Website: U.S. Civil War: Print Sources

Letters and Diaries

To find letters, correspondence, and diaries, search the online catalog under:

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives

Photographs

To find books of photographs, search the online catalog under:

Find primary sources in Centre's library

Find primary sources using Centre's catalog and these search tips:

Find books: Search the library catalog by topic and limit by date of publication.

Find autobiographies: Search the library catalog for the name of an individual as an author (last name, first).

Find memoirs, diaries or collections of letters or interviews: Search the library catalog for the name of an individual as an author (last name, first) or search by subject and add the appropriate subject terms to the subject heading: Correspondence, Letters, Diaries, Interviews, Personal narratives. (Ex.: subject keywords might be: Japanese American interviews or Japanese American diaries).

Find Speeches: Search the library catalog by names of authors or by subject and include -speeches indexes. (Ex.: Harry Truman speeches).

Find Pamphlets: Search the library catalog by subject and add the subject term -pamphlets. (Ex. Cold war pamphlets).

Find Photographs: Search the library catalog by subject and include the terms-photographs or -pictorial works. For example: world war 1939-1945 pictorial works.

Find Cartoons: To find books that discuss and reproduce cartoons from a specific time period, search library catalogs by subject and add the subject terms -caricatures and cartoons For example: -Spanish-American war caricatures and cartoons. Search an article database that includes Historical Newspapers, such as the Historical New York Times database.

Selected Print Primary Sources

Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
Call Number: E457.91 1959
An 8-volume standard resource for Lincoln's correspondence, speeches, and other writings. However, the set suffers from limitations and omissions: it does not include incoming correspondence to Lincoln, and in the years since publication in 1953 researchers have discovered many new Lincoln documents. The standard resource is now the online Papers of Abraham Lincoln.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Online)
Call Number: Internet
A browsable and searchable online version of the above print title.
Confederate Veteran
Call Number: E482 .C75
Confederate Veteran was a monthly magazine founded "in the interests of Confederate veterans and kindred topics", published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Confederate Veteran (Online)
Call Number: Internet
Browsable online version of the print title above.
Lee's Dispatches
Call Number: E470 .L48 1994
"Unpublished letters of General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A., to Jefferson Davis and the War Department of the Confederate States of America, 1862-65." A 1994 reprint of a book first published in 1914, these 215 dispatches offer a portrait of Lee and his relationship with President Jefferson Davis.
Messages and Papers of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy
Call Number: E487 .C746 1966
Two-volume set containing the official messages and papers of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States.
New York Times Complete Civil War, 1861-1865
Call Number: E464 .N49 2010
Collects every article published in the New York Times written about the war from 1861 to 1865, plus select pieces before and after the war. The book contains about 600 newspaper articles; there is also a CD that has many thousands of additional articles.
Papers of Jefferson Davis
Call Number: E467.1 .D2596
A multi-volume authoritative edition of Davis's letters and speeches that, when complete, will span his entire life.
Papers of Ulysses S. Grant
Call Number: E660 .G74
A multi-volume authoritative collection of Ulysses S. Grant papers. Digital versions of the first 31 volumes are available at Ulysses S. Grant Digital Collection.
Rebellion Record
Call Number: E468.3.R42 1977
The Rebellion Record was published during the Civil War and in the three years following. A hodgepodge of primary source documents that includes newspaper reports from North and South, various documents and reports, public addresses, maps, engravings, and poetry. This is a reprint of the original 12-volume set.
Southern Historical Society Papers
Call Number: E485.4 .A14a
Published in 52 volumes from 1869 to the 1950s, includes reminiscences and analyses of war experiences by Confederate veterans. This is a reprint published in 1992.
Southern Pamphlets on Secession
Call Number: E458.1 .S68 1996
Tragic Years, 1860-1865 by Paul M. Angle; Earl Schenck Miers
Call Number: E464 .T78 1992
ISBN: 9780306804625
Publication Date: 1992-03-21
This re-creation of the Civil War by two American historians weaves together the diaries, the letters, the recorded words of generals and privates, politicians and homemakers, reporters and historians, poets and spies. These documents show how these tragic years were actually experienced by those involved, how the war remade the Union through a profound social upheaval, and they illuminate the deep, divisive issues which tore the United States apart.
Union Pamphlets of the Civil War, 1861-1865
Call Number: E464 .F7
Wartime Papers Of Robert E. Lee
Call Number: E470 .L49 1987
Brings together Lee’s official correspondence—letters, orders, dispatches, battle reports—with letters to his family.
Documents of American History
Call Number: Reference E173 .D59 1988
Includes significant documents from 1492 through 1987.