American Civil War Internet Sites

The American Civil War Home Page
Links to hundreds of resources, including timelines, overviews, images, letters, accounts, diaries, bibliographies, state studies, specific battles, rosters, medical practices, etc.

U.S. Civil War Center
Located at Louisiana State University. There are many useful links. See especially: Links Index, Browse the Index, Search (Civil War documents), Researching People of the Civil War Era.

University of Tennessee's American Civil War Homage
A sensibly organized site created by the University of Tennessee's Information Science Department. The site includes public documents, biographies, bibliographies, primary resources and an interesting assortment of general resources.

Civil War Resources on the Internet: Abolition to Reconstruction (1830s-1890s)
Developed by Rutgers University. (Part of a larger and very useful American and British History site.) Topics on this site include:  Leading up to the War, Abolitionism, The War Years, MSS Collections: Diaries, Letters, Papers,  Military Histories, State Studies, Reconstruction Era Documents, Discussion Groups, Online Bibliographies, Bibliography.

American Civil War: Resources on the Internet
Many links. Developed by Dakota State University.

Civil War Treasures
A rich collection of Civil War images from the New York Historical Society.

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion
A part of the War Times Journal Site. "These compilations are drawn from the official Navy records of the American Civil War, published in 1897. The original records are extensive (roughly 6 volumes per year of war) and it is hoped we will eventually be able to publish much of the material. Initially, records will be compiled into groups relating to major battles and the events immediately surrounding them."

Civil War Women
Developed by Duke University. On-line archival collections featuring scanned pages and texts of the writings of women during the American Civil War. Currently includes the 1864 diary of Alice Williamson, a 16 year old girl from Gallatin, Tennessee; the papers of Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a renowned Confederate spy; and the papers of Sarah E. Thompson, a spy for the Union. Links will take you to other primary resources including diaries, letters and photographs.

At the site: Civil War Women: Primary Sources on the Internet. Many links. Developed by The Special Collections Library, Duke University.

Google Search: "Civil War Letters"
Do a search in Google, searching for the phrase exactly as given above, including the quotation marks. There are many links to letters. Some of the links are to book advertisements, but most are to transcriptions of letters written by soldiers. It is worth the effort to do this search if you are interested in first-hand accounts, impressions, etc., from participants in the war's battles and campaigns.

The Valley of the Shadow: Living the Civil War in Pennsylvania and Virginia
The story of the Civil War as seen by the people of two communities, Franklin County, Pennsylvania and Augusta County, Virginia. A University of Virginia Research Project supported in part by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

A Nation Divided: The U.S. Civil War, 1861-1865
Produced by "The History Place." Is a timeline, with brief text and photographs.

The History Place Presents Abraham Lincoln
Very long timeline on main page. May take a long time to load, but worth the effort, as there are many links to significant Lincoln documents. There are also some excellent photographs, which will display larger by clicking on them.

Abraham Lincoln Online
A clearinghouse about Lincoln, his speeches and writings, and news of Lincoln studies and events. Features include: Lincoln This Week, Lincoln Quizzes, Lincoln's Speeches and Writings, Historic Sites, Lincoln Resources, Lincoln's Thinking, News and Events, Lincoln Mailbag, Lincoln Links, Lincoln Book Talk, and Lincoln Bookshelf.

Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project
The site was created by the Northern Illinois University and presents materials from Lincoln's life 1830-1861. You can read the Lincoln-Douglas debates and search Lincoln's writings. You can also listen to songs from this period.

Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
Approximately 20,000 documents and 61,000 images. Most of the items are from the 1850s through 1865 and include correspondences to political leaders and friends. There is also Lincoln's drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation, his second Inaugural Address, and a memorandum where Lincoln expressed his expectation that he would lose the 1864 presidential election. There is also a special presentation on Lincoln's assassination.

Confederate States of America
Part of the Avalon Project of the Yale Law School. Government documents from the opening months of the existence of the Confederacy. There are also declarations of secession by Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

Making of America.
A digital library of printed primary sources in American history from the ante-bellum period through Reconstruction. Although most of the materials come under the category of social history, there are political documents and memoirs of war experiences as well. The collection is made up of scanned images of the pages in the books and journals.

Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
This site produced complements the PBS American Experience documentary. It is divided into ten thematic areas  including the lives of Southern women, the transformation of former slaves into sharecroppers, and the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. There are some primary sources and question and answer sections with subject specialists.

Civil War Re-enactors
Photographs of Civil War Re-enactors from Professor Suzanne Summers' classes.