Museums and Historical Sites
Additional primary sources can be found in Civil War Sesquisentennial websites created to document the 150 year anniversary of the Civil War in various regions rich in Civil War artifacts, oral history, documnetation. Find more links by going to the Atlases & Special Resources page in this guide.
Online Resources
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American State PapersAn important collection of "the legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789 to 1838." Areas of particular interest include: foreign relations, commerce and navigation, military affairs and naval affairs.
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Atlas of the Civil War : Atlas to Accompany the Official Records"The Official Records were accompanied by an extensive atlas produced by the Government Printing Office in 1895. There are 175 plates with detailed maps of events covered in the Official Records" (from Ohio State University).
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Avalon Project:Documents in Law, History and DiplomacyDocuments are organized by Ancient, Medieval, and 15th-21st centuries. From Yale Law School's Lillian Goldman Law Library.
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Soldiers & Sailors Database"The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS) is a database containing information about the men who served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. Other information on the site includes histories of Union and Confederate regiments, links to descriptions of significant battles, and selected lists of prisoner-of-war records and cemetery records." Biographies of politicans, spies, and activists are also available, along with articles about life during and after the Civil War (from the National Park Service).
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Ulysses S. Grant Digital CollectionThe digital collection consists of 31 volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, political cartoons, and sheet music from the larger collection. Other materials will be added to the digital collection as processing continues...(from Mississippi State University).
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from the U.S. Department of the State Office of the Historian1861–1865: The Civil War and International Diplomacy
Collections: Tutt Library Databases
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American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowDiaries, letters, and memoirs, 1848-1897
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Civil War in Words and Deeds This link opens in a new windowCoverage: 1861-early 20th century. Regimental histories and personal narratives of the Civil War compiled in the postwar era through the early 20th century. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Civil War Primary Source Documents This link opens in a new windowDigitized diaries, letters, and other manuscript materials pertaining to the Civil War
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Civil War Service Reports of Union Army Generals This link opens in a new windowCoverage: 1864-1887. Union generals reports submitted to the Adjutant Generals Office (AGO) on their service during the Civil War period. The reports were submitted over a 23-year period and varied widely in length and subject matter. Content includes accounts of major battles in the Civil War, interactions with Native Americans, recruitment of African Americans for the Union forces, and Reconstruction. Part of Archives Unbound.
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North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowCoverage: 1675 - 2002. 150,000+ pages of diaries and letters from over 1,300 women, supplemented with biographies and bibliographies. Browse and search by detailed factors like author, race, occupation, age at first childbirth, year written, and geographical setting. Cross-searchable under Social and Cultural History.
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Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online This link opens in a new windowCoverage: 1558 - 2005. Cross-searchable collection of databases containing letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs and autobiographies. The focus is on personal narratives written or published in North America. Offers advanced browsing and searching of date, place, author/speaker, interviewer, event, subject and more.
An Historical Image from the American Civil War
Magazine/Journal Articles
American Periodicals Online provides access to full text images of popular American newspapers, professional journals and magazines that began publication from 1740-1900.
The Economist HISTORICAL ARCHIVE 1843-2006. Digitized version of the famous magazine which has analyzed British and global affairs for 150+ years. For more recent issues of the Economist, please see the print version in Tutt Library or access through EBSCO.
Harper's Weekly provides access to images of all the pages in Harper's Weekly from 1857 to 1912. Everything in this publication has been indexed. You can even exclusively search the advertisements or illustrations.
The Nation Microfilm: v.1-211(1865-1970) Tutt Library 2nd floor
Selected Websites
The Library of Congress's American Memory site is one of our favorites. This site provides access to digitized documents on American history and culture from the collections of the Library of Congress. Civil War collections include images, maps, and the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.
Documenting the American South is a fantastic site from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Covering Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the twentieth century, this site provides access to an outstanding collection of materials including first person and slave narratives. It also includes a great collection on the southern homefront.
The Making of America (Cornell) and the Making of America (Michigan) provides fulltext access to primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. This includes digitized books and long runs of journals. A collaboration between Cornell University and the University of Michigan, each site provides access to the other. The Making of American contains scanned images of the entire runs of the War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies.
The Valley of the Shadow, a collaboration between the Virginia Center for Digital History and the University of Virginia Library, explores in detail the life during the American Civil War era in two towns, one Southern and one Northern.
from the Exhibit: "I Recall the Experience Sweet and Sad: Memories of the Civil War"
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Fighting for Freedom: Suzie King Taylor's Civil War MemoirSusie King Taylor’s memoir is an account of her time with the 33rd Regiment U.S.C.T. This volume is the only Civil War memoir published by an African American woman. Taylor was born a slave on Grest Farm near the coast of Georgia. She spent part of her childhood in Savannah, where she received a clandestine education. In 1862, she gained her freedom by escaping to St. Simons Island, Georgia, then a Union encampment. There she married Edward King, a sergeant in the 1st South Carolina Infantry Volunteers, later named the 33rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. For approximately three years, Taylor served as cook, nurse, laundress, and teacher for the regiment. Her 1902 memoir, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, provides a unique window into life in the U.S.C.T.
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Introduction to the exhibit: "I Recall the Experience Sweet and Sad: Memories of the Civil War"Includes numerous tabs to primary source materials of Civil War era memoirs, music, medicine, and much more.