Trading Cards

Kids! Collect stories about the Civil War and civil rights! During the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the National Park Service offered more than 500 trading cards. Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site still has cards available for those visiting our park.

Ask staff at the front desk for more information. You can view all the cards online and discover stories from nearly 90 national parks in 31 states and the District of Columbia. You'll be surprised at what you will learn.

 

General Ulysses S. Grant

Library of Congress

Slavery as the Cause of the Civil War

In 1885 Ulysses S. Grant wrote his memoirs, recording his efforts to win the war and preserve the Union. While others attempted to revise Southerners' justification for secession, Grant wanted future generations to understand that "The cause of the great War of the rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery."

 

White Haven, circa 1860

National Park Service

Freeing William Jones

White Haven, now Ulysses S. Grant NHS, mirrored the rest of the nation during the years before the war. Grant opposed his father-in-law's ownership of slaves, but recognized his legal right to do so. In March 1859, Grant acted on his beliefs; purchasing William Jones in order to "manumit, emancipate and set free said William from slavery forever."

 

Nellie Grant as The Old Woman in the Shoe at the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, 1864.

Library of Congress

Nellie Grant
Aiding Soldiers and Freedmen

Nellie Grant, daughter of General Ulysses S. Grant, portrayed the Old Woman in the Shoe at the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair held in St. Louis, Missouri in 1864. Funds raised at the fair were used to purchase medical supplies for wounded soldiers, aid soldiers' families, and house and educate African American freedmen and their families.

 

School established by the War Department's Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War.

Library of Congress

Education at Last

Tens of thousands of newly freed slaves received food, clothing and medical care through the War Department's Freedmen's Bureau between 1865 and 1872. Young and old crammed schools established by the Bureau for the education previously denied to all African Americans. Education became the foundation for claiming their rights and exercising their responsibilities as citizens.

 

"The First Vote" for African American men following passage of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Library of Congress

Receiving the Right to Vote
"A Measure of Grander Importance"

The 15th Amendment gave African American men the right to vote. President Grant declared, "A measure which makes at once four millions of people voters...is indeed a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free Government to the present time." Women, black and white, could still not vote.