U.S. History: Primary Source Collections Online

Important daily newspaper covering both regional and national news (Brooklyn Public Library)

Huge online collection of scanned letters, newspaper articles, images, photographs, diaries, and much more. (Michigan State Univ.)

Includes diaries, newspapers, and other ephemera. (Pennsylvania State Univ.)

Selected materials digitized from the LSU Special Collections. (Louisiana State Univ.)

Covers both sides of the war. (Auburn Univ.)

Primary sources, including photos and battle maps (including modern, historical, and even animated maps). (American Battlefield Trust)

Primary source documents, images, and maps, plus scholarly essays and encyclopedia entries, relating to the Missouri-Kansas border war in the mid-19th century. (Kansas City Public Library)

Blog format--Use the "Resources" button at the top left to access primary content. Includes transcriptions of reports, diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, and other primary sources related to the series of nine offensives between June 15, 1864, and April 2, 1865, known as the Petersburg Campaign.

Easiest way to access primary content: scroll down in menu on left and use "Browse Soldiers" or "Search Letters".

Uses contemporaneous articles & images from The Times (New York Times)

Includes 1864-1865 newspapers from D.C.; medical and surgical cases from the The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion; slaveholders' petitions for compensation, 1862; photographs; maps; and downloadable data sets. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Use the tab labeled “Primary Sources Online.” Links to diaries, letters, and more. Includes a collection from Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow, letters from African American slaves, etc.. (Duke Univ.)

Contains the congressional debates of the 23rd through 42nd Congresses (1833-73). (Library of Congress)

Approximately 7,000 portraits and battleground images are available. The collection is from the glass negatives of Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, as well as other photographic collections. (Library of Congress)

All pages from the 1861–1865 Civil War period have been scanned including the engravings and illustrations. (Lee Foundation)

Includes digital images of the original diary and text transcripts. Smithsonian Institution)

A collection of letters from both Union and Confederate soldiers, organized by name and regiment. (Civil War Archive)

Digital library of primary sources (mostly books and journal articles) in American social history, from the antebellum period through reconstruction.

The records in the Civil Works Map File comprised the main map collection for the Corps of Engineers during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. They include manuscript maps forwarded to headquarters by Corps of Topographic Engineers and Army Engineer surveyors and cartographers in the field, and published editions of selected maps.

"Emilie Davis was an African-American woman living in Philadelphia during the U.S. Civil War. This website is a transcription of Emilie’s three pocket diaries for the years 1863, 1864, and 1865."

Under "Type," choose "Civil War." Optionally enter a state or a year, or just click Search to view all. (Office of Coast Survey, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA))

Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner photographs from the Civil War. (National Archives)

Newspaper published from the Confederate capital; 1,384 issues. (Univ. of Richmond, et al.)

Transcribed editorials from contemporary newspapers, all from the 1850s. Issues discussed include the Nebraska Bill debates, the caning attack on Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks, John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, and the Dred Scott decision. (Furman Univ.)

Compares Northern and Southern experience of the war through primary sources from two communities. (Virginia Center for Digital History)

Transcribed texts of the debates concerning Virginia's secession or support of the Union in 1861. Also includes data visualizations of secession votes by county and similar. (Univ. of Richmond)

Digitized edition of the War Department's official Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, published in 1895. Contains more than 1,000 maps, illustrations, and diagrams detailing battlefield maps, scenes from the conflict, and military equipment. (Baylor Univ.)

Includes correspondence, clippings, photographs, scrapbooks, diaries, various legal papers and documents, speeches and military orders, and more. Click the blue links to view the digitized images. (Univ. of Notre Dame)

A listing of free online primary source collections, from College & Research Libraries News

Civil War-era photos from The Atlantic covering the battleships, prisons, hospitals, urban centers, and rural pastures of the Civil War.

Find primary sources on the web that specifically relate to slavery and its abolition.

Get help starting your research on the Civil War and Reconstruction: where and how to find books, articles, primary sources, and more.