Ken Burns Classroom

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Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1877)

Painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter of the First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, 1864.
First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, 1864. Francis Bicknell Carpenter, painter

The American Civil War tore apart and tested a young nation not yet 100 years old. By 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would free slaves in rebel states, and the 13th Amendment would emancipate them. Six days after the Confederate Army surrendered and effectively ended the war in 1865, Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater. Reconstruction of the South began under President Andrew Johnson and made great strides, but restrictive laws that limited the rights of African Americans and racial tensions would persist.

Related

The 96th Pennsylvania, 1861

The Civil War

The entire sweep of the American Civil War, the complex causes, the battles, the generals and the private soldiers, the anguish of death in battle and the grief of families at home.

Classroom wall of the Greenwood School in Putney, Vermont

The Address

Tells the story of a tiny school in Putney Vermont, the Greenwood School, where each year the students are encouraged to memorize, practice and recite the Gettysburg Address.