value of developing computational skills among humanists and many are even adopting digital humanities curriculums. Computing education in secondary education, however, is rarely informed by the humanities and vice versa, and many students are never exposed to any computing. Text encoding documents from digital scholarly editions, like the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project, offer educators one promising interdisciplinary approach for providing students with an early introduction to computing and information management in highly approachable ways. After all, students have been encoding phonics since elementary school. By continuing to teach encoding at the middle and high school levels, they can explore how digital information is created and arranged in libraries, archives, and the internet. Adopting basic encoding into your classroom even presents an opportunity to practice close reading, research, and critically reflect on the limitations inherent to documentary evidence and digital information. And while this task may seem daunting, adopting it earlier in the classroom will help students develop foundational skills in the humanities and STEM fields in interdisciplinary ways that will prepare them for continuing education and offer early exposure to career development. And I promise, it is far less daunting than you think. 

Peterson learning to encode the Fant letter with TEI at the 2024 Digital Humanities Summer Institute
Peterson learning to encode the Fant letter with TEI at the 2024 Digital Humanities Summer Institute

What is TEI?

TEI (or the Text Encoding Initiative) is an international organization founded in 1987 to create guidelines or rules for how to mark up a text in the humanities and social sciences so that it is machine readable. TEI is a form of encoding commonly used by librarians, museum specialists, publishers, and scholars that allows users to mark parts of a text so computers can read them, and that information can then be incorporated into coding so that computers can present the information in purposeful ways. Therefore, encoding does things like mark titles as headings, names as people, cities as places, and so on. Importantly, it also provides a framework for analytical reading as you can add contextual details, notes, and draw connections between portions of a text or out to other materials. Encoding offers much more than this, but for classroom purposes, it can introduce students to some of the fundamental computing principles found within encoding languages like TEI and even languages like HTML.1 So, let’s explore a few effective ways you can incorporate encoding into your curriculum.

Screen capture of basic TEI added to the Fant letter.
Figure 1: Screen capture of basic TEI added to the Fant letter

Teaching Encoding in the Classroom in Three Simple Steps: 

While the TEI markup shown above in Figure 1 may feel overwhelming, it is a fairly simple markup of a letter from James W. Fant to Mississippi Governors John J. Pettus on April 15, 1861 from CWRGM.2 TEI offers nearly 600 ways to identify elements of this letter, but narrowing down to a few that match your learning objectives will be necessary. In this example, I have noted that the document is a letter, the title of the letter, the opening and closing, line breaks, and paragraphs. Having students identify these elements encourages them to think through the unique purposes and forms documents can take, and would be a useful feature in an English course (briefly explored below). I have also identified several key terms belonging to three categories: the names of four people (J. W. Fant, J. J. Pettus, Featherston, and Sear), two locations (Holly Springs, Miss. and Pensacola, Fla.), and two military units (the Mississippi Home Guard and the University Greys). To teach students to encode in your classroom, you can divide the fundamentals of encoding into three parts: using perspective to explore a document, encoding the key terms, and discussing and customizing their encoding work. 

Step One: Use Perspective to Explore a Document:

Photograph of the Fant letter in digitized form featuring cursive handwritting
The Fant letter in digitized form

Every document offers numerous focal points, and these should correspond to your course subject (such as government, history, English, geography, and so forth) and the lessons you would like to impart. Introduce students to encoding by having them think through several different possibilities for how to use a letter based on a perspective and purpose, and make sure at least one of these possibilities is explicitly tied to a career path in your subject matter. One way to accomplish this is to divide students into groups and assign them a profession and task connected to the document. Ask them to identify which parts of the text they would find interesting or important from that perspective. 

Throughout this article, I will use the “Letter from J. W. Fant to Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus; April 15, 1861” found at CWRGM because it is a short, concise letter that can connect to multiple subjects, and most importantly, it is about students (albeit college students), which your class may find more relatable. Importantly, CWRGM also offers transcriptions of their collection, so students can access it regardless of their ability to read cursive. When using the Fant Letter you could assign students the following fictional roles:

  • You are a geographer working for the Mississippi Geography Association tasked with studying how place and region shaped Mississippi’s military units after secession in early 1861. Students here will likely identify Holly Springs, Mississippi and Pensacola, Florida as important, and they may even connect them to the military units.
  • The U.S. military has enlisted your team to study who fought from Mississippi in 1861 so they can better understand what motivates soldiers to enlist in the early stages of a conflict. Students will likely identify the Home Guard and University Greys as key terms, and they may also connect this to age or a fear that young men were not prepared for the fighting to come.
  • The American Biography Association has hired you as biographer, and you need to collect information on key Mississippians during the American Civil War and summarize their contributions and connections to the war. Here, students will likely mark the people’s names as important, and they may even connect them to the governor’s office, the university, and the military units.

There are many roles and purposes instructors can create; perhaps you could also devise a team of historians, a task force from the University of Mississippi, or from the state governors’ office, and so on. By taking on a role, students will practice locating relevant evidence and purposefully connect it to a professional setting. They will also be learning the first steps of encoding and editorial work by identifying what is important for markup and making the connection that these choices will depend on their unique purposes. 

Figure 2: Screen capture of the Fant letter with the people highlighted in pink, places in blue, and military units in yellow
Figure 2: Screen capture of the Fant letter with the people highlighted in pink, places in blue, and military units in yellow

Once students have been assigned to their teams, have them begin practicing markup the document itself by highlighting, underlining, or drawing boxes around the terms they deem important to their purpose (see Figure 2). This task can be customized to the technologies and supplies in your classroom and budget. For example, you can project the text onto a white board, display it on a smart board, use word processors, or this can even be accomplished with printed copies. In modeling this for the students, I suggest using three to four different colors to group the key terms together. For example, the Fant letter features the names of people (in pink), places (in blue), and military units (in yellow). Depending on your students’ skill levels, you could provide the categories for them or ask them to create their own. Once they have highlighted their terms, come together as a class to discuss; here are some questions to guide your discussion:

  1. Why did you pick these terms? Why are they important to your purpose?
  2. How did you group them together and why? What is included when you group them this way? What is excluded? (Note: when they identify key terms, they will always emphasize one thing in favor of another. In this example, we are highlighting people, but key identities like “students” are not being deemphasized. However, if this was an important aspect of your work, they could choose to encode “students”; this is an editorial choice).
  3. How complete is the information they highlighted? For example, were they given the person’s full name? (Note: Some names, like military commanders and politicians (ex. John J. Pettus) are more likely to have full names with accompanying web pages. With ordinary people this is less likely, and if the person is a woman (ex. Mrs. Robert Jones), enslaved (ex. John), or a person of color (ex. J. L. Jacobs), information will be more scant).

Step Two: Encode the Key Terms:

I promised this was easier than it appears, and while it may seem too simple to be of value, by marking key terms and grouping them, students are practicing some of the first steps of encoding and editing. They are making choices about what information is relevant and how it can be organized for a variety of purposes. The next step is to introduce your class to some of the introductory rules and methods of TEI markup. Don’t let the encoding marks fool you, this is also a manageable process. 

Begin with a brief discussion asking students whether they think highlighting these terms means computers can read them or identify them. Essentially, the answer is no. Identifying a term is the first step, but for a computer to do anything with it, students will need to encode it. A word processor or any analog method will work, so long as you have space to write around the key terms that they have selected. To encode a document so computers can read it, students will need to learn a few simple rules and methods:

  • For the computer to recognize that these terms are important, they will need to add “elements” to them. We will work with the <name> element, but as I mentioned previously, there are nearly 600 options. I have also marked all of the elements in green, and will continue to mark the people in pink, places in blue, and military units in yellow.
  • Place the element term, in this case “name” in angle brackets, so the computer knows to distinguish between their markup and the original text. Opening elements will look like this: <name> and closed elements will look like this: </name>. 
  • Elements must be balanced. If they add the opening element before a key term and do not close it, the computer will treat the rest of the document as a name. To close an element, they will need to add a closing element at the end of their term.
    • Incorrect: “I have another son a member of the <name>University Greys, I wish to suggest to you the propriety of not receiving that Company into the service of the Confederacy….” (Note: in this example, the computer will treat the University Greys as a name, but it will also think everything following “Greys,” is part of the name).
    • Correct: “I have another son a member of the <name>University Greys</name>, I wish to suggest to you the propriety of not receiving that Company into the service of the Confederacy….” (Note: To fix it, close the element with a backslash; this will tell the computer that only the term “University Greys” is part of the named entity).  
  • They can also add “types” to the element: In our example, we have groups of named people, places, and organizations (in this case military units), and you can use encoding to classify the names into their own sub-groupings. To do so, add a “space” and the classification “type=” after the word “name” in your opening element and add the category in quotation marks: “People,” “Place,” and “org.” See these examples:
    • <name type=”Person”>J, J, Pettus</name>
    • <name type=”Place”>Hollysprings Miss</name>
    • <name type=”org”>University Greys</name>

I recommend first modeling this for students using another document or even the same, depending on their skill and comfort level. 

Figure 3: Screen capture of the Fant letter with the person, place, and org elements marked in TEI
Figure 3: Screen capture of the Fant letter with the person, place, and org elements marked in TEI

Now that students have identified the key people, places, and military units, they can practice marking up the text with these elements (see Figure 3). Remember, that adding the markup based on TEI is essentially letting the computer read the highlighting or underlining they already completed. There are a variety of ways to tackle this task depending on your classroom’s need, but a combination of independent, group, and class work will likely work best to help develop students’ comfort level with encoding:

  • You may choose to have students work as a group or individually to markup one category (persons, places, or orgs), and/or work as a group or individually to mark up all three category types. Students can add elements using a word processor or use colored utensils to markup a paper copy of the letter.
  • Using dry erase markers on a document projected on a white board or a document visible on a smart board, work together to show the markup students or groups created. Have students individually come up to the board to markup one term at a time.
  • If the class is more introductory or struggling with encoding, you may even break this into two steps by first adding only the <name> and </name> brackets in round one and then come back to add the “ type=”place”” values in a second round.

As students practice encoding, here are a few common errors to watch for:

  • Missing angle brackets: “<name” 
  • Brackets facing the wrong direction: “>name<”
  • Missing the opening or closing element: “<name>Text” or “Text</name>”  
  • Missing the backslash in the closing element: “<name>Text<name>” 
  • Forgetting the space or equal sign after the element type: “<nameType=”place”>” or “<name Type ”place”>”
  • Forgetting the quotation marks around the type category: “<name Type=place>”

Additionally, here are a few questions to guide your discussion about these elements:

  • Why might you want to put these terms into categories like people, places, and orgs instead of just placing them into the name element category alone?
  • What are other possible categories they might create for a document? 
  • What are some possible challenges to creating categories? (Note: They may discuss that not all terms easily fit into a category. For example, nicknames may or may not be included in the name group. Or should they include forests in the places group or only towns; what about states or counties? These are editorial choices they are making based on their purpose).

Step Three: Discuss and Customize:

Now that students have practiced marking up the documents, it is important to highlight what the markup does computationally and use it to practice deep reading.

What can the markup do and why does this matter? The short answer, at least in computing, is that it doesn’t immediately do anything. However, adding these elements and element types, allows computer developers to write code that can perform a variety of things with the text that has been encoded. For instance, you could return all of the people found in a document or a collection of documents, which would be very useful for your team of fictional biographers. With further encoding, you can also add contextualizing annotations to the terms in the document, or link together all of the documents that included the University Greys military unit. These possibilities seem abstract, but fortunately, you can use CWRGM to demonstrate encoding’s possible outcomes. Pull up the Fant letter at CWRGM to demonstrate:

  • If you select the first instance of “Hollysprings,” for example, you can access over 200 documents also containing the town. (Note: you may want to discuss that features like these make it easier to find information about people like Fant or others who are hard to locate on the internet).
  • If you hover over or click the term “University Grays” in the letter, you can view an annotation that provides additional information about the unit, and then the annotation is populated into every document that includes the unit. (Note: This is an excellent opportunity to discuss why it is useful to add annotations to historical documents, such as helping present-day users understand this time period, offering more appropriate terminology, and adding additional information users may need to understand the concepts of the letter, among other benefits).
Screen capture of the Fant letter digitized, transcribed and annotated at cwrgm.org
Screen capture of the Fant letter digitized, transcribed, and annotated at cwrgm.org

I have already mentioned several ways to scale this assignment down, so let’s explore some other ways to expand this lesson to encourage a deeper reading. Now that they have encoded the letter, they can practice research and annotation.

Figure 4: Screen capture of TEI markup providing a list of the four people tagged in the Fant letter
Figure 4: Screen capture of TEI markup providing a list of the four people tagged in the Fant letter
Figure 5: Screen capture of TEI markup providing a list of the two military units tagged as orgs in the Fant letter
Figure 5: Screen capture of TEI markup providing a list of the two military units tagged as orgs in the Fant letter

If you or your students are curious about what the TEI encoding can look like when annotations and hyperlinks are added to their key elements (like they are at CWRGM), here are screen captures (see Figures 4–5) of some minimal TEI that I added to the bottom of the TEI in our earlier example (see Figure 1). The encoding shown here connects web pages and historical documents to each of the four people in the letter (see Figure 4) and adds basic information to the two military units (org) (see Figure 5).

Students can also practice a stripped down version of this in the classroom. Working from their assigned teams (geographers, historians, etc.) they can research and write annotations for the key terms they encoded. To simplify matters, here are a few web resources from Mississippi Encyclopedia on Governor John J. Pettus, Colonel Winfield Scott Featherston, and Captain Claudius Wistar Sears. J. W. Fant is more difficult to locate online, so here are links to his entries in the 1850 Slave Schedules, 1860 U.S. Census, and 1870 U.S. Census. (Note: the wealth of information of these military and political leaders and the lack of information about Fant and/or differences between tertiary, secondary, and primary sources are great discussion topics here; and learning how to read the primary sources for Fant, would also be a worthy discussion or assignment). Don’t forget, CWRGM even includes brief annotations on the Mississippi Home Guard and University Grays, and Wikipedia also hosts a page. 

Researching and annotating these key terms is one way to expand this exercise for a more in depth analysis, but there are several others:

  • Encode, research, and annotate other documents from CWRGM. You could explore the collection by keyword searching or browsing by document or topic. Students can then draw connections between documents. 
  • You could also apply this exercise to other resources.
  • Identify new categories and terms to encode in your document(s); these can also be researched and annotated.
  • Especially for English courses, students can mark up the parts of a document (see Figures 6–7) or sentence structure and reflect on the purpose of letters or other forms of documents in general, how people communicate, and continue the discussion of how people talk to computers. Here are two examples of what this markup could look like (see Figures 6–7) rendered in a way that follows a similar method to the one explored above (see Figures 2–3). This example identifies the document as a letter and highlights its opening and closing salutation and date.
Figure 6: Screen capture of the Fant letter where the header and closer are highlighted in pink, dates in green, and paragraphs in blue
Figure 6: Screen capture of the Fant letter where the header and closer are highlighted in pink, dates in green, and paragraphs in blue
Figure 7: Screen capture of the Fant letter with the opener and closer, dates, and paragraphs marked up with basic TEI
Figure 7: Screen capture of the Fant letter with the opener and closer, dates, and paragraphs marked up with basic TEI

This encoding assignment, especially when expanded to include a research and annotation component, gives students an opportunity to work with a text on a more in depth level, and apply it to a humanities context. In this instance, their encoding of the Fant letter could end in a discussion of U.S. history and the American Civil War era. Here are some questions to guide your discussion:

  • What can we learn about Fant by reading this letter? How does your research about Fant in the Slave Schedules and censuses inform what you know about his world view? (What are Slave Schedules?).
  • What is the purpose of Fant’s letter? Why might he oppose the University Greys being received by the governor? (Note: Consider how he uses age to reinforce his argument).
  • Soldier Motivation (Mississippians in the Confederate Army):
    • Why might the students at the University of Mississippi want to form a unit together? Why might they want to enlist and fight? 
    • Why might Fant’s other son want to join the Home Guard? Why might Fant support this when he opposed his other son’s enlistment with the University Greys? (Consider how close to home militia units were in comparison to Confederate units).
  • What are Fant’s sons’ names? (Note: the letter does not say which sons specifically, but many of his sons’ names are listed in the census; most students will not make this connection, but it is a great opportunity to discuss the limitations of sources and some methods for overcoming them (such as using the censuses)). Where could you look to find information about them? 
  • Does Fant support the Union or the Confederacy? How can you tell? Why might he choose to support the Confederacy when many Mississippians were Unionists as well? (Why Mississippians supported secession) (Consider his role as a slaveholder, for example) (Note: students could research Fant in newspapers at Chronicling America).
  • Whose perspective is represented here? Is this perspective absolute? Whose perspectives are missing? (For example, we do not hear from his sons, wife, or the people he enslaved; we do not receive the governor’s response either). 

These are just a few of the rich possibilities you can develop to help students take their encoding, research, and annotation and combine it with some humanist reasoning so they explore the motivations and experiences of some Mississippians during the American Civil War. 

Encoding with TEI seems like a daunting task, but hopefully these step-by-step examples will inspire you to incorporate it into your classroom. Encoding helps students process the fundamentals of written communication in documentary and digital formats, and provides them with an early introduction to some of the elements computers need to read human produced information. Additionally, it creates an analytical framework for deep reading by emphasizing context, drawing connections between resources, centering research and explanation, and helping students think through what information is present and what is missing. Considering all of these benefits, now is an excellent chance for many of us to move past our fears of the digital, and adopt some early digital humanities into the classroom. 

Lindsey R. Peterson, Ph.D. is the Digital Humanities Librarian/Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of South Dakota (Vermillion) and co-director of CWRGM. You can learn more about her work at lindseyraepeterson.com. Thanks to funding from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission, she attended the 2024 Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) where she completed the Text Encoding Fundamentals and Their Application course, which inspired this post. 

References:

  1. See David J. Birnbaum, “What is XML and Why Should Humanists Care? An Even Gentler Introduction to XML,” Digital Humanities, accessed June 6, 2024, http://dh.obdurodon.org/what-is-xml.xhtml#:~:text=XML%20is%20a%20hierarchical%20tree.&text=It%20may%20look%20like%20a,nest%20fully%20inside%20other%20elements.  ↩︎
  2. Fant, J. W., “Letter from J. W. Fant to Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus; April 15, 1861,” Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Pettus Series 757: Box 931, Folder 9 in Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi, accessed June 6, 2024, https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_757-931-09-29. ↩︎

Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn’s Impact on Education During Reconstruction

April 5, 2024 / / 0 Comments

By Alessandra Diaz

During the summer of 2023 CWRGM co-director Dr. Lindsey R. Peterson delivered a talk on digital scholarly editions to the New-York Historical Society’s Student Historian Internship Program. After attending the talk, Alessandra Diaz, a high school student from Queens, New York, joined the Civil War & Reconstruction Governor of Mississippi project’s transcription and subject tagging team, where she performs quality review of the collection’s transcriptions and adds enhanced discoverability features to improve users’ ability to access the site’s diverse collection of documents. As part of her internship, Diaz authored the following blog post on early debates over African American collegiate education at Alcorn University in Mississippi. A thought-provoking examination of the connections between education and racial uplift, Diaz explores applying the contemporary concept of equity to reframe how we conceptualize early HBCUs and offers a thoughtful personal assessment of historic approaches to African American educational civil rights during Reconstruction.

Many supporters of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) typically believed they played a vital role in the advancement of African American civil rights. The institutional end goal was achieving equity—in this case providing freed people with support tailored to their unique needs rather than providing Black Americans the same kind of support white students received. Equality, on the other hand, proposed the same treatment for all groups regardless of their histories or current struggles. In the late-nineteenth century, HBCUs created spaces tailored to free African Americans’ experiences and identities at a time when they had limited access to educational spaces and the archetypal predominantly white institution did not serve African American interests.[1] The Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project (CWRGM) collection reveals tensions between white lawmakers and African Americans about Black strategies for advancement, especially those employing racial uplift and respectability politics. These tensions surrounding HBCU Alcorn University demonstrate long standing debates over Black calls for more equitable treatment during Reconstruction. Both the reactions and their contexts highlight how white legislators used their lawmaking influence and how African Americans took charge of their agency to affect greater change in education.

According to author and former Mississippi HBCU Alcorn University President (2011–213) M. Christopher Brown II, HBCUs create space for students to “develop a unique competency” in addressing minority-majority issues.[2] This concept, which he wrote about a decade before his tenure at Alcorn, embodies the equity that HBCUs championed: providing a curriculum specific to African American needs. During Reconstruction, African Americans were driven by these “unique competencies” to vote African Americans into office and argue for equity at the state and national level. Such was the case with the 1870 election of Mississippi politician Hiram H. Revels, the first African American United States senator. Using their voting power and education, they affected change on a local, state, and national level. Senator Revels, for instance, publicly opposed an amendment that would keep Washington, D.C. schools segregated. He contributed extensively to Reconstruction efforts in Mississippi, especially African American advancement through education. Following his term in the U.S. Senate, he even became the first president of Alcorn University (now Alcorn State University), an HBCU founded in Alcorn County, Mississippi in 1871 by white Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn.[3]

Two black and white potograph profiles of Senators Hiram H. Revels, posing seating and looking to the right.
Hiram H. Revels (Library of Congress)

Throughout the 1870s, African American voices from men like Senator Revels were present both in Congress and out of it. Organizations such as the American Missionary Association (AMA) funded primary and secondary-level schools beginning in the 1860s for the formerly enslaved to provide them with housing, a Christian education, and opportunities to assimilate into white society. While conforming to white society’s expectations of “civil” Blackness was at the root of respectability politics, many African Americans turned their newfound education and skills into new levels of autonomy, be it through opening their own businesses or entering activism, among other approaches.[4] The politics of respectability reflected in the AMA’s mission to integrate African Americans into white society, is a complex yet important legacy of organization-based emancipation efforts.

It is important to note that opportunities were not equal for all. Lawmakers established schools for African American women, but respectability politics impacted African American women in even more complex ways.[1] In her analysis of Southern Baptist African American women’s activism, historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham find Black club women’s activism was grounded in respectability politics. “From the perspective of the Baptist women and others who espoused the importance of ‘manners and morals,’ the concept of respectability signified self-esteem, racial pride, and something more,” she writes. “It also signified the search for common ground on which to live as Americans with Americans of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.” Consequently, women debated at conventions how best to implement moral standards in their communities.[5] Founded in the 1830s, Oberlin College in Ohio, was one of the first colleges to award diplomas to Black women at the undergraduate level following the Civil War. Most were primarily educated in the North as few coeducational, racially integrated schools existed in the South. 

Scan of hand written letter on Mississippi Executive Office letterhead
Letter from Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames to F. C. Harris; August 4, 1874, CWRGM. Click image to access.

African Americans who identified as representations of the race identified themselves as “race” men and women, and there were further tensions within the African American community regarding the best approaches to advancement and education as well. When Revels left the university in 1874, Alcorn went through a period of transition, and Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames advocated for appointing abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass to the presidency. Positioning Douglass as a best representative of the African American race, he wrote, “I regard Mr. Douglas [sic] as more capable of doing good for his race….”[6] Ames framed Douglass as a “respectable” member of the African American race who was therefore best suited for the presidency. As Scholar Hakeem Jefferson describes, “those who embrace respectability politics believe that white Americans will reward group members’ good behavior; consequently, the lot of the group will improve.” Consequently, those proponents of respectability politics penalized those who failed to “do good for their race” and failed to live up to white standards.[7] White proponents cast men like Douglass or Revels as paragons of virtue, or the best models for freed people to follow, as they faced continuous discrimination from white America, but balancing the opinions of white and Black Americans was complex. In fact, Revels was dismissed from his position at Alcorn due to his opposition to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames’ reelection in 1874. White Americans likewise viewed Revels as a model for the African American race, which in their view, included not opposing the white male status quo. This allowed elite white Americans manipulate Black respectability politics for their own ends in the nineteenth century.

White citizens and lawmakers challenged the ideology behind respectability politics, but it also allowed spaces for interracial cooperation. Some white legislators wanted African Americans to achieve limited success and envisioned a small percentage becoming the leaders of their race. Others believed that education, which was key to African American success, should be limited or entirely unavailable to Black students. Educated African American men and women threatened the social, political, and economic infrastructure of the United States, wherein white supremacy was the norm. Furthermore, some believed the presence of African American students in schools threatened finite educational opportunities for white students. In a September 1873 issue of the Daily Mississippian, one author discusses the “practical monopoly” that “colored people” held over education. They theorized, “the university had, until now, prevented the attempt at a mixing of the white and blacks which must destroy any instruction of learning by forcing out the best classes of white students.”[8] Black students’ very presence in schools allegedly detracted from the experience and learning quality of white students.

Black and white photograph of Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn seated in a chair and facing the camera.
James L. Alcorn, Governor of Mississippi (Library of Congress)

Six years into Reconstruction, Mississippi governor James L. Alcorn presented his radical stance on partially integrating African Americans into some higher education institutions, namely the University of Mississippi in Oxford, in an 1871 letter to the Mississippi Legislature. Governor Alcorn’s background was complex. He was a former enslaver and a Whig, but he was even denied a promotion due during his military service due to his growing anti-slavery political beliefs. Following the Civil War, he joined the Republican party and a growing body of other Republicans in the Mississippi Legislature who opposed formed Confederate President Jefferson Davis. After the war, Alcorn became an advocate of limited African American civil rights, including the right to vote and hold civil service positions.[9] In a letter to then-governor Ridgley C. Powers in April 1873, he called for Caroll Kelly, an African American man, to be pardoned and released from prison. He stated that he is “exercising the constitutional prerogative on behalf of the colored citizen of this country,” and that he thought that the African American “community” would be relieved at his release.[10] Kelly was pardoned eight days later. 

In a letter to Congress, Governor Alcorn outlined a series of actionables, beginning with the expansion of university acceptance to include “the colored boy.” He wrote, “We ought not to be unprepared to discharge our obligations to the colored boy as we discharge it to white boys.”[11] Alcorn also requested the legislature put aside funding for African American education and scholarships that were previously only offered to poor white youth. For African American men, these awards would be given after they have completed four or five years of secondary schooling. Unfortunately, by 1867, funding for these scholarships would diminish from $50,000 in 1871 to $5,500 dollars in 1876 after Mississippi Democrats retook the majority in the state legislature. These financial scholarships, however, were built on an equality framework, not an equitable one: he would give both poor whites and African American men of any class the same treatment under the eyes of the university. 

Black and white photograph of a facade of a three-story building constructed in a Greek Revival-style on the campus of Alcorn University with trees in the background.
        Alcorn University (Library of Congress)

A clear proponent of public education, Alcorn supported racially integrating the University of Mississippi in 1870 and helped establish the land-grant for Alcorn University in 1871. Within five years of its conception, however, Alcorn University (which was then under the authority of Hiram H. Revels) was under duress. According to Judge J. Tarbell, in a letter reporting the state-of-affairs of the university to Governor Adelbert Ames, there was a chaotic atmosphere of “mutiny” and a corrupt board of trustees. He also frequently described the student body, composed entirely of African American students, as unruly and undeserving. Tarbell described “colored boys” who “receive[d]… certificates for wood they did not cut.”[12] Because of the allegedly poor management of the University, he alleged the African American male students would not be deserving of their college degrees. However, Tarbell seemed to advocate for the improvement of the University and the establishment of a new board but believed that the government should take authority over its affairs to ensure a successful future for the university and its African American students.

Alcorn made a complex comment one letter to Congress relating to language surrounding African American education, which was a subtle yet impactful departure from how men like Tarbell viewed their role in education: “By the time at which [African Americans] shall have made their coming demand for a collegiate education.” Note that Alcorn says that they “demand” collegiate education.[13] White Americans viewed higher education not as a right but a privilege to be earned, but it also highlights African Americans’ commitment to securing educational opportunities. Alcorn’s status as a former enslaver is not forgotten by historians because of his contributions to the early civil rights movements. However, his nuanced advocacy in Mississippi state Congress was an important historical event in land-granting for predominately African American educational institutions. At the same time, these “demands” Alcorn cited were a quick glimpse into the greater movement that African Americans headed and what they would achieve in the coming years.

Underlying these governmental decisions during Reconstruction was the notion that until African Americans reached the intellectual capacity of affluent white men, treating them as an inferior race was acceptable if not encouraged. Personally, I disagree both with this idea and the approach of just equality in education as men like Alcorn believed to be the extent of progress. Education is a specific necessity for African Americans of all genders and classes to tell stories of their joy, pain, and triumph—equitable education would achieve this. As Black Americans recognized during Reconstruction, equitable education includes the creation of HBCUs, because it is a necessity to be independent of white American institutions, including all-white schools that already exist, and define success for themselves. Most white male Americans had these rights to self-conception at the same time African Americans were being denied them.

            Furthermore, I believe giving marginalized groups the power to decide how to exercise autonomy in education is the only way for that autonomy to come into fruition. Racially integrated and race-conscious education is the most effective way to create an America where multiple perspectives were represented. In 1867 during a speech to his fellow senators in Charleston, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner said, “A republic without education is like the creature of imagination, a human being without a soul, living and moving blindly, with no sense of the present or the future.”[14] Sumner continued on to say that, in order for southern states to reassociate with the Union, they must champion “public schools which shall be open to all without distinction of race or color, … and the new governments find support in the intelligence of the people.” Sumner, like Alcorn, adhered to equality instead of equity. Instead of creating schools specifically for African American students, such as HBCUs, previously existing schools should simply be colorblind—or ignorant of race and ethnicity—and accept all students. It seems that white men such as he and Alcorn, who advocated for more African American rights after Emancipation, acknowledged that there needed to be some reform, but could not or would not go as far as to specify why that reform needed to be focalized—or, why within formerly-segregated schools, there needed to be resources for African American students to go to that white students may not have ever needed.

Southern states and their civil servants needed to acknowledge the necessity of African Americans in education. The Radical Republicans believed an entirely new order needed to be created in the United States as African Americans demanded human rights and specific treatment after the legal end of slavery, which modern scholars would consider “equity,” not equality.[15] This new order would prioritize African Americans voicing their experiences and the experiences of others that continue to face oppression.

Alessandra Diaz is a high school senior in Queens, New York. She has been working at the Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project as a research intern on the transcription and subject tagging research team since September of 2023, and intends to study History and Political Science at Columbia University beginning in the fall of 2024.

[1] James D. Anderson, “Philanthropy, the State and the Development of Historically Black Public Colleges: The Case of Mississippi,” (Minerva 35, no. 3, 1997), 295–309.

[2] M. Christopher Brown and James Earl Davis, “The Historically Black College as Social Contract, Social Capital, and Social Equalizer,” ((Peabody Journal of Education 76, no. 1, 2001), 31–49.

[3] Office of History and Preservation Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, “Former Members: Hiram Rhodes Revels, 1827–1901” in Black Americans in Congress 1870–2007 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), 56.

[4] Clara Merritt DeBoer, His Truth Is Marching On: African Americans Who Taught the Freedmen for the American Missionary Association, 1861-1877. (Routledge, 2018), 1995

[5] See Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 188.

[6] Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames to F. C. Harris, (The Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project), 1. https://cwrgm.org/item/mdah_803-992-06-04

5 Jefferson, Hakeem. “The Politics of Respectability and Black Americans’ Punitive Attitudes,” (American Political Science Review 117, no. 4, 2023), 1453.

6 Hazel V. Carby, Race Men (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 5.

[8] “The Rights of Freedmen,” The Daily Mississippian, September 14, 1865.

[9] David Sansing, “James Lusk Alcorn: Twenty-eighth Governor of Mississippi: March 1870 to November 1871,” Mississippi History Now. Mississippi Historical Society, December 2003. https://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/james-lusk-alcorn-twenty-eighth-governor-of-mississippi-march-1870-to-november-1871

[10] James L. Alcorn to Mississippi Governor Ridgley C. Powers, April 10, 1873, (The Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project) 1. https://cdm17313.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/mdah/id/36611

[11] James L. Alcorn to Mississippi Legislature, May 1, 1871, (The Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi), 4. https://cdm17313.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/mdah/id/25639

[12] Judge J. Tarbell to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames, December 25, 1875, (The Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project), 6. https://cdm17313.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/mdah/id/33268

[13] James L. Alcorn to Mississippi Legislature (The Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project), 5. https://cdm17313.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/mdah/id/25639

[14] Tyack, David, and Robert Lowe. “The Constitutional Moment: Reconstruction and Black Education in the South.” (American Journal of Education 94, no. 2 , 1986), 237.

[15] Richard White, The Republic for Which is Stands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 366–67.

« Older posts

© 2026 Looking Beyond the Letters

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

css.php