Ta-Nehisi Coates, a contributing editor at the Atlantic, has an interesting essay on “the war between [battlefield] preservation and commerce.” This essay focuses on the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia and the controversy over Wal-Mart’s plan to build a store at a key location.  In addition, check out the author’s   video tour of this battlefield and an interview with historian Frank Smith on the significance of African American soldiers during the Civil War.

The University of Miami Libraries has created a virtual collection of letters written by Calvin Shedd, a  carpenter who enlisted in the 7th New Hampshire Volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War. Shedd’s detailed letters provide a unique glimpse of military life at sub-tropical outposts in Key West, Fort Jefferson, and St. Augustine.

Images as well as annotated footnotes help to create an immersive digital experience.  Names mentioned by Shedd are cross-listed with all 54 of his letters  dating 1861-1869. The University also utilizes an extensive array of secondary sources to provide detailed, era-specific descriptions of various vocabulary and phrases quoted by Shedd in his letters.

Primary sources are also linked within the letters as Shedd mentions them, such as his 1861 enlistment papers and 1862  promotion to 2nd lieutenant. This site is any historian’s best friend and is a great place to give a look if your project has anything to do with the  Civil War in Florida.

Tulane University has put together a detailed description of the opening volleys of the Civil War. The site breaks the description down into nine specific parts that provide lengthy summaries as well as biographies while detailing decisions that were made and orders that were given both before and after the battle.

The most effective facet of this site are the calenders provided for each section. The calenders point out  days in which events such as letters, missions, and reports that took place during the specific section. This sheer amount of information provided by Tulane is a great place to go if you want to know anything about the fort that started the Civil War.

I’ve pointed out digital newspaper collections before, but those largely featured publications from northern or western states. A great resource for southern papers is available from the University of Richmond’s Digital Initiatives, which has over a thousand issues of the Richmond Daily Dispatch published between 1860-1865. One can learn more about Richmond during the Civil War from an essay written by historian Robert C. Kenzer. The project also provides full text access of related primary sources, such as a diary from someone who lived in Richmond in 1865.

Picturing America, in an initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings examples from the many different genres of American art into the classroom. The program provides new and interesting pathways for students to understand American history. In addition to the resource book, the website also offers several additional resources for teachers looking to incorporate the program into their lesson plans.

One of the lesson plans available, “Homer’s Civil War Veteran: Battlefield to Wheat Field,” draws on both visual and written primary sources. Aimed at those in middle school (grades six through eight), the first activity has students compare and contrast Winslow Homer’s painting, The Veteran in a New Field, with Timothy O’Sullivan’s photograph, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg 1863. The second has students read a selection from Civil War Captain James Wren’s diary concerning his experience at the Second Battle of Bull Run/Battle of Second Manassas. Finally, the third encourages students to make connections between all three activities, asking what the anonymous veteran in Homer’s painting might be thinking and why. The activities are easily adaptable to individual classroom needs and are creative enough to capture students’ interests.

The National Park Service boasts an intricate online archive containing regimental information on soldiers and sailors on both sides of the Civil War. Over 6.3 million servicemen can be looked up by name, regiment, or battle via an easy-to-use search engine. One can also look up by state the total amount of soldiers that have been archived.  The site also links to academic projects such as Howard University’s  Black Sailors Research Project.

Along with the individual soldiers, the online archive includes over 4,000 Union and Confederate regiments with links to 364 principal battles that took place during the conflict.

This site is one of the best online resources for anyone looking to find information on a specific soldier or sailor that took part in the Civil War. In combination with the millions of documents pertaining to their regiments and actions,  this site deserves a look regardless of the topic.

Approaching the topic of slavery can be difficult, especially at the elementary school level when these issues might be discussed for the first time. Posted by the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Slave Narratives: Constructing U.S. History Through Analyzing Primary Sources” offers a helpful classroom solution. Students from third to fifth grade read and explore a selection of narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, after which they evaluate and respond to those sources.

The lesson plan gives several strategies for teachers and the class to review and summarize the narratives in accordance to their needs. In addition, “Slave Narratives” introduces primary sources in the context of a story, before asking students to assess the veracity of the testimony.  In a very real sense the students are “doing” history and hopefully fostering an interest at the same time.

While one can always visit Vicksburg National Military Park, they also have a great exhibit online. Even those who have already been to the park should take a look. The site offers short essays on different aspects of the Vicksburg Siege as well as related images. In addition, the exhibit uses the U.S.S. Cairo as a way to teach visitors about river warfare. One can take a virtual tour of the U.S.S. Cairo as well as learn more about life aboard the ship. Teachers may want to check out the National Park Service’s “Teaching with Museum Collections” for several lesson plans that incorporate material in the Vicksburg exhibit.

“The Matthew Brady Bunch: Civil War Newspapers” is a series of lesson activities that ultimately has students produce their own newspaper articles on different aspects of the Civil War as a larger class project. Created by Amy Donnelly and Elizabeth Ridgway for American Memory, the project is intended for students in the seventh grade, though it can easily be adapted. The activities require students to use a selection of the Library of Congress’ collection of Civil War photographs, first to analyze the primary sources before choosing one for their article. Eventually the goal is for students to produce a website, or an online archive, for their “newspaper”.

Meant to take place over several days (possibly a week), the project can be modified to suit individual class needs. One example of such a modification would make the project interdisciplinary, in conjunction with English class. The “Matthew Brady Bunch” project acts as a good way to end a unit on the Civil War, allowing a class to cover a wide range of events, people, or places. In addition, the project requires students to work with primary sources, develop research skills, and improve writing skills.

Marines deployed by the Union Army during the Civil War played an intricate role in battles and skirmishes that took place along rivers and coastlines. The library at Augustana College has compiled and transcribed the diary of Basil H. Messler, a soldier in the Union’s amphibious Mississippi Marine Brigade, which outlines his exploits as a soldier and commissary during the final years of the War.  This resource tool is great for anyone looking to get a personal view of how marines operated during the Civil War.

The site also has the diary of Illinois volunteer G.D. Molineaux, as well as a detailed outline of the troop deployments of his 8th Illinois Volunteer Infantry from 1861-1865.