Civil War and Reconstruction
Civil War Major Documents:
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
13th Amendment to the Constitution (1865)
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865)
Treaty with Russia for the Purchase of Alaska (1867)
14th Amendment to the Constitution (1868)
15th Amendment to the Constitution (1870)
CIVIL WAR PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
U.S. Civil War Center -- Civil War Documents
Documents of the American Civil War
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union & Confederate Armies
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies
The Civil War: Newspapers & Periodicals
America's Civil War : Documents
Documenting the American South Main Page
EyeWitness To The American Civil War
Confederate States of America: Documents
The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
Slavery Debate at the Constitutional Convention
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Jefferson on Slavery
Statutes of the United States Concerning Slavery
Slave Voices from the Duke University Special Collections Library
Informed ReSource: Historical Documents Regarding Slavery
Free at Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, & the Civil War
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project
THE ALABAMA SUPREME COURT ON SLAVES
KENTUCKY AND VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS - 1798
South Carolina’s Protest Against the Tariff of 1828
DANIEL WEBSTER: Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable
The Hayne-Webster Debate, 1830
William Lloyd Garrison, Editorial in The Liberator, Volume I, 1831
South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, 1832
ANDREW JACKSON ON NULLIFICATION
Ordinance of Nullification, 1832
THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY: CONSTITUTION, 1833
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good," 1837
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Plaindealer (New York), "The Blessings of Slavery," 1837
Daniel Webster's Seventh of March Speech
Daniel Webster's notes for his speech to the United States Senate favoring Compromise
Daniel Webster - The Seventh of March Speech, 1850
John C. Calhoun's speech to the United States Senate against the Compromise
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Stephen Douglas's Compromise of 1850 Speech
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: On the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
Creative Quotations from Charles Sumner (1811-1874)
U.S. Senate Historical Minutes: Caning of Charles Sumner, 1856
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: LINCOLN'S HOUSE DIVIDED SPEECH, June 1858
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Lincoln Fragment on Slavery
JOHN BROWN'S LAST SPEECH November 2, 1859
Confederate VP, Alexander Stevens: The Cornerstone Speech, 1861
Texas Ordinance of Secession, 1861
The Confederate Provisional Constitution
Proposed Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, March 2, 1861
The First Confiscation Act, August 6, 1861
The Second Confiscation Act, July 17, 1862
Additional Article of War, March 13, 1862
Congressional Joint Resolution on compensated emancipation, April 10, 1862
The Militia Act, July 17, 1862
Jefferson Davis's Proclamation Regarding Captured Black Soldiers, 1862
Emancipation in the Federal Territories, June 19, 1862
President Lincoln's Proclamation Overruling Hunter's Emancipation, May 19, 1862
The District of Columbia Emancipation Act, 1862
Annual Report of Secretary of War Simon Cameron, December 1, 1862
President Lincoln's Order of Retaliation, July 30, 1863
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, December 8, 1863
Mother of a Northern Black Soldier to the President, 1863
Lincoln's Appeal to Border State Representatives on Compensated Emancipation, 1862
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862
The Emancipation Proclamation, 1862 -enacted 1/1/1863
ANDREW JOHNSON: Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon for the Confederate States, 1863
PRIMARY SOURCE: General William T. Sherman on War, 1864
Law equalizing pay of black soldiers, June 15, 1864
Plantation Regulations by a U.S. Treasury Agent, 1864
Confederate Law authorizing the enlistment of black soldiers, March 13, 1865
Congressional Joint Resolution Freeing Families of Black Soldiers. 1865
Sherman: Order by the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, 1865
The Freedmen's Bureau Act, March 3, 1865
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS: "CIVIL WAR" AMENDMENTS to the CONSTITUTION
Judge Albion Tourgee on the KKK, 1870
Freedom: Wartime Genesis: Lower South
Civil War Newspapers I - Civil War Newspapers II
RECORDS of the 105th US COLORED TROOPS
Vshadow: Franklin Drafting and Enlisting
LIEBER-CODE: Instructions for Armies of the U.S. in the Field
ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE CHIEF OF ORDNANCE to the SECRETARY OF WAR
Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on Battlefields
QUOTES
Creative Quotations from Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
Creative Quotations from Stonewall Jackson (1824-1863)
Creative Quotations from Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Creative Quotations from Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)
More quotes found on specific topic pages on my Main Civil War page.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS....FIRST PERSON ACCOUNTS
Documenting the American South Main Page
First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920
The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
The Death of John Wilkes Booth, 1865
Letters Home from an Iowa Soldier
"I take up my pen": Letters from the Civil War
The Alice Williamson Diary is a 36-page journal of a young girl from Gallitin, Tennessee kept during the Union Army's occupation of Gallitin.
Dear Brother, Civil War Letter
"Unforgettable Letters" from the United States Postal Service is a wonderful site.
Civil War Letters of Galutia York
Slave Voices from the Duke University Special Collections Library
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project
Mother of a Northern Black Soldier to the President, 1863
Maryland Fugitive Slave to His Wife, 1862
Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days
Letitia M. Burwell. A Girl's Life in Virginia Before the War
"I CANNOT DO ANYTHING FOR YOU": Childhood in Slavery Narrative
"THE WANT OF PARENTAL CARE AND ATTENTION": Slave Child Narrative
"I DISCOVERED THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MYSELF AND MY MASTER'S WHITE CHILDREN
38th VA - The Personal Letters of Pvt. John W. Mahan
American Experience | War Letters - letters from the American Revolution through Desert Storm.
EyeWitness To The American Civil War
Battle Lines: Letters from America's Wars
CIVIL WAR ART & CARTOONS
U.S. Civil War Center -- Images and Art
POLITICAL CARTOONS: The Mexican War and Slavery
POLITICAL CARTOONS: The Civil War
POLITICAL CARTOONS: The South Secedes
Cartoons and Caricatures of the Civil War
Conrad Vogel's Coloring Book of the Civil War
Thomas Nast Comes to the Relief of Fort Sumter (not a moment too soon)
The Civil War Fife and Drum Page: Original Photos
Need pictures for your report or page - Civil War Clipart Gallery and another Civil War Clipart Gallery
Galerie Alfred Waud - Civil War Artist
USA State Seals - some state seals during the Civil War.
USCWC -- Films/Theatre, Music, and Writers/Literature
South-Art - The "Lost Cause" personified.
PHOTOGRAPHY DURING THE WAR
Selected Civil War Photographs Home Page
America's First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839-1864
U.S. Civil War Center -- Images and Art
History of Civil War Photography
The Civil War Photography Center
MASTERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Civil War Battlefields
Photography and the Civil War, 1861–1865 | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline
TreasureNet Historical Image Collection
Civil War Photographs: Taking Photographs at the Time of the Civil War
Beyond Face Value: Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency
The Daguerreian Society and the Daguerreotype
The Daguerreian Society: Resources
MATTHEW BRADY PORTRAITS - TABLE OF CONTENTS
Civil War Fife And Drum Page: Original Photos
Bibliographies about Civil War Photography
War art and photographs of the Civil War
CIVIL WAR MUSIC, LITERATURE, POETRY, & LATER FILM DEPICTIONS OF THE WAR
Y, & LATER FILM DEPICTIONS OF THE WAR
USCWC -- Films/Theatre, Music, and Writers/Literature
Henry David Thoreau's "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
Harriet Beecher Stowe and the impact of her book, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN
A Digitized Library of Southern Literature to 1920
Documenting the American South
Poetry and Music of the War Between the States
American Experience | Stephen Foster
Civil War Sheet Music Collection (The Library of Congress)
The Mudcat Cafe: The Digital Traditions Folksong Database
Sheet Music about Lincoln, Emancipation, and the Civil War
More Civil War Music
2nd South Carolina String Band. Civil War Music
The Civil War Fife and Drum Page
The Civil War Fife and Drum Page: Interesting Facts
PAL: Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)
Selected Text Page-Uncle Remus
Thomas Dixon, 1864-1946. The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan
About Thomas Dixon, Jr. (1864-1946)
Birth of a Nation: AKA "The Clansman" (1915)
D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Reexamining The Birth of a Nation
D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation & NAACP
CIVIL WAR MUSIC ON CASSETTE AND COMPACT DISK
USCWC -- Williamson Collection of Civil War Books For Young People
THE DRUMMER BOY OF SHILOH
On Shiloh's dark and bloody ground / The Drummer Boy of Shiloh
Drum Making Activity, Civil War Gallery
Slaves and the Courts: Legal Documents pertaining to Slavery before the Civil War: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/
The Selling of Joseph (Pamphlet)
The Diary of William Byrd (Slave Foreman)
Reconstruction Major Documents:
America's Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War - University of Houston - Part of the "digital history" site that contains primary sources on slavery, United States, Mexican American and Native American history.
Civil War and Reconstruction - Library of Congress - This exhibition contains succinct overviews of several aspects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and features primary sources, maps, and images.
Freedmen's Bureau Online - Contains articles, records and images related to the Freedmen's Bureau.
Harper's Weekly: Toward Racial Equality - Harper's Weekly - Materials from the magazine are presented in order to give a true historical picture of the leading 19th-century newspaper's view of black Americans.
TIMELINES - MAPS - OUTLINES - GRAPHS
TIMELINE: Reconstruction: 1865-1896
TIMELINE: Reconstruction to 1898
MAP: Reconstruction Military Districts
OUTLINE: Reconstruction (1865-1877)
The South: Where is it? What is it? and Index of Graphs and Maps
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Wade-Davis Manifesto, 1864
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Lincoln Proclamation on the Wade-Davis Bill
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: The Freedmen's Bureau Act, March 3, 1865
ANDREW JOHNSON: Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon for the Confederate States
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Report of the Joint Comittee on Reconstruction, June 20, 1866
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS: Freedmen and Southern Society Project
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Order by the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Meeting between Black Religious Leaders and Union Military Authorities
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS: THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS: 1867
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Frederick Douglass on Reconstruction
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Force Acts of 1870 & 1871, excerpts
LAWS DESIGNED TO DISARM SLAVES, FREEDMEN, AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS
THE "CIVIL WAR" AMENDMENTS to the CONSTITUTION
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Judge Albion Tourgee on the KKK
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Texas v. White (1869)
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: HENRY B. BROWN: Plessy v. Ferguson
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: 1896 PLESSY v. FERGUSON: Justice Harlan's Dissent
African American Perspective - Pamphlets Home Page
AFTER THE WAR - RECONSTRUCTION & THE BIRTH OF "THE NEW SOUTH"
The South: Where is it? What is it? and Index of Graphs and Maps
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS: THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS: 1867
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Frederick Douglass on Reconstruction
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Force Acts of 1870 & 1871, excerpts
LAWS DESIGNED TO DISARM SLAVES, FREEDMEN, AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS
THE "CIVIL WAR" AMENDMENTS to the CONSTITUTION
After the Civil War: Introduction
After the Civil War: State of Blacks
Racism and Democracy - Fighting Jim Crow
The Crisis of Leadership - The Debate over Means and Ends
America's Civil War: Aftermath
Reconstruction Era - Healing a Divided Land
Opposing views on Reconstruction
Radical Republicans and Reconstruction
The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction
Reconstruction & the Gilded Age
Reconstruction Lecture Summary
MAP: Reconstruction Military Districts
Benjamin Franklin Butler, "The Beast of New Orleans"
Military Rule "Radical Reconstruction" 1867 - 1877
Race Riots "Battle Of Liberty Place" September 14, 1874
Brief History of Carpetbags and Carpetbaggers
Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags - interesting book.
The "Truth" About Northern Carpetbaggers - a "Lost Cause" diatribe and falsehood.
Prologue: Freedmen's Bureau Records: An Overview
The Prostrate State "Racial Backlash" 1874
Johnson's Reconstruction: "Carrying Out Lincoln's Plan", 1865-1869
Radical Republicans: "Zealous Crusaders"
The American Civil War and Reconstruction
Civil War Resources on the Internet: Abolition to Reconstruction
Reconstruction Essay on the writings of Moore, Stampp, & Randall
Reconstruction ends - The Compromise of 1877
Contemporary Historians (of the late 1800s - early 1900s) interpret Reconstruction
The History of Jim Crow - segregation from the 1870s-1950s
CONFEDERATES HEAD SOUTH -- WAY SOUTH!
The Civil War in South Carolina - The Brazil Migration
Post civil war reconstruction and confederate immigration to Brazil
Rebels Way, Way Down South: Confederates in Brazil
COURT CASES
LAWS DESIGNED TO DISARM SLAVES, FREEDMEN, AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Texas v. White (1869)
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: HENRY B. BROWN: Plessy v. Ferguson
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: 1896 PLESSY v. FERGUSON: Justice Harlan's Dissent
Plessy vs. Ferguson - Separate but equal declared constitutional
After the Civil War: Plessy v. Ferguson
AFRICAN AMERICANS AFTER THE WAR
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Frederick Douglass on Reconstruction
LAWS DESIGNED TO DISARM SLAVES, FREEDMEN, AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Booker T. Washington: The Atlanta Compromise, Excerpt
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: W.E.B. Du Bois on Booker T. Washington
Freedmen and Southern Society Project
Freedmen and Southern Society Project: Sample Documents
The First Years of Freedom, 1865-1945
Juneteenth - June 19, 1865: the date word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas(two years late!)
After the Civil War: State of Blacks
After the Civil War: Plessy v. Ferguson
The Political Graveyard: Politicians Born in Slavery
Civil Rights. Table of Contents of the Evolution of Blacks in America
Civil Rights: Blacks launch a united effort
The Evolution of Black Leadership at the turn of the Century
Frederick Douglass (American Memory, Library of Congress)
About Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
Washington, Booker T. 1901. Up from Slavery
Civil Rights: Reconstruction ends and Blacks flee the South
Minority Families Moved from the South to the North for Economic Growth
North By South/Great Migrations Page
The Great Migration: Blacks in White America
"The New Negro" Immigration and Migration
Chronicle of African-American Farming and Land Loss
Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World
The History of Jim Crow - segregation from the 1870s-1950s
Suffrage in the South, Part I: The Poll Tax and Part II: The One Party System
“The New Negro”: “When He’s Hit, He Hits Back!”
Race During the Great Depression
Hard Times Again - Racism in the 1930s
American Experience | Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World
RACISM, VIOLENCE, & THE KKK
PRIMARY DOCUMENT: Judge Albion Tourgee on the KKK
FBI - Freedom of Information Act - Ku Klux Klan Investigation (1964)
Civil Rights: the Klan is Born
Klu Klux Klan: A Hundred Years of Terror
Brief History of Ku Klux Klan & the Confederacy according to "Southern 'Lost Cause' Group"
Birth Of The KKK "Ghostly Terrorists" May 1866
Ku Klux Klan, an Encarta Encyclopedia Article
Ku Klux Klan Violence in Georgia, 1871
The Ku Klux Klan in the City 1915-1930
The Klan enjoys its greatest hour
Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas During the 1920s
Klu Klux Klan in 1920s El Paso, TX
More on the History of the Ku Klux Klan
Southern Poverty Law Center on the KKK
Poisoning the Web - Ku Klux Klan
Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America
Southern Women and Anti-Lynching Campaigns, Introduction - document list
Burned at the Stake: A Black Man Pays for a Town’s Outrage - in Paris, Texas, 1893.
David Duke's Official Web Site
David Duke: In His Own Words - Introduction
Center for the Study of White American Culture
RACISM & STEREOTYPES IN "ENTERTAINMENT"
PAL: Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)
Selected Text Page-Uncle Remus
Thomas Dixon, 1864-1946. The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan
About Thomas Dixon, Jr. (1864-1946)
Birth of a Nation: AKA "The Clansman" (1915)
D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Reexamining The Birth of a Nation
D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation & NAACP
Sincere Fictions of the White Self in the American Cinema: The Divided White Self in Civil War Films