Print books are arranged on the shelf in Library of Congress Call Number order. Each call number begins with an alphanumeric base (e.g., "BF109.J8") that is followed by a cutter and a date of publication (e.g., "A25 1993"). See a librarian if you need assistance.
Call Number Range (where to look on the bookshelves)
E461-655 The Civil War, 1861-1865
F1-975 United States local history
Primary Sources- Autobiographies, journals, eye-witness accounts, etc.
(TIP: photographs would be primary sources but the commentary about the photographs would be secondary sources)
RCBC Databases
I Rode with Stonewall by
Stonewall Jackson depended on him; General Lee complimented him; Union soldiers admired him; and women in Maryland, Virginia, and even Pennsylvania adored him: Henry Kyd Douglas. During and shortly after the Civil War Douglas set down his experiences of great men and great days. In resonant prose, he wrote simply and intimately, covering the full emotional spectrum of a soldier's life. Here is one of the finest and most remarkable stories to come out of any war, written wholly firsthand from notes and diaries made on the battlefield.
John Dooley, Confederate Soldier by
One of the best primary accounts of the Civil War by a Confederate. John Dooley was the youngest son of Irish immigrants to Richmond, Virginia, where his father prospered, and the family took a leading position among Richmond's sizeable Irish community. Early in 1862, John left his studies at Georgetown University to serve in the First Virginia Infantry Regiment, in which his father John and brother James also served. John's service took him to Second Manassas, South Mountain, Sharpsburg (Antietam), Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg; before that last battle, Dooley was elected a lieutenant. On the third day at Gettysburg, Dooley swept up the hill in Pickett's charge, where he was shot through both legs and lay all night on the field, to be made a POW the next day. Held until February 27, 1865, Dooley made his way back south to arrive home very near the Confederacy's final collapse. Dooley's account is valuable for the content of his service and because most of the material came from his diary, with some interpolations (which are indicated as such) that he made shortly after the war's end when his memory was still fresh. Dooley's health seems to have been permanently compromised by his wounds; he entered a Roman Catholic seminary after the war and died in 1873 several months before his ordination was to take place.
Hospital Sketches by
Hospital Sketches: by Louisa May Alcott and was back again, as the clock struck two. The Doctor hadn't come yet; and I was morally certain that he would not, till, having waited till the last minute, I was driven to buy a ticket, and, five minutes after the irrevocable deed was done, he would be at my service, with all manner of helpful documents and directions. Everything goes by contraries with me; so, having made up my mind to be disappointed, of course I wasn't; for, presently, in walked Dr. H., and no sooner had he heard my errand, and glanced at my credentials, than he said, with the most engaging readiness: "I will give you the order, with pleasure, madam." Words cannot express how soothing and delightful it was to find, at last, somebody who could do what I wanted, without sending me from Dan to Beersheba, for a dozen other to do something else first. Peace descended, like oil, upon the ruffled waters of my being, as I sat listening to the busy scratch of his pen; and, when he turned about, giving me not only the order, but a
The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy by
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sarah Kennedy watched as her husband, D.N., left for Mississippi, leaving her alone to care for their six children and control their slaves in a large home in downtown Clarksville, Tennessee. D. N. Kennedy left to aid the Confederate Treasury Department. He had steadfastly supported secession and helped recruit local boys for the Confederate army. The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy: Life under Occupation in the Upper South showcases the letters Sarah wrote to her husband during their time apart, offering readers an inside look at life on the home front during the Civil War through the eyes of a slave-owning, town-dwelling wife and mother. Featuring fifty-two of Sarah Kennedy's letters to her husband from August 16, 1862, to February 20, 1865, this important collection chronicles Sarah Kennedy's personal struggles during the Civil War years, from periods of illness to lack of consistent contact with her husband and everything in between. Her love and devotion to her family is apparent in each letter, contrasting deeply with her resentment and harsh treatment toward her enslaved people as Emancipation swept through Clarksville. A useful volume to Civil War historians and women's history scholars alike, The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy pulls back the curtain on upper-middle-class family life and social relations in a mid-sized Middle Tennessee town during the Civil War and reveals the slow demise of slavery during the Union occupation.
Civil War Songbook by
Of all the events in American history, perhaps none was reflected in song with such innocent vigor as the Civil War. This volume of 37 popular songs of the period gives a fully rounded picture of sentiments on the battle line and on the home front, both North and South. The five important categories are all covered: Patriotic Songs ("Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Dixie," "The Southrons' Chaunt of Defiance"), The Soldiering Life ("Just Before the Battle, Mother," "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!," "O I'm a Good Old Rebel"), Battlefield Deaths ("The Drummer Boy of Shiloh," "The Dying Volunteer"), Domestic Scenes ("When Johnny Comes Marching Home," "The Vacant Chair"), and Emancipation Songs ("Kingdom Coming," "Sixty-Three Is the Jubilee"). The mood ranges from lugubrious ("Bear Gently, So Gently, the Roughly Made Bier") to comic ("Grafted into the Army"), and satirical ("Jeff in Petticoats"), reflecting the day-to-day hopes and fears as well as the "lofty and martial" moments. Among the popular composers in this selection are George F. Root, Dan D. Emmett, Henry C. Work, Walter Kittredge, Will S. Hays, James G. Clark, Bernard Covert, and many more. These are the original songs, complete with their sheet music covers. Since so many of these songs have been changed and rearranged over the years and often many of the stanzas have been lost, the collection is invaluable to anyone interested in the music of this period. Richard Crawford (School of Music, University of Michigan) has provided an introduction citing related versions, historical allusions, and biographical data on the composers. Amateur and professional singers will find this collection to be of unusually high quality, and it is of great interest to collectors, musicologists, and Civil War buffs. Most of this music is nowhere else in print, and quite a bit of it does not even survive except in a few library collections.
... the Real War Will Never Get in the Books by
"These thousands, and tens and twenties of thousands of American young men, badly wounded, all sorts of wounds, operated on, pallid with diarrhea, languishing, dying with fever, pneumonia, &c. open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, new things, exploring deeper mines than any yet, showing our humanity, (I sometimes put myself in fancy in the cot, with typhoid, or under the knife,) tried by terrible, fearfulest tests, probed deepest, the living soul's, the body's tragedies, bursting the petty bounds of art." So wrote Walt Whitman in March of 1863, in a letter telling friends in New York what he had witnessed in Washington's war hospitals. In this, we see both a description of war's ravages and a major artist's imaginative response to the horrors of war as it "bursts the petty bounds of art." In "...the real war will never get in the books", Louis Masur has brought together fourteen of the most eloquent and articulate writers of the Civil War period, including such major literary figures as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, and Louisa May Alcott. Drawing on a wide range of material, including diaries, letters, and essays, Masur captures the reactions of these writers as the war was waged, providing a broad spectrum of views. Emerson, for instance, sees the war "come as a frosty October, which shall restore intellectual & moral power to these languid & dissipated populations." African-American writer Charlotte Forten writes sadly of the slaughter at Fort Wagner: "It seems very, very hard that the best and noblest must be the earliest called away. Especially has it been so throughout this dreadful war." There are writings by soldiers in combat. John Esten Cooke, a writer of popular pre-Revolutionary romances serving as a Confererate soldier under J.E.B. Stuart, describes Stonewall Jackson's uniform: "It was positively scorched by sun--had that dingy hue, the product of sun and rain, and contact with the ground...but the men of the old Stonewall Brigade loved that coat." And John De Forest, a Union officer, describes facing a Confederate volley: "It was a long rattle like that which a boy makes in running with a stick along a picket-fence, only vastly louder; and at the same time the sharp, quiet whit-whit of bullets chippered close to our ears." And along the way, we sample many vivid portraits of the era, perhaps the most surprising of which is Louisa May Alcott's explanation of why she preferred her noon-to-midnight schedule in a Washington hospital: "I like it as it leaves me time for a morning run which is what I need to keep well....I trot up & down the streets in all directions, some times to the Heights, then half way to Washington, again to the hill over which the long trains of army wagons are constantly vanishing & ambulances appearing. That way the fighting lies, & I long to follow." With unmatched intimacy and immediacy, "...the real war will never get in the books" illuminates the often painful intellectual and emotional efforts of fourteen accomplished writers as they come to grips with "The American Apocalypse."
Hidden Witness by
As slaves, African Americans were virtually invisible to history. Even after the Civil War there were not many African American photographers and very few people had the time, money or freedom to sit for a portrait. Consequently only a few hundred such pictures have survived from that time to bear witness to African Americans and the lives they led.
Internet Resources
Secondary Sources- Biographies, book examining primary accounts, etc.
Physical Books (a few examples)
Embracing Emancipation by
Challenges conventional narratives of the Civil War era that emphasize Irish Americans' unceasing opposition to Black freedom Embracing Emancipation tackles a perennial question in scholarship on the Civil War era: Why did Irish Americans, who claimed to have been oppressed in Ireland, so vehemently opposed the antislavery movement in the United States? Challenging conventional answers to this question that focus on the cultural, political, and economic circumstances of the Irish in America, Embracing Emancipation locates the origins of Irish American opposition to antislavery in famine-era Ireland. There, a distinctively Irish critique of abolitionism emerged during the 1840s, one that was adopted and adapted by Irish Americans during the sectional crisis. The Irish critique of abolitionism meshed with Irish Americans' belief that the American Union would uplift Irish people on both sides of the Atlantic--if only it could be saved from the forces of disunion. Whereas conventional accounts of the Civil War itself emphasize Irish immigrants' involvement in the New York City draft riots as a brutal coda to their unflinching opposition to emancipation, Delahanty uncovers a history of Irish Americans who embraced emancipation. Irish American soldiers realized that aiding Black southerners' attempts at self-liberation would help to subdue the Confederate rebellion. Wartime developments in the United States and Ireland affirmed Irish American Unionists' belief that the perpetuity of their adopted country was vital to the economic and political prospects of current and future immigrants and to their hopes for Ireland's independence. Even as some Irish immigrants evinced their disdain for emancipation by lashing out against Union authorities and African Americans in northern cities, many others argued that their transatlantic interests in restoring the Union now aligned with slavery's demise. While myriad Irish Americans ultimately abandoned their hostility to antislavery, their backgrounds in and continuously renewed connections with Ireland remained consistent influences on how the Irish in America took part in debate over the future of American slavery.
The Civil War and Reconstruction by
Particular attention is paid to social history; coverage ofthe experience of African Americans, women, and non-elites provides awell-rounded picture of the period. Substantial selections, carefulediting, and helpful annotations make this collection an idealsupplement for your course on the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Why the Confederacy Lost by
After the Civil War, someone asked General Pickett why the Battle of Gettysburg had been lost: Was it Lee's error in taking the offensive, the tardiness of Ewell and Early, or Longstreet's hesitation in attacking? Pickett scratched his head and replied, "I've always thought the Yankees hadsomething to do with it." This simple fact, writes James McPherson, has escaped a generation of historians who have looked to faulty morale, population, economics, and dissent as the causes of Confederate failure. These were all factors, he writes, but the Civil War was still a war--won by theUnion army through key victories at key moments.With this brilliant review of how historians have explained the Southern defeat, McPherson opens a fascinating account by several leading historians of how the Union broke the Confederate rebellion. In every chapter, the military struggle takes center stage, as the authors reveal howbattlefield decisions shaped the very forces that many scholars (putting the cart before the horse) claim determined the outcome of the war. Archer Jones examines the strategy of the two sides, showing how each had to match its military planning to political necessity. Lee raided north of thePotomac with one eye on European recognition and the other on Northern puplic opinion--but his inevitable retreats looked like failure to the Southern public. The North, however, developed a strategy of deep raids that was extremely effective because it served a valuable political as well asmilitary purpose, shattering Southern morale by tearing up the interior. Gary Gallagher takes a hard look at the role of generals, narrowing his focus to the crucial triumvirate of Lee, Grant, and Sherman, who towered above the others. Lee's aggressiveness may have been costly, but he well knewthe political impact of his spectacular victories; Grant and Sherman, meanwhile, were the first Union generals to fully harness Northern resources and carry out coordinated campaigns. Reid Mitchell shows how the Union's advantage in numbers was enhanced by a dedication and perseverance of federaltroops that was not matched by the Confederates after their home front began to collapse. And Joseph Glatthaar examines black troops, whose role is entering the realm of national myth.In 1960, there appeared a collection of essays by major historians, entitled Why the North Won the Civil War, edited by David Donald; it is now in its twenty-sixth printing, having sold well over 100,000 copies. Why the Confederacy Lost provides a parallel volume, written by today's leadingauthorities. Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work reminds us that the hard-won triumph of the North was far from inevitable.
Sherman by
This biography of General William Tecumseh Sherman aims to reveal the motives underlying his often controversial actions. As well as Sherman's role in the Civil War, the book covers other aspects of his life - West Point, the Gold Rush, the construction of the transcontinental railway and more.
A People's History of the Civil War by
Moving beyond Presidents and generals, A People's History of the Civil War tells a new and powerful story of America's most destructive conflict. In the first book to view the civil war through the eyes of common people, historian David Williams presents long- overlooked perspectives and forgotten voices offering a comprehensive account of the war to general readers. The Civil War's most destructive battles, Williams argues, took place not only on the fields of Gettysburg, Antiesham, and Vicksburg, but also on the streets of New York, in prison camps, in the West, an on the starving home front. Labouring people, urban and rural, fought for economic justice. Women struggled for rights and opportunities and for their family's survival. Volunteers and conscripts demanded respect. Native Americans made the Civil War a war for freedom long before Lincoln embraced emancipation. Bottom up history at its very best. A People's History of the Civil War offers a rich and complex portrait of a nation at war with itself.
How the North Won by
Selected as one of Civil War magazine's 100 essential titles on military campaigns and personalities.
When the Yankees Came by
Southerners whose communities were invaded by the Union army during the Civil War endured a profoundly painful ordeal. For most, the coming of the Yankees was a nightmare become real; for some, it was the answer to a prayer. But as Stephen Ash argues, for all, invasion and occupation were essential parts of the experience of defeat that helped shape the southern postwar mentality. When the Yankees Came is the first comprehensive study of the occupied South, bringing to light a wealth of new information about the southern home front. Among the intriguing topics Ash explores are guerrilla warfare and other forms of civilian resistance; the evolution of Union occupation policy from leniency to repression; the impact of occupation on families, churches, and local government; and conflicts between southern aristocrats and poor whites. In analyzing these topics, Ash examines events from the perspective not only of southerners but also of the northern invaders, and he shows how the experiences of southerners differed according to their distance from a garrisoned town.
New Jerseyans in the Civil War by
The Civil War divided New Jersey just as it did the nation. As a small state sandwiched between two large and powerful neighbors, New Jersey had always enthusiastically supported the creation of a strong central government. On the other hand, many New Jersey citizens did not share the anti-slavery sentiments of the North; they supported property rights of slave owners and believed in the natural inferiority of blacks. Subsequently, when southern states began to secede from the Union to form the Confederacy, New Jerseyans were left divided and confused. William J. Jackson examines the ironies, paradoxes, and contradictions that characterized New Jersey's unique historical role in the war. This is the only book to incorporate social and political history with that of military history and strategy. Civil War aficionados and historians will also welcome Jackson's analysis of the participation of New Jersey African Americans on the home front and in the military.
Beneath the Starry Flag by
Few events in American history can match the triumph and tragedy of the Civil War. Many books have been written about the War between the States, but until now, none has chronicled--in their own words--the many important roles played by people from New Jersey. Beneath the Starry Flag is a collection of richly detailed eyewitness accounts by New Jerseyans who lived during the Civil War. Drawing from letters, journals, regimental histories, and newspaper accounts, Alan A. Siegel places the reader in the midst of these desperate times. The book depicts the war years chronologically, from the tense days when one state, then another seceded from the Union, through battles lost and won, to the victory at Appomattox and Lincoln's funeral procession across New Jersey. Readers will learn of the remarkable valor of New Jersey soldiers such as John Beech, a Trenton potter who won a Medal of Honor for bravery at Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle. They will learn too of the sacrifices made by civilians, such as Cornelia Hancock of Salem County, who ministered to soldiers wounded on battlefields from Gettysburg to Petersburg. Siegel also tells of other people and institutions who played very different roles in the war, including Somerset County's Daniel Cory, who said he would shoot the president if he could, the state's leading Copperhead newspapers, which denounced the draft and discouraged enlistments, and the State Legislature, which at one point called for a truce and negotiations to end the conflict. Siegel allows them all, enlisted men and officers, politicians and plain citizens, patriots and conspirators, to speak in their own words in often moving firsthand accounts. Their motives, emotions, and deeds are chronicled in this collection of stories, some which have been out of print for many years, others that have not been heard since they were first written more than a century ago. [Beneath the Starry Flag is an invaluable addition to what we know about this remarkable time in American history, perfect for the general reader or Civil War historian.]
The War Between the Spies by
"The War Between the Spies is the first comprehensive history of Civil War espionage and counterespionage ever published." "Noted historian Alan Axelrod tells a story filled with treachery, heroism, and suspense but also leavened with an aspect of comedy, for espionage during this conflict was an epic amalgam of passion and bumbling, of amateur agents dealing in matters of life and death. Like the soldiers who fought and died in this struggle of brother against brother, the spies of the Civil War were ordinary citizens pressed into missions of espionage that were poorly planned and often hopelessly vague in purpose." "Axelrod tells the adventure-filled stories of these intrepid and colorful spies and conveys as well the full sweep of the war in the best tradition of narrative history. He takes us on Abraham Lincoln's harrowing inaugural journey through conspiratorial Maryland on the eve of the war, follows the exploits of the Confederacy's seductive female spies, travels the "Secret Line" and other rebel avenues of covert communication in and out of Washington, and brings to light the clandestine careers of laborers, itinerant peddlers, doctors, and dentists who turned spy for one side or the other." "The Civil War has yet to release its hold on the nation's heart and imagination, and The War Between the Spies details one of the struggle's little-known and least-documented aspects."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Women in the Civil War by
When the Civil War broke out, women answered the call for help. They broke away from their traditional roles and served in many capacities, some of them even going so far as to disguise themselves as men and enlist in the army. Estimates of women disguising themselves as men and enlisting range from 400 to 700 and records indicate that approximately 60 women soldiers were known to have been killed or wounded.More than sixty women who fought or who served the Union or Confederacy in other important ways are featured in this work. Among those included are Sarah Thompson, the Union spy and nurse who brought down the famous raider John Hunt Morgan; Elizabeth Van Lew, the Union spy who was instrumental in the success of the largest prison break of the Civil War; Sarah Malinda Blalock, who fought for the Confederacy as a soldier and then for the Union as a guerrilla raider; Dr. Mary Walker, a doctor for the Union and the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War; and Jennie Hodgers, who had the longest length of service for any woman soldier, was the only woman to receive a soldier's pension and the first woman to vote in Illinois.
Atlas of the Civil War by
Written by leading historians and edited by Pulitzer Prize recipient James M. McPherson, The Atlas of the Civil War provides dynamic reconstructions of all major campaigns and many of the smaller skirmishes on land and sea, in the western theater as well as the eastern. Includes more than 180 specially created full-color maps and 200 photographs.
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory by
A stunning and definitive look at the best and most important artworks of the Civil War era. Includes sweeping battlefield panoramas, grisly combat tableaux, camp scenes, and heroic portraiture of military leaders, all accompanied by a lively text that is as entertaining as it is informative. Full-color and black-and-white photographs.
DVDs
