The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together more than 1,000 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs to provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war, including what was happening at home. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies are included. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also.
The materials originate from all regions of the country and are from people who played a variety of roles. The Civil War was responsible for an unprecedented displacement of Americans, and this in turn resulted in an unprecedented number of letters. This also was the last time a major war was fought without significant censorship.
The collection includes approximately 100,000 pages of published memoirs, letters and diaries from individuals plus 4,000 pages of previously unpublished materials. More than 1,000 biographies enhance the use of the database.
Search tips:
- Tables of Contents -- Use these to see what's contained in the database. This is the best way to check whether an author, a source, a date is included. It's also the best way to examine what personal or historical events are in the database. To use this tool, simply click on the appropriate table of contents button on the navigation bar.
- Find Tools -- The "FIND" tools let you search for specific authors or specific works in the database. Find Authors returns a list of all authors that match your specific criteria. Find Sources returns a list of all sources (works and manuscripts) in the database. The difference between the "FIND" tools and the "SEARCH" tools (explained next) is in the results they give. The "FIND" tools do not return documents, but rather lists of sources and authors. Note the difference between a source (a collection of documents) and the documents themselves (items within a source).
- Search Tools -- The "SEARCH" tools let you analyze words and documents that meet your search criteria. The "SEARCH" tools return documents or bibliographic citations or both. In this database a document is defined as a month of diary entries, or a letter, or editorial matter.
Where is it: Go to the UNLV Libraries' home page http://www.library.unlv.edu. Select the Articles and Databases tab, click on the A-Z List of Databases and then on the letter A and select American Civil War: Letters and Diaries.
Quick Link: http://www.alexanderstreet2.com/cwldlive/