LibGuides: ENGL B2: The Pen and the Sword : Finding Primary Sources

What is a Primary Source?

Types of Primary Sources

There are many types of primary sources.

Literary or cultural sources

novels, plays, poems
television shows, movies, videos
paintings, photographs

Accounts that describe events, people, or ideas

interviews
eyewitness accounts
essays, speeches
memoirs, diaries, letters
government documents

Information about people

census records
obituaries
newspaper articles

Information about places

maps, atlases
census information
photographs

Objects

clothing
furniture
artifacts

Empirical Works

research articles
clinical reports
case studies
original data

Adapted in part from University of Michigan Library

Civil War Digital Primary Source Collections

Abraham Lincoln Papers (Library of Congress)
The papers of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), lawyer, representative from Illinois, and sixteenth president of the United States, contain approximately 40,550 documents dating from 1774 to 1948, although most of the collection spans from the 1850s through Lincoln’s presidency (1861-1865). Roughly half of the collection, more than 20,000 documents, comprising 62,000 images, as well as transcriptions of approximately 10,000 documents, is online. Included on this website in their entirety are Series 1-3 of the Lincoln Papers and the original materials in Series 4.
The American Civil War (From College & Research Libraries News)
This guide highlights a diverse collection of free websites of primary sources for the study of the Civil War. These websites include digitized newspaper archives for both the Union and Confederate sides of the struggle, collections of letters and diaries, digitized photographs, maps, and official records and dispatches from the battlefields.
The Civil War: The Nation Moves Towards War, 1850-61
This collection from the Library of Congress focuses on primary sources from the decade before the start of the Civil War.
Civil War Images: Depictions of African Americans in the War Effort
This set of images from the Library of Congress was created by Devon Burger, the 2016 Liljenquist Family Fellow at the Library of Congress. Soldiers, sailors, nurses, artisans, laborers, officers, scouts, and spies: African Americans were at the center of the Civil War from the moment it began, and took on a wide variety of roles in the war’s conduct and resolution.
Civil War Music
This resource was created by Kirk Steyer, the 2017 Liljenquist Family Fellow at the Library of Congress. For soldiers and civilians embroiled in the Civil War, music was a near-constant companion.
Civil War Photographs: New Technologies and New Uses
This resource was created by Sam Klotz, the 2014 Liljenquist Family Fellow at the Library of Congress. The Civil War era was a particularly important moment in the history of photography. During this era photographs began to dominate American visual culture, as new technologies and new formats brought depictions of battle scenes, wartime leaders, and everyday soldiers into private homes as never before. Examining the photographs produced by these new technologies can both shed light on the culture of the era and provide insights into the history of this powerful form of visual communication.
Civil War Soldiers' Portraits: The Liljenquist Family Collection
The items in the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs at the Library of Congress capture the wartime lives of the everyday soldiers, some not yet out of their teens, who fought and died on both sides of the conflict. These small, personal portraits provide a unique window into the lives of ordinary men and their loved ones caught up in an extraordinary war.
Harper's Weekly from the 1800s
During the mid 1800s to the early 20th Century, Harper’s Weekly offered the nation news in magazine form. Primary sources linked to the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments as well as other historical events can be searched here via the site’s own database. The site says, “The paper’s editorials played a significant role in shaping and reflecting public opinion from the start of the Civil War to the end of the century.”
Index of Civil War Information Available on the Internet
Note: External links may be broken
This collection of links hosted by a Civil War enthusiast is grouped by topic. Primary sources are within many topics, but the Diaries and the Letters sections offer voices of the war time to readers. Background information is also available through the multitude of sites listed for each topic.
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
This site describes itself as, “a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War.” Letters, diaries, newspapers articles, and more offer a window into the daily lives of these Southern and Northern communities from 1859-1870.

Primary Sources in Library Databases

Search in these databases to find primary sources on your topic.

Civil War Primary Source Documents This link opens in a new window
From the New-York Historical Society, Civil War Primary Source Documents is an archive of unique manuscripts chronicling the American Civil War as it was experienced. Providing both Northern and Southern perspectives, it covers all aspects of the war, including reactions and impressions from the home front.
Slavery & Anti-Slavery This link opens in a new window
This database is the world's largest archive of the history of slavery. It consists of more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries.
AAS (American Antiquarian Society) Historical Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Search American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912.
19th Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Facsimile-image database of American newspapers of the 1800s