Have the students assume one of several Civil War perspectives (possibilities include African American slaves, free blacks, white northern factory workers, white troops in the Union army, abolitionists, etc). Ask students to write a diary entry or a letter to a relative from the perspective they have selected reacting to either the Emancipation Proclamation or the enlistment of black troops into the Union army. How does the event change your opinion about the Union’s effort in the Civil War? How does it change your opinion of the Democratic and Republican parties? What economic hopes and fears to you have as a result of the event you have selected to write about?