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Finding Primary Sources on the Civil War
Compiled by Eric N. Lindquist, University of Maryland Libraries
SCOPE: This website organizes World Wide Web resources for identifying and locating primary sources for the study of the Civil War. Note that although some primary sources are actually available online (and some of these are linked below), they are only a small fraction of the total; the vast majority of primary souces for any historical topic still exist only on paper. The web is most useful as a means of discovering what there is and where to find it.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Official Records
- Newspapers and Periodicals
- Published Private Accounts (Letters, Diaries, Memoirs)
- Unpublished Private Accounts (Letters, Diaries, Memoirs)
- Photographs and Other Images
Introduction
The Civil War is one of the most extensively described events in human history--according to one estimate, at least 50,000 books have been written about it, and every week adds to the total. The primary sources (documents produced at the time of the event or by participants or witnesses later) Civil War historians draw upon are extremely abundant. They range from official government records to photographs to newspapers to published memoirs by major figures to unpublished letters and diaries of humble soldiers and other participants. The existence of this last group of sources is one of the most interesting aspects of the Civil War. Mid-nineteenth century American literacy rates (at least for whites) were very high (among the highest in the world at the time), and many soldiers and civilians recorded their experiences in some form. Luckily, many of these letters, diaries and memoirs have been preserved. Many have been published, but most still exist only in their original form. You should be able to find published accounts in a nearby library and, depending where you live, unpublished letters or diaries in a nearby library or historical society.Official Records
The official military records of the Civil War were published in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, a set of 130 volumes. These are owned by many libraries. They have recently been published in CD-ROM form as well.The NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORD ADMINISTRATION is the repository of official government documents, including a great many documents about the Civil War. The Research Room provides information about doing research at NARA and introductory information about the holdings.
NARA provides the online guide Civil War Records for researching service records of Civil War soldiers.
The pension records of southern soldiers, an important source for service records, are found in individual state archives. The NARA online guide Confederate Pension Records provides links to the websites of individual southern state archives. The information provided about pension records varies from website to website.
Newspapers and Periodicals
The UNITED STATES NEWSPAPER PROGRAM is a cooperative national effort among the states and the federal government to locate, catalog, and preserve on microfilm newspapers published in the United States since the eighteenth century. The program's website has links to all the state project websites, which provide information about the newspapers included in the state's project. The amount of information provided varies from state to state.A few periodicals published during the Civil War can be found online. The Making of America, produced by the University of Michigan and Cornell University, makes available nine periodicals published in the United States in the nineteenth century, most covering the Civil War years. Click on Browse to look at particular issues; click on Search to find articles on particular topics. Note that you need to use words used at the time in your search. For example, use "negro" rather than "African American" or "black."
Published Private Accounts (Letters, Diaries, Memoirs)
The number of published private accounts relating to the Civil War is enormous, and almost every library in the country is sure to have at least a few. Some libraries will have hundreds or even thousands. If your own local libraries do not have many sources, you may be able to find libraries not too far away that have. You can check the catalogs of many libraries right on your computer. LIBWEB contains links to the websites of thousands of libraries of all kinds, and nearly all of these have online catalogs. Once you are in a catalog, choose a word or keyword search and type in your terms.Here are some examples of searches you can do to find primary sources:
- united states civil war personal narratives
- united states civil war diaries
- united states civil war correspondence
- united states civil war letters
- united states civil war sources
You can also use the names of organizations, localities, or groups to make your search more specific:
- 20th maine regiment personal narratives
- united states civil war afro-americans letters (note that you should use "afro-americans" rather than "blacks" or "african americans")
- united states civil war women diaries
- civil war personal narratives georgia
A growing number of previously-published primary sources are being made available online. The following, especially the first, all have personal accounts:
(University of North Carolina)Unpublished Private Accounts (Letters, Diaries, Memoirs)
Many libraries and historical societies, especially in the states involved in the Civil War, own unpublished materials on the Civil War. The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, produced by the Library of Congress, provides information about manuscript and archival materials in repositories throughout the United States. Once you are in the catalog, choose RLIN AMC File Easy Search Form (word list) and do a search according to the examples above. You will find information about collections of sources relevant to your interests along with the name of the repository that owns it. Contact the repository for information about access.Many libraries, historical societies, and other repositories of original materials have their own websites providing information about their holdings. The information provided varies from repository to repository; some have minimal information while some have actual materials online. Archival and Manuscript Repositories in the United States, produced by the Library of Congress, is a website that contains links to the websites of many repositories, arranged by state. You can explore the websites of repositories in your state or in area in which you are interested to see if it has primary sources that can help you.
Some examples of unprinted primary sources available online are:
- Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina)
- Texts About the American Civil War (University of Virginia Electronic Text Center)
- Alice Williamson Diary (Duke University) (Alice Williamson lived in Gallatin, Tennessee and was about sixteen when she kept her diary in 1864)
Photographs and Other Images
One new kind of primary evidence that came into use not long before the Civil War was the photograph. The Library of Congress American Memory Project makes available online more than 1100 Civil War Photographs.
The NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION makes more than 6,000 Civil War photographs available online. Use the NAIL Digital Copies Search Form to find them.
- Choose "Photographs" under Media
- Type "Civil War" in the first box
- Type a word or phrase in the second box (for example, the name of a person or a place) to make the search more specific
Other online collections of images include:
- Digital Schomburg Images of Nineteenth Century African Americans: Civil War (New York Public Library) (Woodcut illustrations from contemporary periodicals)
- Maps of the American Civil War (Hargrett Library, University of Georgia)
Some other repositories also make photographs and other images in their possession available online. Consult individual websites using Archival and Manuscript Repositories in the United States.
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