Firsthand Accounts and History of the U.S. Civil War

Your Gateway to Documented Civil War Stories, Soldier Journals, 
and Historical Insights

CW Lit & Poetry
Bing.com search Confederate States of America in red
Bing.com search Confederate States of America in red

When Was the U.S. Civil War and Who Fought?

From 1861 to 1865 our nation fought a bloody fratricidal conflict, a civil war. It’s known by other names: “War between the States”, “The Second American Revolution”, “The Yankee Invasion”, and of course “The American or U.S. Civil War”.

Eleven states seceded from the U.S. in 1861 to form the country, Confederate States of America. The war was between the CSA, the "South", and the remaining states, the "North", of the U.S. The CSA's uniform was usually gray, while the North's blue.

What Were the Causes of the Civil War?

Was it “States Rights”, slavery, trade & commerce, Abolition, the election of Abraham Lincoln? Or perhaps, all of them contributed to the break-up. The answers and issues will be found in the many history books available. Check out my reading list below for ideas.

  • Age of Lincoln, Orville Vernon Burton.
  • The Civil War, Witness to War, Harold Holzer.
  • The Civil War, Shelby Foote.
  • This Republic is Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust
  • The War That Forged a Nation, James Patterson
  • History of the Civil War, 1861-1865, James Ford Rhodes
  • The Timechart History of the Civil War, James Arnold & Roberta Wiener, eds.
  • Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, Civil War Poems, Herman Melville.
  • Jefferson Davis's Generals, Gabor S. Boritt, ed.
  • Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz.
  • Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, E.B. Long, ed.
  • Sword Over Richmond, Richard Wheeler.
  • Tennessee's Civil War Battlefields, Randy Bishop.
  • The Civil War Battlefield Guide, Frances H. Kennedy, ed.
  • The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, H. W. Crocker III.
  • Baptism at Bull Run [a novel], James Reger
  • Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow
  • The State of Jones, Sally Jenkins & John Stauffer
  • Bald Knobbers: Vigilantes on the Ozarks Frontier, Mary Hart & Elmo Ingenthron
  • Great Maps of the Civil War, William J. Miller
  • The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson

Civil War Links & Lists

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
The State Historical Society of Missouri
IowaHistory.org
Civil War Recipes
www.soldierstudies.org/index.php
List of CW Battles by State
Civil War Battlefields
Civil War Generals
www.historyplace.com/civilwar
Origins of the Civil War
List of Civil Wars
Tennessee State Library & Archives
Mike Lynaugh Photos
Huntington Museum CW Photos

CW Weapons
Civil War Music
BOOK MUSICIANS, Civil War Music
www.civilwarpoetry.org
Davis Bridge Memorial Foundation, Inc
Battle of Gettysburg
Son of the South
Battle Reenactment- Blue Mills Landing
Civil War Photos, State Historical Library & Archives of Iowa
US Civil War Re-enactment Training
California State Military Museum
National Museum of Civil War Medicine

A List of Sunday Battles (1861-65)

06/03/61 – USA victory at Battle of Philippi, Va.
06/10/61 – CSA victory at Battle of Big Bethel, Va.
06/24/61 – USA gunboats shell CSA positions at Mathias Pt., Va.
10/21/61 – Battle of Ball’s Bluff (Leestown), Va., a resounding defeat for USA forces.
04/08/62 – USA captures Island No. 10, Missouri.
07/15/62 – CSA ironclad Arkansas damages USA vessels near Vicksburg, Miss.
08/26/62 – Second Bull Run (Manassas), Va., Campaign begins.07/01/63 – Battle of Gettysburg begins
07/22/63 – Battle of Manassas Gap, Va., CSA victory
08/12/63 – USA begins new offensive against forts in Charleston Harbor.
10/14/63 – Battle of Bristoe Station, Va., ends inconclusively.
11/25/63 – Three-day Battle of Chattanooga, Tenn., ends in USA victory.
05/27/64 – Battle of New Hope Church, Va., won by CSA.
06/03/64 – CSA victory at Battle of Cold Harbor, Va.
06/10/64 – Battle of Brice’s Crossroads, Miss., won by CSA.
06/17/64 – Gen. Grant begins Siege of Petersburg, Va.
07/22/64 – Battle of Atlanta, Ga., won by USA forces.
08/05/64 – USA wins naval battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama.
09/23/64 – Battle of Fisher’s Hill, Va., ends in USA victory.
02/16/64 – Battle of Nashville, Tenn., won by USA forces.
01/15/65 – USA forces take over Ft. Fisher, NC, capturing last CSA port
03/25/65 – CSA attack on Ft. Stedman, Petersburg, VA, fails.
USA begins Siege of Mobile, Alabama.
04/01/65 – Battle of Five Forks, Va., ends in USA victory.​

Six U.S. Civil War Narratives

  • 1 “A Civil War Narrative: Journals, Letters and Verse of William Clark Newlon”, Chris Newlon Green, ed., 2025, Chris Newlon Green PDF Collection, San Dimas, CA.
  • 2 A Civil War Diary of Allen Morgan Geer, Twentieth Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, May Ann Anderson, ed., Cosmos Press, New York, 1977.
  • 3 A Civil War Soldier’s Last Letters, Written by William F. Margraff (during the Civil War), Paul Janiski, ed., Vantage Press, New York, 1975.
  • 4 Company Aytch: or a side show of the Big Show, M. Thomas Inge, ed., New American Library, New York, 1999.
  • 5 A Diary from Dixie, Mary Boykin Chesnut, Ben Ames Williams, ed., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1980.
  • 6 Diary of a Contraband, the Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor, William B.
    Gould, IV, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2002.