Civil War Resources
Decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over
issues including states' rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery
exploded into the American Civil War on April 12, 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter. By
the time it ended with the Confederate surrender in 1865, the Civil War proved to
be the costliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million
soldiers killed, millions more injured and the population and territory of the South
devastated. http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war
McKendree University, then McKendree College, was swept up in the turmoil. So many
McKendree faculty and students volunteered to fight in the Civil War between 1861
and 1865 that the college almost had to close. The 117th Regiment of Illinois Volunteers
was called the "McKendree" regiment since the majority of troops were from McKendree
College.
Please click on slideshow image for additional information.
Let's Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War Discussion
Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War, a reading and discussion
series, has been made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the American Library Association.
Resources
The following is a list of resources developed to commemorate the Sesquicentennial
of the American Civil War and our community's role in that deadly conflict.
Online Exhibitions
Library of Congress - From Slavery to Civil Rights: A Timeline of African
American History
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/civil-rights/
Library of Congress - Variety of collections on: Civil War and Reconstruction,
1861-1877
http://www.loc.gov/topics/content.php?subcat=8
Virginia Historical Society - An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia
http://www.vahistorical.org/civilwar/introduction.htm
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center - Online exhibit of Frederick
Douglass’ documents
http://www.freedomcenter.org/underground-railroad/frederick-douglass/
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History - Online Exhibition: John Brown the Abolitionist
and His Legacy
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/online/johnbrown/
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site - Virtual Museum Exhibit
http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/douglass/
Boston College - First-Hand: Civil War Era Drawings from the Becker Collection
http://firsthandexhibit.org/
Websites
The National Endowment for the Humanities’ EDSITEment website is offered in partnership
with the Verizon Foundation and the National Trust for the Humanities, and is a proud
member of the Thinkfinity Consortium of premier educational websites. EdSITEment features
sections on the American Civil War
The American Civil War
http://edsitement.neh.gov/american-civil-war
Literature of the Civil War
http://edsitement.neh.gov/literature-civil-war#node-21484
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History -History by Era: The Civil War Era
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/institute/era_civilwar.php
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History - Civil War 150th
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/institute/civilwar150.php
New York Times – Opinionator’s “Disunion” series
Exclusive online commentary revisiting and reconsidering America's most perilous period
-- using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow
the Civil War as it unfolded.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/
National Park Service
The Civil War: 150 Years (National Park Service Sesquicentennial Commemoration)
Features include: Nationwide calendar of CW150 events, information about Civil War
Parks, access to database of Civil War Soldiers, more in-depth information about the
War
http://www.nps.gov/civilwar150/
Pioneering Digital History Resources
Valley of the Shadow
Edward L. Ayers
http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/
Hidden Patterns of the Civil War
Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond
http://dsl.richmond.edu/civilwar/
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History -History by Era: The Civil War Era
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/institute/era_civilwar.php
McKendree University's Civil War Story
http://www.illinoiscivilwar150.org/pdfs/HistoricIL/HIAugust%202008McKendree.pdf
Film
The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns (1990, PBS)
Glory (1989, Tristar)
Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (1992, PBS)
Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History (1994, PBS)
The Time of the Lincolns (2001, PBS)
Ulysses S. Grant (2002, PBS American Experience)
Robert E. Lee (2011, PBS American Experience)
