Civil War Era Web-Based Primary Materials
This guide provides links to documents, reports, newspapers, journals, letters, diaries, maps, photographs, images of realia, and other primary materials from the Civil War era in the United States. For additional information and resources concerning this era, consult the Slavery and Reconstruction Law Research Guide and Legal History Research Guide available from the Research Guides and Law Library Publications page.
Please contact the Law Library's Research Services librarians during their Research Services hours, or via email to research.services@law.csuohio.edu for help with locating or using any of the resources discussed in this guide.
The American Civil War Homepage
The United States Civil War Center
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration: Research in Military Records: Civil War
U.S. National Park Service: Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System
Cornell University Library: Making of America Journals & Monographs
Civil War @ Smithsonian
Library of Congress: American Memory: Selected Civil War Photographs
University of Georgia Libraries: Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library
University of North Carolina: Documenting the American South
University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center: American Civil War Collection
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
HarpWeek: Explore History
Library of Congress: American Memory: Civil War Maps
National Geographic MapMachine: Civil War
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Cornell University: Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
Duke University Libraries: Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture: Civil War Women: Primary Sources on the Internet
The American Civil War Homepage
Provides links to hundreds of Web-based resources. Web site maintained by George H. Hoemann, PhD. Resources organized into 13 categories:
General Resources
Biographical Information
State/Local Studies - by State
Other Military Information
The Secession Crisis and Before
Histories and Bibliographies
Battles & Campaigns
Civil War Reenactors
Fictional Accounts of Wartime
Images of Wartime
Documentary Records
Rosters & Regimental Histories
Civil War Round Tables
The United States Civil War Center
Provides links to a searchable database of the Civil War Book Review, Book Collections, Manuscript Collections, Online Exhibitions and Resources, and Dick Weeks' Civil War Index of resources on the Internet. Web site maintained by Louisiana State University Libraries.
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration: Research in Military Records: Civil War
Includes links to hundreds of Civil War Photographs, Selected Civil War Records, miscellaneous Union Army and Confederate Army materials, as well as scores of other Civil War resources.
U.S. National Park Service: Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System
Searchable database of records of over 6 million soldiers from 44 states territories. Database divided into 8 sections:
Soldiers
Sailors
Regiments
Cemeteries
Battles
Prisoners
Medals of Honor
National Parks
Note: Data is still being added to this already massive database. Currently, the Prisoners section only contains records for Andersonville and Fort McHenry.
Cornell University Library: Making of America Journals & Monographs
Searchable collection of twenty-two 19th-century journals, as well as the 1894-1922 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion and 1880-1901 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
Civil War @ Smithsonian
Collection of scores of 1859-1865 documents, photographs, and images of realia in the Smithsonian Institution. Collection divided into 12 categories:
Slavery & Abolition
Abraham Lincoln
First Blood
Soldiering
Weapons
Leaders
Cavalries
Navies
Life & Culture
Appomattox
Winslow Homer
Mathew Brady
Library of Congress: American Memory: Selected Civil War Photographs
Searchable collection provided by the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Includes over 1,100 photographs, most from the Library of Congress 1961 microfilm publication Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865. Collection also browsable by subject and Civil War time line.
University of Georgia Libraries: Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library
American Civil War Materials
Small collection of documents and images. Includes Confederate Constitution, Confederate Seal, and Andersonville Prison photographs.
Rare Map Collection - The American Civil War
Collection of over thirty historical maps of geographical areas, cities, and battlefields.
University of North Carolina: Documenting the American South
Searchable full-text collection of " texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture." Collection also browsable within 11 categories:
The Church in the Southern Black Community
The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
The First Century of the First State University (ie, University of North Carolina)
First-Person Narratives of the American South
Library of Southern Literature
North American Slave Narratives
The North Carolina Experience
North Carolinians and the Great War (ie, World War I)
Oral Histories of the American South
The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865
True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina
University of Virginia Electronic Text Center: American Civil War Collection
Collection of thousands of letters, diaries, army records, and newspaper articles.
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
Comparative collection of letters, diaries, church records, newspapers, speeches, census records, tax records, soldiers records, and veterans records from Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Collection also includes selected statistics, maps, and images.
Collection divided into three time periods: Fall 1859 to Spring 1861; Spring 1861 to Spring 1865; and Spring 1865 to Fall 1870. Each time period contains several sections (eg, Letters & Diaries, Newspapers), and each section of a time period is searchable.
The Valley of the Shadow project is directed by Edward L. Ayers, PhD, and maintained at the University of Virginia and Virginia Center for Digital History.
HarpWeek: Explore History
Provides links to scores of studies based on materials from all issues of Harper's Weekly. Studies organized into categories entitled Informative Websites, Educational Lessons, Simulation Games, and Activities areas.
Informative Websites include:
The End of Slavery: The Creation of the 13th Amendment
Citizenship, Due Process, and Equal Protection: The Creation of the 14th Amendment
Black Voting Rights: The Creation of the 15th Amendment
Finding Precedent: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
A Sampler of Civil War Literature
Towards Racial Equality: Harper's Weekly on Black America, 1857-1874
Educational Lessons and Activities include:
Senate Investigating Committee on Fort Sumter
The Emancipation Proclamation Activity
The Election of 1864
Web site maintained by John Adler.
Adler also produces a fee-based searchable full-text database of, and thesaurus-based index to, Harper's Weekly.
Library of Congress: American Memory: Civil War Maps
Searchable collection of over 2,200 maps, charts, atlases, and sketchbooks provided by the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Library of Virginia, and Virginia Historical Society. Collection also browsable by place, subject, creator, and title.
National Geographic MapMachine: Civil War
Searchable interactive map that includes over 5,200 battlefields and historic sites.
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
Searchable collection of over 1,200 images, compiled by Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite, Jr., and supported by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and University of Virginia Library Digital Media Lab.
Images also browsable within 18 categories:
Maps: Africa, New World, Slave Trade
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Capture of Slaves & Coffles in Africa
European Forts & Trading Posts in Africa
Slave Ships & the Atlantic Crossing (Middle Passage)
Slave Sales & Auctions: African Coast & the Americas
New World Agriculture & Plantation Labor
Plantation Scenes, Slave Settlements & Houses
Domestic Servants & Free People of Color
Miscellaneous Occupations & Economic Activities
Marketing & Urban Scenes
Music, Dance, & Recreational Activities
Family Life, Child Care, Schools
Religion & Mortuary Practices
Military Activities & U.S. Civil War
Physical Punishment, Rebellion, Running Away
Emancipation & Post-Slavery Life
Portraits & Illustrations of Individuals
Note that the authors state "little effort is made to interpret the images and establish the historical authenticity or accuracy of what the display. ... However, we have made every effort to ensure bibliographic accuracy and the correct identification of both primary and secondary sources from which the images have been obtained, as well as correct identification of the area, country, or region to which the image refers."
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Searchable collection provided by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division and Prints and Photographs Division. Includes over 2,300 narratives and over 500 photographs of former slaves, compiled by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration during the late 1930s, and microfilmed in 1941 as the 17-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Collection also browsable by narrator/subject, state, and Slave Narratives volume.
Cornell University: Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
Searchable collection of pamphlets from the Cornell University Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection. Includes over 10,000 "sermons, position papers, offprints, local Anti-Slavery Society newsletters, poetry anthologies, freedmen's testimonies, broadsides, and Anti-Slavery Fair keepsakes...." Collection also browsable by author, title, and date.
Duke University Libraries: Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture: Civil War Women: Primary Sources on the Internet
Provides links to diaries, letters, photographs and other primary materials.
Laura E. Ray, MA, MLS
Educational Programming Librarian
January 2008