In Heritage School this year, we'll be learning all about spies, smuggling, and secret codes during the Civil War! Spies played and important role for both the Union and Confederate sides during the War. We'll talk about some famous (and not-so-famous) Civil War spies, and have fun learning about and using some of the codes, techniques, and items they used to carry out their missions. We'll be making invisible ink, and writing and decoding our own secret messages using tactics that were used during the War, such as semaphore, cypher wheels, steganography, and many more! We'll also be trying our hands at smuggling, and making our own punched-tin lanterns. 

We'll learn about how women spies, such as Elizabeth Van Lew and Belle Boyd, played a crucial role during the War, and how some of them used household objects to smuggle items and sent coded messages. We'll write secret messages on hard-boiled eggs, learn fan codes and clothesline codes, and lots of other  ! We'll also be discussing the many important contributions of Black spies, both men and women, such as Mary Bowser and Abraham Galloway. We'll discover how "conductors" like Harriet Tubman used quilts as coded messages on the Underground Railroad, and we'll be making a coded quilt of our own!

We'll also talk about how regular people of the time employed some of these tactics, including the Tebbetts family, who lived in the house that is now Headquarters House Museum during the Civil War. We have a lot more fun activities planned for the week, so please join us for Heritage School this year!