The Civil War

The Library of Congress presents a timeline of the war.

The Civil War Preservation Trust gives an overview of the fighting, causes and issues of the war written by renowned Civil War historian James McPherson.

Digital History is an online textbook produced by the University of Houston that provides a chronological overview of the Civil War and its causes. It also has a Web site, “A House Divided,” dedicated to examining the sectional divide in the U.S.

CivilWar.com is not an academic source, but its short summaries on the issues, people and weapons make it easy to understand the war. It also collects news stories about the Civil War.

The National Parks Service provides short summaries of virtually all Civil War battles. There are also many national parks where battles or other events relating to the Civil War took place; pages for these parks contain more detailed accounts of events and people.

The U.S. Army Center of Military History presents a detailed account of the Civil War in its volume “American Military History.” It also features books on the battles of Ball’s Bluff, First Bull Run, Antietam, Cedar Creek, New Market and Second Manassas.

HistoryNet provide articles on the Civil War from publications such as America’s Civil War and Civil War Times.

PBS’ “The Civil War” is a documentary by Ken Burns. Its companion Web site includes maps and brief descriptions of battles, biographies, important documents, and video clips of the documentary.

The University of Virginia’s “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War” chronicles two counties, Augusta County, Va., and Franklin County, Penn., contrasting their experiences from John Brown’s Raid to the end of Reconstruction.

LSU’s Civil War Book Review is a quarterly journal that reviews books on the Civil War. Reviews are organized by topic or by date of publication.

The Official Records is the largest collection of primary sources on the Civil War, featuring witness accounts, battle reports, maps and other material from the Union and Confederate military departments. The ORs are divided into four sections. Series I, the largest section, includes all material on military operations. Series II includes information on prisoners of war, while Series III and IV include all other documents from the Union and Confederacy, respectively.

Cornell University presents large sections of the ORs on one page, which may be slow to load for many computers. Many users may find Ohio State University’s online ORs to be easier to navigate.

Battles & Leaders of the Civil War is a four-volume compilation of articles on the war originally published between 1884 and 1887 in the Century Magazine. The majority of the articles were written by Union and Confederate officers.

The Southern Historical Society Papers is a collection of accounts of the war by Confederate veterans that were published between 1876 and 1959.

The National Archives provides a subject guide for Civil War documents in its Archival Research Catalog, which includes letters, telegrams, government documents, military plans, maps and sketches.

Making of America is a joint project between the Cornell University and University of Michigan libraries, each of which have a collection of journals and newspapers from the antebellum, wartime and reconstruction periods.

The Library of Congress supplies the records of the Confederate Congress from 1861 to 1865.

The University of Virginia’s Electronic Text Center has numerous archives of letters and diaries. It also full texts of books and essays.

Duke University’s Sallie Bingham Center has a collection of letters and diaries written by women during the war.

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery examines the Civil War through its extensive collection of artifacts and photos.

The National Parks Service’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System is a comprehensive and easily searchable database of Civil War soldiers, sailors, prisoners and regiments.

The University of Tennessee’s American Civil War Homepage features brief biographies of all the Union and Confederate generals.

Frederick H. Dyer’s “A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion” provides brief histories of the regiments from each state.

The Library of Congress presents lesson plans and sets of primary sources for many Civil War topics. It also links to its exhibitions and collections on the war.

George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media provides lessons plans for seven subjects in the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The National Archives explains how to teach the war and Reconstruction using primary sources documents. It features four subjects: letters and telegrams, Mathew Brady’s photography, black soldiers, and fugitive slaves.

PBS explains how to use Ken Burns’ documentary “The Civil War” in the classroom. It includes a timeline of the war and tells you where in the film each event is covered, and provides ideas for classroom discussions and activities.

The Library of Congress has an archive of 7,000 photographs related to the Civil War. Photos can be found through a search or through three subjects organized by the LOC: African Americans, Enlisted Men, and Women. The site also explains how photographs were taken and provides a biography of Brady.

The National Archives also has more than 6,000 photographs taken by Brady in its Archival Research Catalog. Many of them are organized by topic on its ARC Gallery page. More than 200 of the photographs are available on a separate page that doesn’t require you to go through ARC.