Class Guides: Civil War

"The Valley project presents the complex historical record of the people of a northern community and a southern community, one in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia, both in the Great Valley that stretches across the Mason Dixon line, throughout the era of the American Civil War.
Franklin County and Augusta County, about 200 miles apart, shared a great deal but differed in two profound ways: the Virginia county was built around slavery and followed its state into secession, war, emancipation, and Reconstruction. The Pennsylvania county, bordering slavery and with a substantial free Black population, followed the path of the United States through the war and its consequences."

Includes battle overviews, as well as primary source documents.

"A selection of original Civil War correspondence between soldiers from the battlefields and their family members and friends on the homefront. These letters describe firsthand accounts of battle, reflections on the nature of war and its profound effect on those involved - both on those at the front lines and loved ones who remained anxiously at home. Many are love letters home to sweethearts and wives, some cautionary advice from fathers to sons, one a harrowing account of capture and escape over enemy lines."

Includes hundreds of pages of correspondence, diaries, musters, reminiscences, and photographs.

"Their Own Words is a digital collection of books, pamphlets, letters, and diaries, dating from the latter eighteenth through the early twentieth century, that reflects the history of the United States. This collection currently contains more than 34,500 individual pages of text and corresponding transcriptions, covering a variety of topics, including: colonial American politics; U.S. politics, government, and foreign relations; historical biography and autobiography; slavery and abolition; the American Civil War; the temperance movement; foreign travel; economics; medicine; philosophy; and theology."

"The goal of the Digital Library on American Slavery is to bring together and make freely accessible public records related to enslavement, with an emphasis upon the names and stories of the enslaved."

"We help to to connect scholars of all levels to primary sources related to the Americas from roughly 1500 to 1900." Includes links to many digitized collections.

A number of short/medium videos related to various Civil War topics.

Get information here on how to cite sources!