Library Guides: Resources on the American Civil War: Primary Sources

Primary Source Collections Owned by UM Libraries

Print & Microfilmed Primary Source Collections

The war of the rebellion : a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies
Call number: Fed Gov Documents W 45.4
Publication Date: 1880-1901
Some volumes available online at Cornell University's Making of America website: http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/moawar/waro.html
Confederate imprints : a reel index to the microfilm collection by Edward A. Reno, Jr. and Margaret M. Brezicki
Call Number: Microforms E484.R5
Publication Date: 1974
143 reels. Includes reproductions of many documents relating to the history of the Confederacy.

Digital Primary Source Collections

American Civil War Collection, 1860-1922 This link opens in a new window
Features works published between 1860 and 1922 addressing all facets of the Civil War and its aftermath. Includes broadsides, lithographs, maps, books, pamphlets, photographs, political cartoons, stereographs, and more.
American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922 This link opens in a new window
This digital edition of the American Antiquarian Society's holdings of slavery and abolition materials contains works published over the course of more than 100 years. Includes books, pamphlets, graphic materials, and ephemera.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: All Series This link opens in a new window
The AAS Historical Periodicals Collection includes five series containing a comprehensive collection of more than 6,500 American magazines and journals documenting the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Series 1: 1684-1820
Series 2: 1821-1837
Series 3: 1838-1852
Series 4: 1853-1865
Series 5: 1866-1912
Slavery and the Law This link opens in a new window
Features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867 as well as the State Slavery Statutes collection, a comprehensive record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789-1865.

Reconstruction of Southern States: Pamphlets
Reconstruction encompassed three major initiatives: restoration of the Union, transformation of Southern society, and enactment of progressive legislation favoring the rights of freed slaves. This collection provides representative pamphlets that highlight these initiatives.

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
This collection contains 2,009 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs. Particular care has been taken to index this material so it can be searched more thoroughly than ever. Each source has been carefully chosen using leading bibliographies. The product includes 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts such as the letters of Amos Wood and his wife and the diary of Maryland Planter William Claytor. The collection also includes biographies, an extensive bibliography of the sources in the database, and material licensed from The Civil War Day-by-Day by E.B. Long.
Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
This extraordinary, primary source collection is the first to comprehensively detail the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War. Covering the period 1830-1865, the collection presents the massive, international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings and publications of the activists themselves.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. The ideas of over 1,000 authors present an evolving and complex view of what it is to be black in America.
Civil War Collection, Part I: A Newspaper Perspective This link opens in a new window
Contains articles from The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865.
Civil War Era This link opens in a new window
This database covers a vast range of topics including the formative economic factors and other forces that led to the abolitionist movement, the 600,000 battle casualties and the emancipation of nearly 4 million slaves.
European Views of the Americas, 1493-1750 This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples. Full text not included; use Interlibrary Loan to request titles.
Reconstruction and Military Government after the Civil War This link opens in a new window
From heart-wrenching personal letters to bills of lading for office supplies, this database offers remarkable insight into the early Reconstruction period in the American South. The correspondence of the U.S. Army’s Office of Civil Affairs reveal efforts to foster democracy and rebuild communities in the divided and war-torn former Confederate states.
Reconstruction of Southern States: Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
Contains pamphlets on all major aspects of Reconstruction from 1865 ? 1869 and 1877. This assortment of pamphlets was collected by the Department of State Library and includes speeches, debates, political statements, legislative bills, and more.
Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries This link opens in a new window
Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries presents some of the richest, most valuable, and most complete collections in the entire documentary record of American slavery, focusing on the industrial uses of slave labor. The materials selected include company records; business and personal correspondence; documents pertaining to the purchase, hire, medical care, and provisioning of slave laborers; descriptions of production processes; and journals recounting costs and income. The work ledgers in these collections record slave earnings and expenditures and provide extraordinary insight into slave life. The collections document slavery in such enterprises as gold, silver, copper, and lead mining; iron manufacturing, machine shop work, lumbering, quarrying, brickmaking, tobacco manufacturing, shipbuilding, and heavy construction; and building of railroads and canals.
Southern Life and African American History: Plantation Records, 1775-1915 This link opens in a new window
Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries presents some of the richest, most valuable, and most complete collections in the entire documentary record of American slavery, focusing on the industrial uses of slave labor. The materials selected include company records; business and personal correspondence; documents pertaining to the purchase, hire, medical care, and provisioning of slave laborers; descriptions of production processes; and journals recounting costs and income. The work ledgers in these collections record slave earnings and expenditures and provide extraordinary insight into slave life.

Civil War Resources in Archives & Special Collections

The University Archives & Special Collections holds many items related to the Civil War, including manuscripts, primary sources, and secondary sources. Many items are available digitally.

Research guide for the Civil War in Mississippi (Archives)
The Archives & Special Collections material identified in this subject guide focus primarily on the Civil War in Mississippi.
Physical Civil War Collections (Archives)
Physical archival collections related to the Civil War. Finding aids are available for each collection.
Digital Civil War Archive
The University of Mississippi Civil War Archive provides a sampling of the Archives & Special Collections extensive Civil War primary source holdings. Accessible through the UM institutional repository, eGrove.

Official Record

The war of the rebellion : a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies by United States. War Department
Call Number: W45.4
Publication Date: 1880-1901
A collection of all official communications for both the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies in the Civil War.

Cornell University's Making of America
Many of the records in the above collection (plus many more) are available through this online resource.

General Civil War Primary Sources

Digital Public Library of America
DPLA brings together the collections of libraries, archives, and museums from across the country into one searchable portal.
Library of Congress Civil War Collections
Digitized primary sources pertaining to the Civil War housed in the Library of Congress.
Umbra Search
Brings together items relating to African American history from more than 1000 U.S. archives, libraries, and museums.
Documenting the American South
Access hundreds of digitized primary sources including books, diaries, and oral histories from across the South from the mid-1700s through the mid-1900s.
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
The collection is organized into three "General Correspondence" series which include incoming and outgoing correspondence and enclosures, drafts of speeches, and notes and printed material. Most of the items are from the 1850s through Lincoln's presidential years, 1860-65.
Civil War Battle Summaries by State
produced by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission and provides a short summary of the battle including commanders and alternate names.
Civil War Era Collections at Gettysburg College
Civil War in the American South
A collaborative effort by the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, this site contains links to digital content held at over 30 major libraries in the South including the University of Mississippi.
The Crisis of the Union: Causes, Conduct and Consequences of the Civil War
Created by the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image at the University of Pennsylvania, this collection contains pamphlets, books, broadsides, cartoons, clippings, paintings, maps, and other print memorabilia about America from circa 1830 to 1880.
Nineteenth Century in Print
The books in this collection bear nineteenth century American imprints, dating mainly from between 1850 and 1880. Currently, approximately 1,500 books are included in this American Memory site. The collection is particularly strong in poetry and in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
New York State Library – Digital Collections – Civil War
digitized materials include letters, broadsides and published reports.
Virginia Military Institute Archives
extensive digital collections focusing on VMI alumni in the Civil War and in particular on Stonewall Jackson.
Visualizing Emancipation
Visualizing Emancipation is a map of slavery’s end during the American Civil War. It finds patterns in the collapse of southern slavery, mapping the interactions between federal policies, armies in the field, and the actions of enslaved men and women on countless farms and city blocks.
Ulysses S. Grant Papers
The digital collection consists of 31 volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, political cartoons, and sheet music from the larger collection. Other materials will be added to the digital collection as processing continues.

Primary Sources on Slavery

Library of Congress African American History Digital Collections
Digitzed collections of papers held by the Library of Congress. Includes the Frederick Douglass Papers; Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860; Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories; and more.
Antislavery Pamphlet Collection, 1725-1911
The Antislavery Collection contains several hundred printed pamphlets and books pertaining to slavery and antislavery in New England, 1725-1911. The holdings include speeches, sermons, proceedings and other publications of organizations such as the American Anti-Slavery Society and the American Colonization Society, and a small number of pro-slavery tracts.
Voices from the Days of Slavery
Audio recordings of interviews with former slaves. Housed in the Library of Congress.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
Digital Library on American Slavery
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro offers this database of abstracts of about 3,000 petitions to courts and legislatures in the antebellum South, portraying slave/owner relations. interracial sex, free blacks, the black family, and racial attitudes
African American Perspectives
Digitized materials from the Library of Congress' Rare Books and Special Collections by African American authors written 1822-1909.

Online Newspaper Collections

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers 1836-1922

African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Features newspapers published by or for African Americans in 35 states from 1827 to 1998. Funded by the Dr. Gerald W. Walton Endowment.
Atlanta Constitution, 1868-1984 This link opens in a new window
As the only major daily newspaper in the Atlanta area, The Atlanta Constitution provides a fascinating glimpse into the political, economic, cultural, and social life of the southeastern United States from Reconstruction through the late 20th century.
Civil War Collection, Part I: A Newspaper Perspective This link opens in a new window
Contains articles from The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865.
Detroit Free Press, 1831-1999 This link opens in a new window
This historic newspaper was first in many ways: First U.S. newspaper to print a regular Sunday edition. First U.S. newspaper to publish court testimony. It sent reporters to Civil War battlefields to describe the action, set up a Washington bureau to report on politics, and was the first American newspaper published in Europe when it began a London edition in 1881.
Early American Newspapers, Series 6 This link opens in a new window
Searches more than 160 significant 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century American newspapers.
Guardian, 1791-2003 This link opens in a new window
The Guardian (1821-2003) and its sister paper The Observer (1791-2003) give readers online access to facts, firsthand accounts, and opinions of the day about the most significant and fascinating political, business, sports, literary, and entertainment events from the past two centuries. From Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo to the Russian Revolution to Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, these British historical newspapers bring history to life for researchers.
Nashville Tennessean, 1812-2009 This link opens in a new window
The Nashville Tennessean(1812-2002) provides unique historical insight into the regional issues and concerns, such as local government, industrialization, prohibition, and racial struggles. This diverse, easily-accessible primary source material is an invaluable tool for effective research by users in almost any field.
New York Times, 1851-2020 This link opens in a new window
The New York Times (NYT) is an internationally recognized daily newspaper founded in 1851 and distributed throughout the United States. This historical database offers downloadable PDF's from each issue published between 1851 and 2020.
Times Digital Archive, 1785-2019 This link opens in a new window
The Times, one of the most highly regarded resources for eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century news coverage. This historical newspaper archive allows researchers an unparalleled opportunity to search and view the best-known and most cited newspaper in the world online in its original published context. With over 12 million articles available, the archive supports research across multiple disciplines and areas of interest, including business, humanities, political science, and philosophy, along with coverage of all major international historical events.

Government Documents

Congressional Publications This link opens in a new window
Indexes Congressional publications including Congressional research and hearings from 1789 to the present, linking to full text when available.