The United States Post Office had an important role in suppressing antislavery material in slave states before the Civil War. Newspapers and books, such as the New York Tribune and Hinton Rowan Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South (1857), were not always distributed in southern states.The Chicago Press and Tribune, which supported the Republican party, was one of many northern papers that published specific examples. One article from January 1860 is particularly interesting since it described an incident in Delaware, a slave state. The Millord News and Advertiser had complained that their local “Postmaster [had] refused to distribute” the paper. While “[it was] a journal of moderate free State sentiments,” the Chicago Tribune explained that that paper “in no respect…countenance any other than legal and constitutional measures for the gradual removal of slavery from its own State.” Yet apparently even that stance was enough for a ban. When “our boasted free government [was]… in the hands of” Democrats, the Tribune concluded that it was “not less a despotism than the most absolute government of Europe.”

Oberlin College has a great digital exhibit on the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue that took place in September 1858. This event represented an important challenge to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as residents were successful in their efforts to prevent southerners from returning fugitive slave to slavery. Some of the rescuers were arrested and their trial in 1859 attracted national attention. (Read a more detailed account of this event here). The site offers coverage of both the rescue and the trial from three newspapers – Oberlin Evangelist, Cleveland Daily Herald, and the Boston Liberator. A selection of newspaper articles from across the country are also available. Also check out other documents related to the trial, such as Charles Langston’s speech.

Oberlin College has a number of otherdigital exhibits, such as “Oberlin and Women’s Struggle for Equality” and Oberlin and “Struggle for Black Freedom.”

Rice University has created a great online supplement for their 12 volume Papers of Jefferson Davis project. While not all of the papers have been posted online, the site offers a nice selection of material from his entire career. One can read “a listing of the demerits Davis received while” at West Point, a newspaper article that described his speech in May 1849 on the increase in sectional tensions, a speech in July 1860 in support of John Breckinridge’s campaign, a letter to his wife in April 1865, and many other interesting documents. The project plans to add even more material in the future. One should also check out the other resources on the site, including a detailed timeline of Davis’ life and pictures of him and other family members.

“America on the Eve of the Civil War,” a conference held in April 2009 and sponsored by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, is now available online as a Webcast. Sixteen historians participated in this conference, which included four different sessions – “Taking Stock of the Nation in 1859”, “The Future of Virginia and the South”, “Making Sense of John Brown’s Raid”, and “Predictions for the Election of 1860.” (Each session can be viewed separately.) Interviews are also available – the historians answer a wide range of questions, such as “What do we need to better understand about this time period?” and “Are there still lessons for us today from 1859?” You need to have the Real Media player installed in order to watch these videos.

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.

While I highlighted House Divided’s map collection a few weeks ago, another great resource is the American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection. One can look through over 500 maps from around the world as well as from different eras (15th – 21st century). This collection has lots of interesting maps to check out, such as world maps from 1818,  1850s, and 1890s, as well as city maps of major US cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and New York (1840 and 1871). The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries hosts this collection and a number of other digital projects as well.

“John Bull & Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations” is an interesting exhibit of selected items from the British Library in London and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The site is organized around several themes, such as “Exploration and Settlement,” “Common Language, Separate Voices,” “From Abolition to Equal Rights,” and “Popular Culture: from Baseball to Rock and Roll.” The material related to the Civil War is spread out among these groups. Some particularly interesting items in this exhibit are a satire on the California Gold Rush (A Goodnatured Hint about California (London, 1849)), a political cartoon on Confederate diplomats’ failure to win recognition as an independent country from the United Kingdom, and a letter from Queen Victoria to Mary Lincoln after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Utah Digital Newspapers, which is available from the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, is another great collection of digital newspapers. The project has over thirty newspapers between 1850 and the 1970s. There are three papers from the Civil War Era, all of which were published in Salt Lake County – Desert News (1850-1910), Union Vedette (1863-1867), and the Valley Tan (1858-1860). The complete list of digital newspapers is available here.

While I have noted other digital historic newspaper projects in previous posts, another great collection is available through Missouri Digital Heritage. The site has three newspapers from the Civil War era – Border Star Newspaper (1858-1860), Liberty Tribune (1846-1848, 1852-1867, 1869-1878, 1880, 1882, and 1883), and the St. Louis Christian Advocate (1857 – 1879). The site is easy to navigate and all of the newspapers are available for download as PDF files. Also be sure to check out all of the other digital collections available through Missouri Digital Heritage.

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.