Green River LibGuides: African American History: The American Civil War

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War

Main Collection

The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves

Main Collection

Book cover for "What Shall We Do with the Negro?"

What Shall We Do with the Negro?: Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America

Main Collection

The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union

Main Collection

American Civil War: The Essential Reference Guide

Available in Reference Collection -- in-library use only

The Black Calhouns: from Civil War to civil rights with one African American family

Main Collection

Book cover for "Voices of Civil War America"

Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life

Reference Collection--in-library use only

American Civil War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection

Use the "Search Within Publication" tool or use Table of contents to navigate this Ebook, housed in Gale Ebooks

Book cover for "The Blue & Gray Almanac"

The Blue & Gray Almanac : The Civil War in Facts & Figures, Recipes & Slang

book cover for "Searching for Black Confederates "

Searching for Black Confederates : The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth

African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign

Final Freedom : The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops

Book cover for "When Slavery Was Called Freedom"

When Slavery Was Called Freedom : Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War

American Civil Wars : The United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Crisis of The 1860s

Embattled Freedom : Journeys Through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps

Freedom's soldiers : the Black military experience in the Civil War

Soldiering for Freedom : How the Union Army Recruited, Trained, and Deployed the U.s. Colored Troops

Missouri’s War : The Civil War in Documents

Featured Resources

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

"Southern blacks, largely illiterate and unfamiliar with the activities of northern abolitionists, observed the outbreak of war more cautiously. However, once they understood that the war could hasten their freedom, most grasped every opportunity to aid the Union army. Their reactions to the war's outbreak destroyed the myth of the happy slave. "

-From African Americans and the Civil War, by Gabriel Burns Stepto, cited below

Unidentified African American Civil War Veteran
(click on image to enlarge, cited below)

Featured Online Collections and Exhibits

Use the links below to access the following online collections.

Library of Congress: Civil War Image - Depictions of African Americans in the War Effort
This Primary Source Set from the Classroom Materials collection at the Library of Congress houses an array of photos, images, and other primary source items.
Library of Congress: Abraham Lincoln Papers
"The papers of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), lawyer, representative from Illinois, and sixteenth president of the United States, contain approximately 40,550 documents dating from 1774 to 1948, although most of the collection spans from the 1850s through Lincoln’s presidency (1861-1865). "
African Americans in Civil War Medicine from the National Institutes of Health
This online exhibit "Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries: African Americans in Civil War Medicine looks at the men and women who served as surgeons and nurses and how their work as medical providers challenged the prescribed notions of race and gender."
The Civil War: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence
AN article from "Studies in Intelligence", Winter 1998-1999
National Archives: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
An article from the publication "Social Education" - on the National Archive website.
Library of Congress: Photographs of African Americans During the Civil War
A collection of images, in a digital collection from the Library of Congress
13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865)
From the America's Historical Documents collection at the National Archives
Black Men in Navy Blue During the Civil War
A 3 part article from the National Archives' publication Prologue
Library of Congress: The African American Odyssey - A Quest for Full Citizenship
This Library of Congress collection features "more than 240 items, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, and plays in the largest black history exhibit ever presented by the Library."

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Includes the following sections: Slavery—The Peculiar Institution | Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period | Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy | The Civil War | Reconstruction and Its Aftermath | The Booker T. Washington Era | World War I and Postwar Society | The Depression, The New Deal, and World War II | The Civil Rights Era
Library of Congress: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
A part of the larger "U.S. History Primary Source Timeline" collection, this presentation links to short articles and primary resources.
Library of Congress: Time Line of the Civil War
A timeline of the Civil War, each by year and major event - includes primary source documents and images - from the Library of Congress
American Civil War - Google Arts & Culture
A collection of images from Google Arts & Culture

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Featured Podcasts

Civil War “Contraband”
An episode of Dig: A History Podcast
Slavery and the Civil War - Teaching Hard History (podcast)
Episode 1, season 1 of the podcast, Teaching Hard History - made as a part of Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center
The Civil War and Reconstruction with David Blight
A series of lectures, posted on the Yale Courses page on Youtube, can also be viewed within the "Session" section, along with additional materials, from this Open Yale Courses website
Seizing Freedom (podcast)
In this episode of the Seizing Freedom podcast series: "The story of the end of the Civil War you've probably been taught is that the slaves were freed by Northern white men (and maybe a handful of famous Underground Railroad conductors). What's missing? The story of how Black Americans risked their lives to fight for their own visions of what freedom could be—struggling for their dignity in the face of horrific violence."
15 Minute History: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (part 1)
Episode 21 from the University of Texas podcast "15 Minute History"
15 Minute History: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (part 2)
Episode 22 from the University of Texas podcast "15 Minute History"

Source Citations:

African Americans and the Civil War. (2003). In G. B. Stepto (Ed.), The African-American Years: Chronologies of American History and Experience (pp. 169-189). Charles Scribner's Sons. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3409100016/GVRL?u=aubu98092&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=edfaae99

"Unidentified African American Civil War veteran in Grand Army of the Republic uniform with two children" by Goodman and Springer, Free to Use and Reuse: Veterans is in the Public Domain

Holman Library

African American History

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War

The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves

What Shall We Do with the Negro?: Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America

The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union

American Civil War: The Essential Reference Guide

The Black Calhouns: from Civil War to civil rights with one African American family

Voices of Civil War America: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life

American Civil War: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection

The Blue & Gray Almanac : The Civil War in Facts & Figures, Recipes & Slang

Searching for Black Confederates : The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth

African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign

Final Freedom : The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment

Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops

When Slavery Was Called Freedom : Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War

American Civil Wars : The United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Crisis of The 1860s

Embattled Freedom : Journeys Through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps

Freedom's soldiers : the Black military experience in the Civil War

Soldiering for Freedom : How the Union Army Recruited, Trained, and Deployed the U.s. Colored Troops

Missouri’s War : The Civil War in Documents

Featured Resources

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Featured Online Collections and Exhibits

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Featured Articles

Background Articles

Popular Source Articles

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Featured Videos

The American Civil War, 1861-1865

Featured Podcasts