In this article, the authors provide a historical review of how the U.S. government has funded its participation in major wars during the past 150 years. They focus attention on five conflicts--the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Those conflicts were funded in different ways, with each funding method having consequences for the economy. Those wars were selected because the spending associated with each conflict accounted for a significant share of the economy, in each case more than 7 percent of GDP (Edelstein 2000). They present useful lesson ideas for incorporating a discussion of war finance into a history course or a stand-alone economics course and give details in the appendix. Ways of using a variety of resources that are available from the Internet are also suggested.