Civil War

A comprehensive site designed to locate, index, and/or make available all appropriate private and public data regarding the Civil War. The mission of the center is to promote the study of the Civil War from the perspectives of all professions, occupations, and academic disciplines.

The Valley of the Shadow Project takes two communities, one Northern and one Southern, through the experience of the American Civil War. The project is a hypermedia archive of thousands of sources for the period before, during, and after the Civil War for Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin Country, Pennsylvania. Those sources include newspapers, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, church records, population census, agricultural census, and military records.

The American Civil War Homepage gathers together in one place hypertext links to the most useful identified electronic files about the American Civil War (1861-1865). The page opens a gateway to the Internet's multi-formatted resources about what is arguably the seminal event in American history. Not only was the War the occasion for the abolition of slavery, but by conflict's end the re-United States had emerged as a modern, industrialized power.

Since its inception in 1996, The Civil War Home Page has continued to grow and is now one of the most popular Civil War related sites on the Internet. The site is divided into the following sections, offering visitors a comprehensive list of links throughout the Internet for each section: Associations, Battles, Bed & Breakfast Inns, Calendar of Events, Catalogs, Classifieds, Documents, Genealogy, General Interest, Letters & Diaries, People, Photo Gallery, Reenacting, and Unit Information.

The Southeast Archeological Center (the Center or SEAC) continues a thirty-year tradition within the National Park Service of archeological research, collections and information management, and technical support for national park units located in the Southeast Regional Office of the National Park Service (NPS). The mission of the Center is to facilitate long-term protection, use, and appreciation of archeological resources in the southeastern USA and beyond. The American Civil War site, one of the SEAC Research Projects, explores the Civil War through archaeological discoveries at the various battlefields, prisons, and encampment areas that are now national parks.

Selected from the film The Civil War by Ken Burns.

Manuscripts, Letters, Maps, and Photographs

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. There are numerous maps of Florida Civil War sites.

The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men. Searching is available by keyword and through a browsing by subject.

The selected letters were written by Confederate and Union soldiers from the Civil War battlefront. Descriptions of General "Stonewall" Jackson's wounding, the horrors of Gettysburg, and the loss of comrades are matched by expressions of devotion to country, to God, and to loved ones left behind. The documents in this exhibit were originally selected by John White, who also wrote the caption text. All of the manuscripts and photographic images are from the Southern Historical Collection in the Manuscripts Department of the Academic Affairs Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Florida

The Dry Tortugas National Park (formerly known as Ft. Jefferson National Monument), located 68 miles west of Key West, Florida, encompasses seven small islands known as the Dry Tortugas within its 100-square-mile jurisdiction. Central to the area is Fort Jefferson, a masonry "third-system" fort with half-mile-long perimeter walls 50 feet high and 8 feet thick, located on Garden Key. Fort Jefferson was considered critical for protecting both Gulf trade and Gulf Ports. Begun in 1846, the fort was a strategic necessity for the establishment of a United States presence on the international Caribbean frontier, and was a direct response to continued American concerns about British fortification of Bermuda, Spain's diminished role in the hemisphere, and the Mexican conflict in Texas. Principally, the fort was constructed to deny access to Tortugas anchorages to an enemy fleet attempting to blockade the United States.

One of the largest of America's 19th century coastal forts, Fort Jefferson National Monument is one of the central features of the seven "Dry Tortugas Islands" in the Gulf of Mexico. Although construction of the fort continued for 30 years it was never completed largely due to changes in weapon technology, which rendered the fort obsolete by 1862. After the Civil War, the fort was used as a federal prison. The Department of the Army officially abandoned Fort Jefferson in 1874 and today the National Park Service administers it as part of the Dry Tortugas National Park.

The construction of Fort Zachary Taylor at the tip of Key West, from 1844-1860, and Fort Jefferson, its companion fort farther west in the Dry Tortugas, strengthened the strategic importance of the Florida Keys. The trapezoidal shaped fort was constructed about 1000 feet offshore. Years of silt build-up in the harbor, however, have made the fort landlocked. During the Civil War, Key West was the center of naval operations and the base for the blockade of the South. At one time, 299 captured Confederate ships were held in the Key West Harbor under the guns of the fort.

The Castillo has been in place since its completion in 1695, and was used as an active military post until 1900. During its career, it has served the Spanish ( from 1695 to 1763 and from 1784 to 1821), the British ( from 1763 to 1784), the Confederate States of America ( from 1861 to March of 1862), and the United States of America (from 1821 to 1861 and 1862 to 1900). Although it changed hands many times, these changes were only due to military agreements or political treaty; the Castillo was never taken by force.

Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest existing permanent seacoast fortification in the continental United States. The present star-shaped fort, surrounding moat, and earthworks were constructed between 1672 - 1756 to protect Spanish territory in Florida and the shipping routes along the Florida coast. Castillo de San Marcos replaced an earlier series of earth and wood fortifications and was the northernmost outpost of the Spanish Caribbean. It was the focus of the struggle between Great Britain and Spain for regional supremacy during the 17th and 18th centuries and was the site of a British garrison during the American Revolution. The fort was last employed for defensive purposes in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.

New Hampshire

Located at 30 Park St. Concord, New Hampshire, the library houses the finest collection of printed, manuscript, and pictorial materials relating to New Hampshire history anywhere. The monograph and periodical holdings are particularly strong in the areas of genealogy, biography, New England regional and local history, American fine and decorative arts, and the history of technology. Subjects range as well from sports to religion, literature to music, education to agriculture.

Civil War materials in Special Collections include the personal papers of over 20 soldiers who fought in the conflict, as well as regimental histories, Adjutant-General reports, and histories documenting New Hampshire's participation in the war. In addition, the UNH Library contains an extensive collection of histories of the various states during the Civil War. A microfiche edition of the Civil War Unit Histories: Regimental Histories and Personal Narratives is held in the Library's MicroMedia department.

The site contains local information about Enfield, New Hampshire, including Minutes of Town Meetings, Annual Town Reports, Directory of Town Offices, Services and Boards, Selectmen meeting minutes, and Historic Sites.

South Carolina

South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. In November, 1861, a Federal fleet circled Port Royal Sound, firing at all settlements in the area. By noon of November 7th, the Confederates knew the battle for the area was lost, and fled before the Union forces. Hilton Head Island fell. Pinckney Island was occupied soon afterward. Nearly 80 Union ships had sailed from Virginia to Port Royal carrying almost 14 Thousand troops and laborers and 1500 horses to begin the blockade of the South. Victory that day for the Union meant freedom for 1,000 slaves on the sea islands.

This comprehensive site is devoted to the history and heritage of the American Civil War in and around the City of Charleston, SC. The project, updated monthly, outlines events and places to see in Charleston related to Civil War history. Histories of battles, war events, forts and embattlements add historical information to the site. New site pages and articles are added regularly.