Civil War Journals

Examples of CW Journals

TASK: Each student has been assigned a Civil War character and asked to imagine that person's daily life. First, the students will research that character's life and write a brief biographical summary. Second, the students will focus on a particular decade of the character's life, looking closely at three to five events in this time frame. They will be expected to keep concise bibliographic and historic notes on their readings. Third, the students will immerse themselves in particular places and events, actually taking on the persona of their character by writing a diary and recording the highlights of the Civil War years. The primary focus will be on this character's involvement in the Civil War. You will consult maps, music, letters, battle summaries, and other primary and secondary resources to bring this character to life. Finally, you will put your journals into a multimedia/PowerPoint Presentation.

Selected Oral
and Visual Reports: January, 2009.

* Expect daily checks on notes and citation, information and "Notes."
* Drafts will be assigned as the research continues.

GETTING STARTED:

The first week is devoted to research. Two follow up days in the to focus on getting that last resource or looking for some event in particular.

In between, we will devote about ten minutes of class time every other day to discuss questions concerning the project and updating student research. Otherwise, after the first week we will return to a chronological discussion of American literature.

Day One: Get to know your character and the culture surrounding that individual. Do not take notes too soon. Browse through the books, websites, and settle on a perspective. However, do take reference notes (MLA citations) as you read so that you will know how to come back to this information.

Historica Research

Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students, by Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College

The Historical Approach to Research—University of Texas

Using Primary Sources:

"The historian looks for evidence such as letters, diaries, court documents, objects used by the people being studied, and buildings where the people lived. After gathering evidence from primary sources, the historian creates a secondary source by writing about the findings, analyzing them, or putting them together into a story about the past. Martha Ballard’s diary is a primary source. Laurel Ulrich’s book about Martha Ballard’s diary is a secondary source."

• Primary Sources on the Web
• Library Research: Finding Primary Sources
• Repositories of Primary Sources
• EyeWitness to History
• Eye Witness to History: Index
• First Person Accounts in History
• Critically Analyzing Information

How Do I Start?

First look at the list at the bottom of this page and check the biographies. Don't go too deeply into the biographies, at first, but come back to these biographies after you examine the time period and the war.

• Civil War Records
• Civil War Women: Online Archival Collections
• Civil War Primary Documents, Personal Diaries, Journals, Letters, Cartoons, Art, Images, Poetry, Literature, and Music
• Civil War Women: Primary Sources on the Web
• Primary Sources: Civil War Effects on Family, Friends, etc...
• Civil War and Reconstruction: Primary Sources and Timelines
• EyeWittness to History: Civil War
• Letters from the Civil War
• Letters, Telegrams, and Photographs Illustrating Factors that Affected the Civil War
• Civil War Records
• The Civil War: from Son of the South
  Nice site with lots of links and material, including Harper's magazine throughout the war.
• The Smithsonian Civil War Collections
• National Archives Civil War Galleries
• The Making of America: a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction:
• Virginia Runaways: This site documents advertisements in Virginia newspapers for runaway slaves.
• Civil War Manuscripts
• America to 1860: University of Delaware Library

Ken Burns: Civil War Part 1 Vowels

Ken Burns: Civil War Part 2 (immigrants)

Ken Burns: Civil War Part 3 The Price of War

Ken Burns on the Power of History and Creativity

Ken Burns: Brooklyn Bridge

Let's start by looking at the common soldier.

Compiling a Soldier’s Civil War History

Civil War Soldiers’ Stories (Library of Congress)

Who Was the Common Soldier of America’s Civil War?

NPR: (Radio) Women: In the Civil War, Women Fought Like a Man for Freedom

War Letters

Robert E. Lee’s Resignation Letter

Letters from an Iowa Soldier in the Civil War:
Newton and Hannah Scott

Captain Richard W. Bart: Civil War Letters from the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Letters from The Valley of the Shadow: Pre-War-Aftermath The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from the time of John Brown’s Raid through the era of Reconstruction.

Alice Williamson Diary

This small, leather-bound volume is the 36-page diary kept by schoolgirl Alice Williamson at Gallatin, Tennessee from February to September 1864. The main topic of the diary is the occupation of Gallatin and the surrounding region by Union forces under General Eleazer A. Paine. The diary relates many atrocities attributed to Paine. Frequently mentioned is presence of black contrabands in and around Gallatin, attempts to give them formal schooling, and their abuse by Union Eastern Tennessee troops.

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823-1886

A Diary from Dixie: Electronic Edition

In order to find something in this text, use the Find feature and type in a date or a key word. For example, "Lincoln" and you'll find that on March 1, 1861, Mary Chesnut writes that "Brewster says Lincoln passed through Baltimore disguised, and at night, and that he did well, for just now Baltimore is dangerous ground. He says that he hears from all quarters that the vulgarity of Lincoln, his wife, and his son is beyond credence, a thing you must see before you can believe it. Senator Stephen A. Douglas told Mr. Chesnut that "Lincoln is awfully clever, and that he had found him a heavy handful."

James S. Schoff: Civil War Collections: ... Civil War Journals (diaries and journals from soldiers), Regimental Histories (several hundred printed regimental histories).

Keeping a Journal

• Diaries of George Washington
• Letters and Journals of Narcissa Whitman (1836 - 1847) -- crossing the continent and mission life at Waiilatpu
• Internet Guide to Early Journals: 18 & 19th Centuries

Civil War: Alphabetic List of Battles

Civil War Period Maps

Civil War Maps: Library of Congress

Rare Map Collection: Civil War

Civil War Landscape Maps

Civil War Maps

Flash Movie of the Civil War

Order of Secession Maps

Railways in the Southern States—Map

Poetry and Music of the Civil War

Civil War: Poems and Songs

Poetry of the American Civil War

• Thoreau, Henry David - Thoreau Links
• Walt Whitman Notebooks
• The Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive
• Mark Twain
• Mark Twain in his Times
• Creating a Documented Argument on Huckleberry Finn: good site

• Images of Wartime
• Selected Civil War Photogrphyl
• Images of the Civil War
• Photographs from the Civil War
• Civil War Photographs Homepage
• Photographs of the Civil War
• Selected Civil War Photographs
• Pictures of the Civil War

• Winslow Homer and the Civil War
• Paintings: The Battle of Franklin
• American Civil War Project
• Naval Paintings of the Civil War
• Battle of Nashville: Paintings, photos, descriptions of sights
• Our Battery at the Front: Steel engraving, published in 1888 by Worthington & Co.
  Engraved by J. J. Cade after the orginal painting by W. L. Sheppard.
• Mary Livermore: My Story of the War
• Death of Sergeant Dyer
• Winslow Homer and the Civil War
• Winslow Homer: Civil War (Smithsonian)
• Gilbert Stuart
• Gilbert Stuart: The Portrait
• Pictures of the Revolutionary War

Mary Todd Lincoln Biography

Mary Todd Lincoln: Civil War Women

Mary Todd Lincoln from the White Hose

Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln Marriage Profile

• Origins of Slavery: Virginia Slave Laws
• Narrative of a Slave's Capture
• Rebellion: Boston Uprising 1689
• Mary Jemison's Captivity Narrative
• Excerpts of Slave Narratives:
• Confiscation act of 1862
  

• Diaries, Memoirs, Letters and Reports Along the Trails West
• California As I Saw It:
• New Perspectives on THE WEST(This companion site to Ken Burns' program about the American West features an interactive timeline, maps, and an archive of primary source materials)
• The Oregon Trail
• The Alamo
• The Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth
• Civil War and The West

• American Memory
• History Central: The Civil War
• History.com: The American Civil War
• Sherman’s March to the Sea (Harper's Weekly accounts)
• Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events
• Documenting the American South: Documenting the American South (DAS) is a collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century. Including first person narratives and slave narratives.
• Crisis at Fort Sumter
• Links to Civil War Sites on the Web
• The Civil War
• A Hypertext of American History (From Revolution to Reconstruction)
• The Lost Cause: The South's reaction to losing.

• The Civil War Homepage: A very cool site with battle reports and official documents and letters and diaries.
• Civil War Sites on the Internet
• The Civil War Collection at the Smithsonian
• The Civil War on PBS: Resources for the film by Ken Burns
• Civil War Women: On-line Archival Collections, Duke University
• African American Women: On-line Archival Collections, Duke University
• Labor History in the United States:
• Historical Text Archives:
• Historical Census Browser of the United States:
• World Historical Documents: History of the Americas Index:
• History of the U.S. Working Class:
• The American Civil War Homepage: Great source of information, including diaries and journals oof specific accounts.
• Mississippi River Links

• The American Civil War Homepage
• Another Civil War Homepage
• Civil War Women-On-line Archival Collections
• The Valley of the Shadow-Two Communities in the Civil War
• The United States Civil War Center
• Women and the Civil War
• History of Colored Troops in the Civil War

• The American Local History Network: Diaries, Journals, and Memoirs Online
• First Person Narratives of the American South: from the American Memory Page
  a list of authors and texts:
• Eyewitness to History:
• Eye Witness to the Civil War
• Diaries, Memoirs, Letters and Reports Along the Trails West
• California As I Saw It:
• Excerpts of Slave Narratives:
• More Slave Narratives