Tens of thousands of volumes have been written about the Civil War, from general overviews to personal memoirs and detailed accounts of individual battles. Most of these works are in the collections of the Library of Congress, along with well over a thousand Civil War–related manuscript collections and much other material, such as maps, photographs, and drawings (see “Civil War Collections in the Library of Congress,” here). The materials listed below are among the principal published and manuscript resources from which the information in The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War was drawn.
Angle, Paul M., and Earl Schenck Miers. Tragic Years, 1860–1865: A Documentary History of the American Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.
Basler, Roy P., ed. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vols. 4–8. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953.
Current, Richard N., ed. in chief. The Confederacy: Selections from the Four-Volume Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. New York: Macmillan Reference, 1998.
—. Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. 4 vols. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Davis, William C. Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America. New York: The Free Press, 2002.
Donald, David Herbert. Liberty and Union. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1978.
Donald, David Herbert, Jean Harvey Baker, and Michael F. Holt. The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Faust, Patricia L., ed. Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
Frank, Lisa Tendrich, ed. Women in the American Civil War. 2 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008.
Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. 5 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000.
Long, E. B., with Barbara Long. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1971.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
—. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992.
—. This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union. 4 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
Parish, Peter J. The American Civil War. London: Eyre Methuen, 1975.
Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches. 10 vols. Jackson, MS: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923.
Stephenson, Richard W. Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1989. See, especially, the introductory essay on Civil War mapping.
Wagner, Margaret E. The American Civil War: 365 Days. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2006.
Wagner, Margaret E., Gary W. Gallagher, and Paul Finkelman, eds. The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Waugh, Joan, and Gary W. Gallagher, eds. Wars Within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Dowdey, Clifford, ed. The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961.
Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher. Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Fishel, Edwin C. The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
Glatthaar, Joseph. Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. New York: The Free Press, 1990.
—. General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse. New York: The Free Press, 2008.
—. “Profile in Leadership: Generalship and Resistance in Robert E. Lee’s First Month in Command of the Army of Northern Virginia.” In Wars Within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War, edited by Joan Waugh and Gary W. Gallagher, 68–86. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Guthrie, James M. Campfires of the Afro-American, or The Colored Man as a Patriot. 1899. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1970.
Hanna, Kathryn Abbey. “Incidents of the Confederate Blockade.” The Journal of Southern History 11, no. 2 (May 1945): 214–29.
Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983.
Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996.
Mathless, Paul, ed. Voices of the Civil War: Vicksburg. Richmond, VA: Time-Life Books, 1997.
McPherson, James M. Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
—. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. New York: Penguin, 2008.
Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
Nurick, Lester, and Roger W. Barrett. “Legality of Guerrilla Forces Under the Laws of War.” American Journal of International Law 40, no. 3 (July 1946): 563–83.
Petite, Mary Deborah. The Women Will Howl: The Union Army Capture of Roswell and New Manchester, Georgia, and the Forced Relocation of Mill Workers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2008.
Sears, Stephen W. Chancellorsville. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
—. To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992.
Sutherland, Daniel E. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Also known as “Official Records,” or OR. 70 vols. in 128 books. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880–1900.
Wert, Jeffry D. The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Andrews, J. Cutler. The North Reports the Civil War. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.
—. The South Reports the Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970.
Bauer, Craig A. “The Last Effort: The Secret Mission of the Confederate Diplomat, Duncan F. Kenner.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 22, no. 1 (Winter 1981): 67–95.
Bernstein, Iver. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Brockett, L. P. Woman’s Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience. Philadelphia: Zeigler, McCurdy, 1867.
Freidel, Frank. “The Loyal Publication Society: A Pro-Union Propaganda Agency.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 26, no. 3 (Dec. 1939): 359–76.
Furgurson, Ernest B. Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
—. Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Grimsley, Mark. The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Hoole, W. Stanley. Vizetelly Covers the Confederacy. Tuscaloosa, AL: Confederate Publishing Company, 1957.
Hyman, Harold Melvin. Era of the Oath: Northern Loyalty Tests During the Civil War and Reconstruction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954.
Jones, Howard. Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Kelly, Patrick J. Creating a National Home: Building the Veterans’ Welfare State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Klein, Maury. Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Klement, Frank L. Dark Lanterns: Secret Political Societies, Conspiracies, and Treason Trials in the Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.
—. The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998.
Lawson, Melinda. “ ‘A Profound National Devotion’: The Civil War Union Leagues and the Construction of a New National Patriotism.” Civil War History 48, no. 4 (Dec. 2002): 338–62.
Maihafer, Harry J. The General and the Journalists: Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Charles Dana. Washington, DC: Brassey’s Books, 2001.
Maxwell, William Quentin. Lincoln’s Fifth Wheel: The Political History of the United States Sanitary Commission. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1956.
McGinty, Brian. Lincoln and the Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
McPherson, James M. The Negro’s Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union. New York: Pantheon, 1965.
Miller, Robert Ryal. Arms Across the Border: United States Aid to Juárez during the French Intervention in Mexico. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1973.
Neely, Mark E., Jr. Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999.
Perry, James M. A Bohemian Brigade: The Civil War Correspondents—Mostly Rough, Sometimes Ready. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
Schlissel, Lillian, ed. Conscience in America: A Documentary History of Conscientious Objection in America, 1757–1967. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1968.
Tap, Bruce. Over Lincoln’s Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of the War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
Wheeler, Tom. Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Wilson, Charles R. “Cincinnati’s Reputation During the Civil War.” Journal of Southern History 2, no. 4 (Nov. 1936): 468–79.
Akin, Warren. Letters of Warren Akin, Confederate Congressman. Edited by Bell Irvin Wiley. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1959.
Alcott, Louisa May. Hospital Sketches. Boston: J. Redpath, 1863. Available online at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/alcott/sketches/sketches.html#31. Several newer print editions are also available.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Upton and the Army. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993.
Baker, Nina Brown. Cyclone in Calico: The Story of Mary Ann Bickerdyke. Boston: Little, Brown, 1952.
Beatty, John. Memoirs of a Volunteer, 1861–1863. New York: W. W. Norton, 1946.
Bernard, Jacqueline. Journey Toward Freedom: The Story of Sojourner Truth. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1990.
Booth, John Wilkes. “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth. Edited by John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Bucklin, Sophronia. In Hospital and Camp. Philadelphia: J. E. Potter and Company, 1869. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/inhospitalcampwo00buck.
Cooper, William J., Jr. Jefferson Davis, American. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
Cumming, Kate. A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Louisville, KY: John P. Morton, 1866. Available online via Google Books, and reprinted as Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959, 1998).
Dana, Charles A. Recollections of the Civil War: With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
Davis, Varina. Jefferson Davis, Ex-president of the Confederate States of America: A Memoir by His Wife. New York: Belford Company, 1890. Reprinted in 1990 by the Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co. of America.
Dawes, Rufus. Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers. Marietta, OH: E. R. Alderman & Sons, 1890. Reprinted as A Full Blown Yankee of the Iron Brigade: Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Edmondston, Catherine Ann Devereux. “Journal of a Secesh Lady”: The Journal of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, 1860–1866. Edited by Beth G. Crabtree and James W. Patton. Raleigh, NC: Division of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources, 1979.
Ford, Worthington Chauncey, ed. A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861–1865. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/cycleadamsletters01fordrich.
Freeman, Warren H., and Eugene H. Freeman. Letters from Two Brothers Serving in the War for the Union to Their Family at Home in West Cambridge, Mass. Cambridge, MA: Privately printed, 1871. Available online at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2005/20051129001le/20051129001le.pdf and via Google Books.
Gallman, J. Matthew. America’s Joan of Arc: The Life of Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Gorgas, Josiah. The Journals of Josiah Gorgas, 1857–1878. Edited by Sarah W. Wiggins. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York: Da Capo Press, 1982.
Grimes, Bryan. Extracts of Letters of Major Gen’l Bryan Grimes to His Wife. Raleigh, NC: Edwards, Broughton & Co., 1883. Available online at http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/grimes/grimes.html.
Hattaway, Herman, and Richard E. Beringer. Jefferson Davis, Confederate President. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
Hay, John. Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay. Edited by Tyler Dennett. Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press, 1972.
Hoptak, John David. “A Forgotten Hero of the Civil War” [Nicholas Biddle]. Online at http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/beginnings/18088/nick_biddle/689875. Originally published in Pennsylvania Heritage, Spring 2010.
Horner, Harlan Hoyt. Lincoln and Greeley. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1953.
Hotchkiss, Jedediah. Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer. Edited by Archie P. McDonald. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1973.
Jaques, John W. Three Years’ Campaign of the Ninth, N.Y.S.M., During the Southern Rebellion. New York: Hilton & Co., 1865. Available online at http://www.fauquiercivilwar.com/Assets/downloads/book_Three-years-Campaign-of-the-Ninth-NY.pdf.
Kean, Robert Garlick Hill. Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean. Edited by Edward Younger. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993.
Kennett, Lee B. Sherman: A Soldier’s Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Lane, David. A Soldier’s Diary: The Story of a Volunteer, 1862–1865. Privately printed, 1905. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/soldiersdiarysto00lane.
Lewis, Richard. Camp Life of a Confederate Boy, of Bratton’s Brigade, Longstreet’s Corps, C.S.A. Charleston, SC: The News and Courier Book Presses, 1883.
Loughborough, Mary Webster. My Cave Life in Vicksburg. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1864. Reprinted in 1976 by the Spartanburg, SC, Reprint Co.
McCalmont, Alfred B. Extracts from Letters Written by Alfred B. McCalmont… from the Front during the War of the Rebellion. Privately printed, circa 1908.
McGuire, Judith W. Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
Morse, Charles Fessenden. Letters Written During the Civil War. Privately printed, 1898. Available online via Google Books.
Norton, O. W. (Oliver Willcox, or Wilcox). Army Letters, 1861–1865. Privately printed, 1903. Available online via Google Books.
Panzer, Mary. Mathew Brady and the Image of History. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
Perkins, George Hamilton. Letters of Capt. Geo. Hamilton Perkins, U.S.N. Concord, NH: I. C. Evans, 1886. Reprinted in 1970 by Books for Libraries Press.
Rabun, James Z. “Alexander H. Stephens and Jefferson Davis.” American Historical Review 58, no. 2 (Jan. 1953): 290–321.
Ransom, John. Andersonville Diary. Philadelphia: Douglass Bros., 1883. Reprinted as John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary. New York: Berkley Books, 1994.
Russell, William Howard. My Diary North and South. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954.
Salter, William. The Life of James W. Grimes, Governor of Iowa, 1854–1858; A Senator of the United States, 1859–1869. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1876. Available online at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=ABJ6736.
Sears, Stephen W. George McClellan: The Young Napoleon. New York: Da Capo Press, 1999.
Semmes, Raphael. The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter. 2 vols. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1864. Available online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13163.
Seward, Frederick W. Reminiscences of a War-time Statesman and Diplomat, 1830–1915. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/reminiscencesofw00sew.
Shea, J. D. G., ed. The Lincoln Memorial: A Record of the Life, Assassination, and Obsequies of the Martyred President. New York: Bunce & Huntington, 1865. Available online at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=ACK8359.
Smith, George G. Leaves from a Soldier’s Diary: The Personal Record of Lieutenant George G. Smith. Putnam, CT: G. G. Smith, 1906.
Smith, Jean Edward. Grant. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Smith, Walter George. Life and Letters of Thomas Kilby Smith. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/lifelettersoftho00smit.
Stewart, A. M. Camp, March and Battle-Field. Philadelphia: Jas. B. Rodgers, 1865.
Taylor, Susie King. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp. New York: Arno Press, 1968.
Thomas, Benjamin P. Abraham Lincoln, A Biography. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.
Van Alstyne, Lawrence. Diary of an Enlisted Man. New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1910.
Welch, Spencer Glasgow. A Confederate Surgeon’s Letters to His Wife. New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1911. Reprinted in 1954 by Continental Book Co.
Whitman, Walt. The Wound Dresser: A Series of Letters Written from the Hospitals in Washington during the War of the Rebellion. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1898. Reprinted in 1978 by Norwood Editions. Also available online via Google Books.
Williams, Alpheus S. From the Cannon’s Mouth: The Civil War Letters of General Alpheus S. Williams. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Bickerdyke, Mary Ann Ball
Bourne, William Oland
Carlton, Caleb Henry
Carman, Ezra Ayers
Cater, Douglas J. and Rufus W.
Confederate States of America
Early, Jubal Anderson
Ewing, Thomas
Gladstone Collection
Habersham Family (Richard W. Habersham)
Harrison, Burton
Hotchkiss, Jedediah
Johnston, Mercer Green
Lincoln, Abraham
Mitchell, James B. (Billingslea)
Reichhelm, Edward Paul
Shiner, Michael
Thompson, Gilbert
Willard Family