Research Guides: War & Society: American Civil War

Visit FSU Special Collections & Archives

The FSU Special Collections & Archives holds many documents from the Civil War Era. Consider including these unique items in your study of war and society during the American Civil War.

Civil War Era Materials
Materials included in this topical collection range from letters and diaries kept by soldiers on the front, records of the Confederacy and its operations, and Confederate sheet music to materials that come from the periods before and after the Civil War and give us a glimpse into life, culture, trade and travel both on and off the front as well as Southern life just before and after the war.

War

Documenting the American South This link opens in a new window
Thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture, including "The Civil War Day By Day," "North American Slave Narratives," "The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865," and "True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina."
Abbreviation: docsouth
Vendor: University of North Carolina
Subjects: African-American Studies, History, Literature
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Open Access

Civil War in the American South: Digital Collections at University Libraries in the U.S. South
Civil War and the American South provides a central portal to access digital collections from the Civil War era (1850-1865) held by members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL).
Florida and the Civil War- Sources from University of Florida Digital Collections
Florida had the smallest population of any state in the Confederacy in 1861 and stood at the far edge of conflict. Yet Floridians were at the center of most of the war’s major battles. Because of this, letters sent home from the battlefronts cover a broad spectrum of events and opinions. Collections in this project also provide a wealth of information about divided loyalties and realms of influence within Florida.
Clara Barton papers
The papers of nurse, educator, philanthropist, and lecturer Clara Barton (1821-1912). Spanning the years 1805-1958, with the bulk dating from 1861 to 1912, the collection contains correspondence, diaries and journals, reports, addresses, legal and financial papers, organizational records, lectures, writings, scrapbooks, biographical material, printed matter, memorabilia, and other papers. They relate primarily to Barton's work providing relief services during the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War in Europe, her founding in 1881 and subsequent leadership of the American National Red Cross, and her establishment in 1905 of the National First Aid Association of America.

History Commons This link opens in a new window
The 7-part Civil War collection includes regiment histories written and published by soldiers as well as the memoirs of prominent generals. Select COLLECTIONS on the landing page, then choose the relevant part of the CIVIL WAR collection to being exploring.
Abbreviation: aacarc
Vendor: Coherent Digital
Subjects: African-American Studies, History, Women's and Gender Studies
Type: Newspapers and Newswires

James Nixon Civil War Letters, 1861-1863
FSU Special Collections
Photostats of Civil War letters by James M. Nixon (d. 1863), 8th Fla. Regt., (1861-1863) to his wife, Louise A. Nixon, Mt. Pleasant, Gadsden County, Florida. Includes descriptions of life in Charleston, S.C., the battlefields around Gettysburg, and other aspects of life as a Confederate soldier.

Databases that include several newspaper titles from around the United States.

African American Newspapers, 1827–1998 This link opens in a new window
Provides online access to 280 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection, which includes papers from more than 35 states, features many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles.
Abbreviation: afamnp
Vendor: NewsBank
Coverage: 1827–1998
Subjects: African-American Studies, Communication, History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires
America's Historical Newspapers, 1690–1922 This link opens in a new window
Searchable digital facsimiles of thousands of newspaper titles from all 50 states. With eyewitness reporting, editorials, letters, advertisements, obituaries and much more, this collection chronicles the evolution of American culture and daily life from the colonial era to the early twentieth century, with especially good coverage of the nineteenth century. Note: FSU has access to African American Newspapers, Series 1; Caribbean Newspapers, Series 1; Early American Newspapers, Series 1: From Colonies to Nation; Series 2: The New Republic; Series 3: From Farm to City; Series 4: The Rise of Industry; Series 5: An Emerging World Power; Series 12: The Specialized Press.
Abbreviation: eana
Vendor: NewsBank
Coverage: 1690–1922
Subjects: Communication, History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Digitized images of the pages of over 1,100 American magazines and journals published between 1740 and 1900. Covers special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.
Abbreviation: amper
Vendor: ProQuest
Coverage: 1740–1940
Subjects: African-American Studies, History, Literature
Type: E-Journal Collections, Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Collection of digitized newspaper pages from 1789-1924.

Databases of individual newspaper titles:

Chicago Tribune (Historical)
Provides a unique historical perspective of the development of Chicago and the Midwest in the 19th and 20th centuries. Offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to 1849. Updates vary, current coverage 1849-1992.

HarpWeek: The Civil War Era and Reconstruction I & II This link opens in a new window
HarpWeek enables you to directly experience the richness and historical significance of Harper’s Weekly, America's leading 19th century illustrated newspaper. HarpWeek covers the Civil War and Reconstruction content from Harper's Weekly, 1857–1877, with index.
General note on searching historical documents: If "Haiti" doesnt show up in Searchable Full-text, try it in the Thesaurus-based index; (it was spelled "Hayti" in the nineteenth century). If First Lieutenant J. E. Tuthill doesnt appear in the Thesaurus-based index, try him in Searchable Full-text.

Abbreviation: harpweek
Vendor: HarpWeek
Coverage: 1857–1877
Subjects: History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires
New York Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window
Offers full-page-images and article images from the New York Times newspaper from its first issue in 1851 to three years before the current date. This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand primary source accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Abbreviation: nythist
Vendor: ProQuest
Coverage: 1850–Current - 3 years
Subjects: History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires

Richmond Daily Dispatch
Digitized content 1860-1865.

Special Projects:

Secession Era Editorials Project
Furman University History Department project that includes transcription of editorials for the following three events: he Nebraska bill debates, Dred Scott, and John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry.

Biographical Rosters of Florida's Confederate and Union Soldiers 1861-1865 by David W. Hartman (Compiled by); David Coles (Compiled by)
Call Number: FSU STROZIER, Special Coll Florida Reference -- E502.3.H3 1995
Publication Date: 1995

Congressional Publications (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Congressional Publications provides a comprehensive view of congressional action and the behind-the-scenes activity involved in crafting U.S. legislation. It includes the Congressional Research Digital Collection (CRDC), Committee Prints and CRS Reports (1824–Present), Statutes at Large (1789–present), and the Serial Set (1789–1969), and Hearings (1824-1979, 1980-2003). Includes the Federal Register & Political News. Note that not all hearings have full-text transcripts.
Tutorials:
ProQuest Congressional Publications LibGuide

Abbreviation: conguni
Vendor: ProQuest
Coverage: 1789–Current
Subjects: History, Law, Political Science, Public Administration and Policy, Public Safety and Security
Type: Government Publications
Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 37,000 annual time series of quantitative historical information covering virtually every quantifiable dimension of American history: population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, governance, and international relations, all from the earliest times to the present. A compendium of statistics from over 1000 sources last updated in 1990, HSUS has been expanded to include data series and topics such as slavery, American Indians, health, crime, migration, poverty, and the Confederate States of America are each placed in historical context.
Abbreviation: hsus
Vendor: Cambridge University Press
Subjects: Criminology and Criminal Justice, History, Urban and Regional Planning
Type: Datasets / Statistics, Historical / Primary Sources
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture, and Law This link opens in a new window
Includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
Abbreviation: heinsla
Vendor: HeinOnline
Coverage: 1735–2001
Subjects: African-American Studies, Bibliography, E-Journal Collections, History, Indexes & Catalogs, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Law, Newspapers
Type: Citation Management, E-Journal Collections, Government Publications, Historical / Primary Sources, Images, Indexes / Catalogs, Newspapers and Newswires

Slavery and the Courts (1740-1860)
Consists of trials, cases, arguments, proceedings, and other works regarding the persecution and defense of slavery as an institution during those years.

Civil War Maps
Brings together materials from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia. Among the reconnaissance, sketch, and theater-of-war maps are the detailed battle maps made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss for Generals Lee and Jackson, General Sherman's Southern military campaigns, and maps taken from diaries, scrapbooks, and manuscripts all available for the first time in one place.
Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints
This online collection provides access to about 7,000 different views and portraits made during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and its immediate aftermath. The images represent the original glass plate negatives made under the supervision of Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner.
Hotchkiss Map Collection
The Hotchkiss Map Collection contains cartographic items made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828-1899), a topographic engineer in the Confederate Army. Hotchkiss made detailed battle maps primarily of the Shenandoah Valley, some of which were used by the Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson for their combat planning and strategy.

Abolition

Frederick Douglass Papers
The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The online collection, containing approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1865.

Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
This collection searches a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865. The content includes letters, speeches, editorials, articles, sermons, and essays from libraries and archives in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. Over 15,000 items written by nearly 300 Black men and women are available for searching.
Abbreviation: bap
Vendor: ProQuest
Coverage: 1830–1865
Subjects: African-American Studies, History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
If you want to expand your investigation beyond the American Civil War. This database brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world, covering an extensive time period from 1490. Topics covered include the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective, and the continued existence of slavery today.
Abbreviation: sasj
Vendor: Adam Matthew Digital Ltd
Coverage: 1490–2007
Subjects: African-American Studies, History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Images, Indexes / Catalogs, Maps

Slavery: Personal & Plantation Records

The Special Collections at FSU Libraries include a large number of plantation records and other documents from the Antebellum South. Consider the ways in which slavery was an integral part of social life, with implications for businesses, government, and family life.

A great place to start to discover these resources is Adam Hunt's guide to archival materials on Enslavement and Sharecropping in Florida.

Enslavement and Sharecropping in Florida
by Katie McCormick Last Updated Oct 9, 2024 292 views this year