Summary Books & Resources

This section of the website lists general reference works.

Single or Multi-Volume Histories

  • Catton, Bruce . The Centennial History of the Civil War: The Coming Fury, Terrible Swift Sword, Never Call Retreat. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961.

  • Catton, Bruce, et al. The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War. Rockville, MD: American Heritage Publishing Company, 1960.

  • Davis, William C. Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America. New York: Free Press, 2002.

  • Davis, William C., ed. The Image of War 1861-1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981.

  • Dyer, Frederic M. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.

  • Flaherty, Thomas H., ed. The Civil War: An Illustrated Guide. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1987.

  • Gallagher, Gary W. The Confederate War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

  • Guernsey, Alfred H. and Henry M. Alden, eds. Harper’s Pictorial History Of The Great Rebellion. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1866.

  • JonesTerry L. The American Civil War. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010.

  • Masur, Louis P. The Civil War: A Concise History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  • McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Cary, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  • ———. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Knopf, 1982.

  • Miller, Francis T. and Robert S. Lanier, eds. The Photographic History of the Civil War. New York: Review of Reviews, 1911.

  • Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947.

  • Randall, James G. and David H. Donald. The Civil War and Reconstruction. Boston: Heath, 1937.

  • Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule in the South in 1877. New York: Macmillan, 1900.

  • Roland, Charles P. An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1981.

  • Time-Life, Eds., Time-Life Collector’s Library of the Civil War. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1981-1985.

  • Ward, Geoffrey C., Ric Burns and Ken Burns, The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Knopf, 1990.

Seminal Works

  • Beringer, Richard E. et al. Why the South Lost the Civil War. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

  • Catton, Bruce The Army of the Potomac: Mister Lincoln’s Army, Glory Road, A Stillness at Appomattox. New York: Doubleday, 1962.

  • ———. This Hallowed Ground. New York: Doubleday, 1956.

  • Chesnut, Mary Boykin. Mary Chesnut's Civil War. C. Vann Woodward, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press 1981.

  • Commager, Henry Steele. The Blue and the Gray: The Story of the Civil War as Told by Participants. Indianapolis, IN: Bobs-Merrill, 1950.

  • Foote, Shelby The Civil War: A Narrative. New York: Random House, 1958.

  • Freeman, Douglas Southall Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command. New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1942.

  • ———. R.E. Lee. New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1934.

  • Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. New York: Charles Webster, 1885.

  • Hattaway, Herman and Arthur Jones, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983.

  • Johnson, Robert Underwood and Clarence Clough Buel, eds. The Century Magazine, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. New York: Century Company, 1887-1888.

  • Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis 1848 – 1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

  • The Times Publishing Company, The Annals of the War. Philadelphia: Times Publishing Company, 1879.

  • Wiley, Bell Irvine. The Life of Johnny Reb. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1943.

  • ———. The Life of Billy Yank. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952.

Civil War Encyclopedias

  • R.N. Current, Ed., Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

  • Patricia L. Faust, Ed., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper Trade, 1986.

  • Heidler, David S. & Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War. 5 vols. Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000.

  • James M. McPherson, Encyclopedia of Civil War Biographies. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe Reference, 2000.

  • L.C. Sizer and J. Cullen Eds., The Civil War Era: An Anthology of Sources. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005.

  • Margaret E. Wagner, Gary W. Gallagher, & Paul Finkelman, Eds., The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference. Norwalk, Connecticut: Easton Press, 2005.

  • Harold Holzer & Craig L. Symonds, Eds., The New York Times Complete Civil War, 1861-1865. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010.

Civil War Dictionaries

  • Boatner, Mark M. The Civil War Dictionary. New York: David McKay Co. Inc., 1959.

  • ———. Cassell’s Biographical Dictionary of the American Civil War 1861-1865. London: Cassell, 1973.

  • Mark M. Boatner , The Civil War Dictionary. New York: David McKay Co. Inc., 1959.

  • Dornbusch, Charles E. Military Bibliography of the Civil War. New York: New York Public Library, 1971.

  • Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1988.

  • Wright, John D. The Language of the Civil War. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001.

  • ———. Oxford Dictionary of Civil War Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Civil War Atlases

  • James M. McPherson, The Atlas of the Civil War. New York: McMillan, 1994.

  • Mark Swanson, Atlas of the Civil War Month by Month: Major Battles and Troop Movements. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2004.

  • Steven E. Woodworth & Kenneth J. Winkle, The Oxford Atlas of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Websites

  • Virginia Center for Civil War Studies

    The Center’s mission is to be a formal entity for studying and sharing knowledge about the Civil War, and in particular to target both academic and public audiences.

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  • Civil War Preservation Trust

    The Civil War Preservation Trust is America's largest non-profit organization devoted to the preservation of our nation's endangered Civil War battlefields. The Trust also promotes educational programs and heritage tourism initiatives to inform the public of the war's history and the fundamental conflicts that sparked it.

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  • The Civil War Book Review

    The Civil War Book Review is the journal of record for new and newly reprinted books about the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. Published quarterly by the Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections Division.

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  • Virginia Civil War Historical Markers

    This website lists the locations and provides the text on all the Civil War historical highway markers in Virginia.

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  • The Civil War Gazette

    The Civil War Gazette allows the first-hand participants – both common soldier and civilian – to tell the story of their experience of the Civil War from their perspective; through letters, diaries, newspapers articles, and other authentic first-hand accounts.

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  • The American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service

    The ABPP promotes the preservation of significant historic battlefields associated with wars on American soil. The goals of the program are 1) to protect battlefields and sites associated with armed conflicts that influenced the course of our history, 2) to encourage and assist all Americans in planning for the preservation, management, and interpretation of these sites, and 3) to raise awareness of the importance of preserving battlefields and related sites for future generations.

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  • Civil War Digital

    Civil War Digital has an extensive and growing collection of public domain civil war archives available for sale on DVD or USB flashdrives.

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  • Emerging Civil War

    Emerging Civil War is a community of up-and-coming authors/speakers dedicated to furthering the public’s understanding of the American Civil War.

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  • Encyclopedia Virginia

    Encyclopedia Virginia is an authoritative and user-friendly resource for the history of Virginia and therefore includes a great deal of useful material on the Civil War

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  • Civil War Trust's Entire Civil War

    The Civil War Trust has produced an excellent 30 minute video which covers the entire Civil War.

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  • A History of Illinois in the Civil War

    This websites gives an overview of the role of Illinois in the Civil War and includes links to other useful websites relating to Illinois in the Civil War.

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  • Military Indexes – Online Civil War Indexes, Records and Rosters

    This website contains links to over 100 websites containing information about Civil War records. It includes websites sorted by state, rosters, pension records, and much more.

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Other Resources

Civil War Bibliographies

  • David J. Eicher, The Civil War in Books: An Analytical Bibliography. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

  • Allan Nevins, James I. Robertson Jr. & Bell I Wiley, Civil War Books: A Critical Bibliography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970.

Civil War Chronologies

  • Bowman, John S. The Civil War Almanac. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1992.

  • Long, Everett B. Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861-1865. Norwalk, Connecticut: Easton Press, 2006.

  • Wagner, Margaret E. The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War. Boston: Little Brown, 2011.

Civil War Primary Sources

  • Broadfoot Publishing Co. Eds., Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Wilmington, North Carolina: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1992-1995.

  • Henry Steele Commager, ed. The Civil War Archive: The History of the Civil War in Documents, revised by Erik Bruun (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2000).

  • Samuel A. Cunningham, Ed., Confederate Veteran Magazine. Wilmington North Carolina: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987.

  • Jubal A. Early, et al, Eds., The Southern Historical Society Papers. Wilmington, North Carolina: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1990.

  • Clement A. Evans Ed., Confederate Military History. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Company, 1899.

  • Robert N. Scott Ed., The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.

  • United States Naval War Records Office, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894.

  • Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 70 vols. (Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing, 1992-1995). By far the best collection of firsthand Union accounts, the MOLLUS volumes were written by men who were active participants in the Civil War. The MOLLUS volumes were published 1887-1915 with illustrations, portraits, maps (some folding), and plans.

  • Southern History of the War. Official Reports of Battles, as Published by Order of the Confederate Congress at Richmond. New York: Charles B. Richardson, 1864.