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American Civil War & Reconstruction: American Civil War

This guide includes a collection of resources on the American Civil War.

American Civil War

This guide includes a collection of resources on the American Civil War. Some materials included are part of McKee Library's collections and a university log-in will be required. 

American Civil War

Journals

The Civil War, Part 1

In which John Green ACTUALLY teaches about the Civil War. In part one of our two part look at the US Civil War, John looks into the causes of the war, and the motivations of the individuals who went to war. The overarching causes and the individual motivations were not always the same, you see. John also looks into why the North won, and whether that outcome was inevitable. The North's industrial and population advantages are examined, as are the problems of the Confederacy, including its need to build a nation at the same time it was fighting a war. As usual, John doesn't get much into the actual battle by battle breakdown. He does talk a little about the overarching strategy that won the war, and Grant's plan to just overwhelm the South with numbers. Grant took a lot of losses in the latter days of the war, but in the end, it did lead to the surrender of the South.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY9zHNOjGrs

The Civil War, Part 2

In which John Green teaches you how the Civil War played a large part in making the United States the country that it is today. He covers some of the key ways in which Abraham Lincoln influenced the outcome of the war, and how the lack of foreign intervention also helped the Union win the war. John also covers the technology that made the Civil War different than previous wars. New weapons helped to influence the outcomes of battles, but photography influenced how the public at large perceived the war. In addition, John gets into the long term effects of the war, including the federalization and unification of the United States. All this plus homesteading, land grant universities, railroads, federal currency, and taxes.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzTrKccmj_I

Perspectives

In the Cause of Liberty

In this remarkable collection, ten premier scholars of nineteenth-century America address the epochal impact of the Civil War by examining the conflict in terms of three Americas?antebellum, wartime, and postbellum nations. Moreover, they recognize the critical role in this transformative era of three groups of Americans?white northerners, white southerners, and African Americans in the North and South. Through these differing and sometimes competing perspectives, the contributors address crucial ongoing controversies at the epicenter of the cultural, political, and intellectual history of this decisive period in American history. Coeditors William J. Cooper, Jr., and John M. McCardell, Jr., introduce the collection, which contains essays by the foremost Civil War scholars of our time: James M. McPherson considers the general import of the war; Peter S. Onuf and Christa Dierksheide examine how patriotic southerners reconciled slavery with the American Revolutionaries? faith in the new nation?s progressive role in world history; Sean Wilentz attempts to settle the long-standing debate over the reasons for southern secession; and Richard Carwardine identifies the key wartime contributors to the nation?s sociopolitical transformation and the redefinition of its ideals. George C. Rable explores the complicated ways in which southerners adopted and interpreted the terms ?rebel? and ?patriot,? and Chandra Manning finds three distinct understandings of the relationship between race and nationalism among Confederate soldiers, black Union soldiers, and white Union soldiers. The final three pieces address how the country dealt with the meaning of the war and its memory: Nina Silber discusses the variety of ways we continue to remember the war and the Union victory; W. Fitzhugh Brundage tackles the complexity of Confederate commemoration; and David W. Blight examines the complicated African American legacy of the war. In conclusion, McCardell suggests the challenges and rewards of using three perspectives for studying this critical period in American history. Presented originally at the ?In the Cause of Liberty? symposium hosted by The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, Virginia, these incisive essays by the most respected and admired scholars in the field are certain to shape historical debate for years to come.

War in Heaven, War on Earth: the birth of the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the American Civil War

A nation splits apart. A church struggles to come together. In the 1840's-1850's the United States wrestles over the issue of slavery, while former Millerites struggle to find their voice after a Great Disappointment. By the 1860's, both reach a tipping point. Will they come together or be torn apart forever? As the Civil War engulfs America, the Seventh-day Adventist denomination is establishes, and issues of faith, freedom, and duty to country clash as conflict threatens to divide both nation and church. War in Heaven, War on Earth explores the converging experiences of a nation at war and the formation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Every Day of the Civil War: A Chronological Encyclopedia

Although the book provides a daily chronicle of the combat, it is written in narrative form to give readers some continuity as they move from skirmish to skirmish.

Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction

The Civil War is the greatest trauma ever experienced by the American nation, a four-year paroxysm of violence that left in its wake more than 600,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees, and the destruction (in modern dollars) of more than $700 billion in property. The war also sparked some ofthe most heroic moments in American history and enshrined a galaxy of American heroes. Above all, it permanently ended the practice of slavery and proved, in an age of resurgent monarchies, that a liberal democracy could survive the most frightful of challenges.In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. And unlike other surveys of the CivilWar era, it extends the reader's vista to include the postwar Reconstruction period and discusses the modern-day legacy of the Civil War in American literature and popular culture. Guelzo also puts the conflict in a global perspective, underscoring Americans' acute sense of the vulnerability oftheir republic in a world of monarchies. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and especially the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals,North and South.Written by a leading authority on our nation's most searing crisis, Fateful Lightning offers a vivid and original account of an event whose echoes continue with Americans to this day.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

A Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the "Age of Neoslavery," the American period following the Emancipation Proclamation in which convicts, mostly black men, were "leased" through forced labor camps operated by state and federal governments. In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history--an "Age of Neoslavery" that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II. Using a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Douglas A. Blackmon unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude shortly thereafter. By turns moving, sobering, and shocking, this unprecedented account reveals the stories of those who fought unsuccessfully against the re-emergence of human labor trafficking, the companies that profited most from neoslavery, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.

Reconstruction: The Second Civil War

The story of the tumultuous years after the Civil War during which America grappled with how to rebuild itself, how to successfully bring the South back into the Union and, at the same time, how former slaves could be brought into the life of the country.

The Causes of the Civil War

The "slave power" and the "black republicans" -- State rights and nationalism -- Economic sectionalism -- Blundering politicians and irresponsible agitators -- The right and wrong of slavery -- Majority rule and minority rights -- The conflict of cultures.

Outrageous Women of Civil War Times

Fascinating true stories of the most amazing women in American history They were pioneers and trailblazers, spies and ex-slaves, reformers and first ladies. They became America's first women nurses, doctors, preachers, and voters. These Outrageous Women of Civil War Times braved the battlefield, fought for their rights, wrote inspiring works-and became heroines! Among the outrageous women you'll meet are: Belle Boyd-a spy for the confederacy who dodged a hail of bullets to deliver key information to General Stonewall Jackson Susan B. Anthony-the pioneering women's rights crusader who broke the law in order to vote for Ulysses S. Grant for president Clara Barton-who cared for Civil War soldiers on the battlefield and founded the American Red Cross Harriet Tubman-the runaway slave who led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad

Databases

The Ultimate Civil War Series

Between 1861 and 1865, this epic American story of struggle and survival was written in blood, and in this series is told mostly from first-hand accounts and in the spoken words of the participants themselves, through their diaries, letters, and memoirs. The series concludes with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and the surrender of the western Confederate Army to Sherman in North Carolina in the spring of 1865. It then explores the legacy of slavery and the consequences and meaning of a war that transformed the country forever.

The series starts from the birth of the abolitionist movement and the wars over slavery in Kansas and Harper's Ferry, through the election of President Abraham Lincoln and the firing on Fort Sumter. This series covers all the major battles to the death of President Lincoln and the beginnings of Reconstruction. The series concludes with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and the surrender of the western Confederate Army to Sherman in North Carolina in the spring of 1865. It then explores the legacy of slavery and the consequences and meaning of a war that transformed the country forever.