Check out the following famous Thomas Nast illustration of Thanksgiving during the Civil War.

Titled “United We Stand,” this cartoon from Harper’s Weekly in 1864 shows President Abraham Lincoln, US Army soldiers, and a host of others gathered together and standing atop a fallen Confederate flag. 

Ask your students to examine the image and then asked them questions about it such as:

• What can we infer from this image?
• Who do the various people in the image represent?
• What is going on in the war in late 1864?
• What is the story with the woman holding the child?