American Civil War & Reconstruction

Reference
For American history, browse the 973 section of reference. Here’s a sampling of what you might find:

The Official Atlas of the Civil War                    Atlas Stand
Civil War Quotations                                     R 973.7 C499L
Encyclopedia of the American Civil War             R 973.703 En19h
Encyclopedia of the Confederacy                      R 973.713 En19c
Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad    R 973.7115 B62h
The Atlas of the Civil War                              R 973.73 At65m

Online Catalogs

(http://baileylib.hendrix.edu, BearCat & WorldCat!)

Personal Narratives & Political Papers

For a list of diaries, eye-witness accounts, etc., in our book collection, use the keyword category of the online catalog and type: United States personal narratives [your subject, i.e. African Americans or Civil War]
To find personal papers of a political figure, try combining the person you are searching for with some of the following phrases in a keyword search: archives, papers, correspondence, manuscripts.
In WorldCat, limit your searching when possible, and use the "Libraries Worldwide" to check if UCA has your book.

Interlibrary Loan
If we don’t have the book you need, please check UCA’s catalog, BearCat. If they don’t have what you need, you can always order your article through interlibrary loan.

Robert E. Lee

Microfilm

Shelved alphabetically by title in the microfilm area:

    American Women’s Diaries (located in catalogued section!)
    Congressional Globe 1833-1873
    Mechanics’ Free Press
    Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations
    Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman,
          & Abandoned Lands
    Register of Debates in Congress 1825-1838

Primary Source Databases

African American Newspapers

Shelved behind check-out desk at 071.3 Af83n
Includes Freedom's Journal (1827-1830), Colored American (1837-1841), The North Star (1847-1851), and National Era (1847-1860).

War of the Rebellion…Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies

Shelved behind Check-out Desk at 973.74 C499g
Online via Making of America
Print volumes in the Government Documents section of the library at D 101.45:1

Historical Newspapers

Full text of the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Atlanta Constitution.

Making of America

Primary sources of American history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
Collaborative effort between Cornell and University of Michigan.

Secondary Source Databases

America: History and Life
Contains citations and abstracts to articles and books covering the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Check our Journals List to access full text articles!

Use the advanced search for more searching options.
Use * on the end of your term for variant endings, and ? to account for variant spellings. Ex.: slav* retrieves slavery, slaves, etc. wom?n retrieves woman and women
Boolean/Phrase search mode requires “AND” to break your search terms.
Limit by Historical Period and Language.
Use the browse feature to limit to a time period.

JSTOR
A full-text, social sciences database that covers complete runs of scholarly periodicals, but NOT the most current 2-5 years!

Use the Advanced Search.
Select whichever disciplines/journals are relevant to your searching.
Use the drop-down menu for options to connect search terms – and, or, near.
Use “?” on the end of your term to account for plurals, and “*” to account for variant word endings.
Use quotes to search phrases. Ex.: “Jefferson Davis” AND “Confederate constitution”

Project MUSE
Full text of nearly 200 scholarly journals published by university presses in the humanities and social sciences.

Use quotations (e.g. "Confederate constitution") to search for phrases.
If desired, combine terms by typing Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT, or type terms in separate boxes and use the pull-downs at the left of the search boxes.
Select fields to search from the right-hand pulldowns. Tip: All Fields (w/ text) = all fields, including the full text of the article. All Fields except Text = all fields except for the article text.
Use truncation (*) on the end of your term to search for plurals or parts of words.
If needed, use limits to narrow the search results to specific sets of journals or articles.

Interlibrary Loan
Be sure to check our Journals List to see if we have access to a journal. If we don’t have the journal you need, please check UCA’s Journals List. If they don’t have what you need, you can always order your article through interlibrary loan.

Print Journals

For a complete list of our journals, consult the Journals List.

*American Historical Review microfilm: 1895-1946 bound: 1947-
Civil War History v. 43 - , 1997 -
*Journal of American History v. 51- , 1964-
*Journal of Negro History (Journal of African American History) v. 1 - , 1916 -
*Journal of Southern History v. 1 - , 1935 -

* = journal is in JSTOR, but not most recent issues!

Confederate Soldier

Web Sites

Civil War Letters - Vicksburg (MN Hist. Society)
http://www.mnhs.org/library/Christie/vicksburg.html

Civil War Maps Collection (Library of Congress)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/cwmhtml/

Civil War Photographs (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html

Civil War Women (Duke)
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/cwdocs.html

Documents on Slavery (The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School)
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/slavery.asp

Documenting the American South (UNC at Chapel Hill)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/

Freedman’s Bureau Online
http://www.freedmensbureau.com/

Internet Modern History Sourcebook: U.S. Civil War (Fordham)
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook27.html

The Valley of the Shadow (Univ. of VA)
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

Vicksburg National Military Site (National Park Service)
http://www.nps.gov/vick/index.htm

Last Modified on 9/01/2011