Harvard University’s Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930, which is available through their Open Collections Program, is a great resource that offers interesting primary sources that one cannot easily find elsewhere. This collection offers a wide range of material, including photographs, manuscripts, and books and pamphlets. While the focus is on immigration between 1789 and 1930, there is plenty of information on issues related to the Civil War era. One can browse the collection by theme (including “Immigration, Railroads, and the West” and “Gold Rush”) and topic (including Attitudes Towards Immigrants, Living Conditions, Reasons for Immigration, Working Conditions). Also check out their map collection and links to other digital resources on this subject.

The Enoch Pratt Free Library, a public library in Baltimore, Maryland, has a number of great digital collections available. While a few have materials related to the Civil War era, one particularly interesting collection is of broadsides published during the 19th century. Over 100 broadsides are available, including a number from the Civil War. As Maryland was a border state, the collection contains broadsides from both Union and Confederate supporters. Not all of these broadsides are related to politics. Other topics include love songs and temperance songs.

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.

The Duke University libraries have several digital collections available on their websites. One of these is the American Song Sheets collection, which contains around 1800 song sheets, all from the 19th century. It was customary during the 19th century for publishers to print just the lyrics of popular songs on a single sheet, usually illustrated with a drawing. These became known as song sheets, handbills, or broadsides. The illustrations and the lyrics to these songs provide an insight into popular themes of the time. The collection contains a lot of broadsides from the South and the Civil War era in particular, so it can be useful for understanding homefront morale during the war or for studying the larger context of the 19th century. There are two options for searching the collection: by keyword on the main page or by using the index that allows the user to search the text of the song lyrics. For those interested in the music to accompany the words, there is also a searchable database of sheet music.

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.

This section of the “History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications” website is a great resource on the first transatlantic cable in 1858. The site offers lots of information, but the best are the transcripts and images from publications such as Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. Newspapers provided readers in 1858 with detailed accounts on the progress of the cable’s construction and the celebrations that took place in cities after the first official message was sent. “Wherever the news penetrated there was a public jubilee” and, according to the Illustrated London News, “the most thorough and systematic display of popular joy took place” in New York City. While the cable stopped working after only a few days, it marked an important first step.

While my last post was on House Divided’s “zoomable” maps , we also have almost all of the maps from Mitchell’s 1857 atlas available. This includes all the US states and territories as well as countries and major cities from around the world. For example, check out the maps of Africa, Asia, Australia, the Carribean, Europe, England, Jerusalem, London, the Middle East, and South America. These maps can help students see how those in the 19th century saw the world that they lived in.

As this is Geography Awareness Week, I thought I would highlight some of the zoomable maps available on House Divided. Some of these maps provide bird-eyes view of various towns and cities – including Alton, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Harrisburg, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, and Washington D.C. In the Springfield map, you can look for Abraham Lincoln’s house (# 29 on the map). Other maps provide nice overviews of coastlines, such as Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Virginia. House Divided also has zoomable maps of battlefields, including several of Gettysburg. Click on “Zoomify” at the top right of a map in House Divided in order to view it as a zoomable map.