Americans have gone to war to win their independence, expand their national boundaries, define their freedoms, and defend their interests around the globe. This online exhibition examines how wars have shaped the nations' history and transformed American society. Students will learn about America

During the American Civil War, General Benjamin Butler so appreciated the heroic actions of African American soldiers under his command at the 1864 battles of Fort Harrison and Fort Gilmer that he commissioned a special medal for them. Designed by Anthony C. Paquet and realized in silver by Tiffa

In this post, students will learn about Washington during the Civil War. During the war, Washington’s busy wharves were the focal point for moving people and supplies into and out of the city. Here the wounded from the Virginia battlefields were off-loaded from steamboats to await transpor

In this post, students will explore Louisa May Alcott's service as a nurse during the Civil War. While Alcott is perhaps best known as the author of the 19th-century classic Little Women, she also served as a Union nurse in Washington, D.C. at Georgetown’s Union Hotel Hospita

In this post, students will learn about the Civil War through a photographic album presented to Anna Lowell in 1864 by a group of attendants in D.C.'s Armory Square Hospital. In 1862, having recently been trained as a nurse, Lowell had traveled from Cambridge to D.C. and immediately gotten t