The American Civil War, 1860-1865
Electronic Books
The Black Experience in the Civil War South This link opens in a new windowPublication Date: 2010A comprehensive study of the Southern black wartime experience incorporating recent scholarship. Themes include the lives of blacks in the Confederate states and the nonseceding Southern states; blacks on farms and plantations and in towns and cities; blacks employed in industry and the military; and black men, women, and children. Drawing on memoirs, autobiographies, and other original source materials, details emerge about blacks who took up residence in Union "contraband camps" and on free-labor plantations and those who enlisted in the Union army.
The Civil War Era and Reconstruction This link opens in a new windowPublication Date: 2011This encyclopedia takes a broad, multidisciplinary approach to the history of the period 1861-1877. It includes general and specific entries on politics and business, labor, industry, agriculture, education and youth, law and legislative affairs, literature, music, the performing and visual arts, health and medicine, science and technology, exploration, life on the Western frontier, family life, slave life, Native American life, women, and more than a hundred influential individuals.
Drawn with the Sword : Reflections on the Civil War This link opens in a new windowPublication Date: 1996A series of essays exploring why the North won and the South lost, whether Southern or Northern aggression began the war, and who really freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln or the slaves themselves. Discusses often-ignored issues such as the Civil War as a modern "total war" involving both soldiers and civilians, and the international impact of the war in advancing republicanism and democracy in Canada, Brazil, Cuba, France, and England. One essay offers a critique of the field of history as it exists today. An excellent example of a professional historian writing narrative history for the greater audience of educated general readers.
Suggested Databases
- History Reference Center - EBSCO This link opens in a new windowDesigned for secondary schools, public libraries, junior/community colleges and undergraduate research, this database features full text for thousands of primary source documents and informational texts.
- History Vault - ProQuest This link opens in a new windowHistory Vault is a collection of primary source material pertaining to the civil rights movement and to U.S. foreign policy during the Vietnam War era. This rich collection of federal records, letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, and diaries is organized in five subject categories: 1) Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle; 2) Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; 3) American Indians and the American West; 4) American Politics and Society; 5) International Relations and Military Conflicts; 6) Women's Studies; and 7) Workers and Labor Unions.
- U.S. History In Context - Gale This link opens in a new windowIncludes more than 5,000 primary source documents, full-text articles drawn from top periodicals and newspapers, thousands of images, videos, and audio selections.
Websites
- The American Civil War: Primary Sources (ACRL) This link opens in a new window
This guide highlights a diverse collection of free websites of primary sources for the study of the war. They include digitized newspaper archives for both the Union and Confederate sides of the struggle, collections of letters and diaries, digitized photographs, maps, and official records and dispatches from the battlefields. - African American Civil War Memorial & Museum This link opens in a new window
The African American Civil War Museum corrects a great wrong in history that largely ignored the enormous contributions of the 209,145 members of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). It tells the stories and perserves for posterity the historic roles these women and men of African, European, and Hispanic descent played in ending slavery and unifying the United States. The Museum uses a rich collection of artifacts, documents, primary sources and technology to create a meaningful learning experience for students of history, among many others.
Example Sources
- Abraham Lincoln, "The Emancipation Proclamation" (1862) This link opens in a new window
The Presidential Proclamation and Executive Order issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, effective as of January 1, 1863, that changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African-Americans in the Confederate states from slave to free. As soon as a slave escaped the control of the Confederate government, either by crossing Union lines or through the advance of Federal troops, the slave was permanently free. The Union victory brought the Proclamation into effect in all of the former Confederacy. - Frederick Douglass, "Reconstruction" (1866) This link opens in a new window
This is an article by Frederick Douglass published in the 1866 issue of "Atlantic Monthly." The second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress is mentioned as Douglass asserts the need for statesmanship concerning the topic of reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. He suggests that the Civil Rights Bill, the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and proposed Constitutional amendments will not be effective unless there is a central government that is strong enough to secure change at the state and local levels. He says that pro-slavery attitudes in the South cannot be eliminated unless the Federal government wields extraordinary power to ensure equality and voting rights in all states.