Resources for researching Civil War Veterans
Introduction
Captains of the three student companies
in 1861. "Folder: Emergencies and Wars,
U of M & the Civil War. no. 358." University
of Michigan photographs vertical file.
The American Civil War was a pivotal point in the history of the United States. It is estimated that almost 3.5 million soldiers served both North and South. More than 600,000 Americans died as a result of the conflict.
The Civil War was one of the first heavily documented and photographed wars in American history. Conducting warfare was not just a military process, but a bureaucratic process which produced millions of records. Soldiers wrote letters to family, friends, and even newspapers, in numbers never before seen. War correspondents covered that action from close to the front lines. Photographers such as Matthew Brady and Andrew Gardner documented the horrors of the battlefield.
After the war, veterans joined together to form fraternal organizations to make sure that the sacrifices of their comrades were not forgotten.
This guide will introduce you to some of the common, and sometimes overlooked resources for locating information on Civil War soldiers.
This online guide was created in the Fall of 2009, by Matthew Adair, a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information.