In September 1861 Ulysses S. Grant was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers by President Abraham Lincoln. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. On April 9, 1865,

On February 16, 1862, General Buckner surrendered Fort Donelson. The unconditional surrender created jubilation throughout the North and shock in Dixie. It was the North’s first major victory of the Civil War, opening the way into the very heart of the Confederacy.

This buckskin coat was worn by Custer when he was Lieutenant Colonel with the 7th U. S. Cavalry in the Dakotas. It was one of several owned and worn by Custer, who prefered to dress like a frontiersman while out West. In 1912, Custer's widow, Elizabeth, donated this buckskin coat t

Newsreel video footage from 1944 and 1945, showing the Allies prepare and carry out the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of Paris, Battle of the Bulge and the eventual fall of the Third Reich and surrender of Germany. This video is part of the Price of Freedom learning resources packag

General Charles Conrwallis was so mortified by his defeat that he dispatched his second-in-command, Brigadier General Charles O'Hara, to surrender his forces. When O'Hara offered Cornwallis's sword to George Washington, Washington, in keeping with the rigid hierarchies of military protocol, asked

Students will learn how Americans joined the Allies to defeat Axis militarism and nationalist expansion. Sixteen million Americans donned uniforms in this section of the online exhibition The Price of Freedom: Americans at War. The millions more who stayed home comprised a vast civilian