For the class Forces in American History, one of our projects was to review website about a historical topic. The following are brief reviews of five of the most useful websites on the Civil War.

Library of Congress: American Memory

http://memory.loc.gov/
The Library of Congress contains the most comprehensive collection of digitized primary sources related to the Civil War. The collections include the following:

• Congressional documents
• two collections of Civil War maps [1, 2]
• railroad maps
• photographs and other images
• prints and photographs
• Matthew Brady’s photographs
• band music
• sheet music [1, 2]
• books
• periodicals
• broadsides and printed ephemera
• slave narratives in audio format and in transcripts
• first-person narratives from the American South
• the Abraham Lincoln papers
• the Frederick Douglass papers
• the papers of Tilton C. Reynolds, captain of the 105th Pennsylvania Volunteers
• the diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, an examiner in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C.
• the notebooks of Walt Whitman

Through those collections, researchers can access a great deal of primary source material online. For teachers, the Library of Congress also offers lesson plans and a list of online resources.

National Park Service: Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System

http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/
The Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System allows the user to search records for servicemen, units, and prisons. Searches can be made by the serviceman’s name, state, branch, or unit; the database currently includes 6.3 million soldiers and sailors. The user can also search for units and obtain a list of the names and ranks of all the soldiers in that unit, strength and casualty figures, a brief unit history, and a list of every engagement in which the unit participated (with links to the battle summaries in the American Battlefield Protection Program). Similar searches can be performed for prisons. This website is an invaluable tool for researchers to gain information about units and individual soldiers and sailors.

National Park Service: American Battlefield Protection Program

http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/civil.htm
The American Battlefield Protection Program from the National Park Service contains summaries of Civil War battles and skirmishes, as well as information about some sixty parks and historical sites. The 384 battles summarized on this website are organized by both state and campaign. Each summary includes dates, principal commanders, number of forces engaged, estimated casualties, and a narrative of the battle. Teachers and researchers will find it helpful as a quick source of information, particularly for obscure battles. It is also useful as a guide to visiting the parks and historical sites, many of whose websites also contain useful information.

National Archives and Records Administration

http://www.archives.gov/research/civil-war/
The Civil War section of the National Archives and Records Administration website contains digitized archival material and finding aids for the NARA’s non-digital collections. Included on the website are some two-hundred photographs, a discussion of the main sources of Civil War records, and some digitized records. Researchers can use the website to determine which records collections will be most useful and how those collections can be accessed. Teachers can use the photographs in classroom presentations. Though little in-depth research could be done from the website alone, teachers could also give assignments suitable for students using the few digitized records.

National Geographic Map Machine: Civil War Edition

http://java.nationalgeographic.com/maps/civilwar/
The National Geographic Map Machine contains several interactive maps of the Civil War. The collection, which include maps of specific battlefields as well as of the whole country, is based on maps of the time period. The user can scroll and zoom on the maps, as well as click on tags of battles, skirmishes, fortifications, and other points of interest. For research purposes, the Library of Congress’s map collection is more comprehensive, authoritative, and usable. For teaching, however, National Geographic’s maps provide a simplified interface that allows students to acquaint themselves with Civil War geography.