The Civil War

Films

For additional films, browse the catalog under United States History Civil War 1861-1865 - Drama.

The Civil War
Full scale film history of the terrible conflict that tore the country apart and defined the nation. Discusses various battles and their impact on a divided country as well as personal views of the conflict based on the writings of politicians, generals, enlisted men and their families. This is the Ken Burns PBS television mini series of 1990.

Cold Mountain (2003)
Inman, a young Confederate soldier, who is injured during the explosive 1864 battle of Petersburg, Virginia, is struggling to make his way home to Cold Mountain, NC, where his beloved Ada awaits him. In Inman's absence, Ada befriends Ruby, who helps her keep up her late father's farm. Based on the book Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

Gettysburg
Civil War drama depicting the events and personal struggles of the Union and Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Gettysburg. Based on the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.

Glory (1989)
A fictionalized account of the Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry, the first regiment of northern black soldiers to fight in the Civil War. Starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman. Based on the books, 'Lay this Laurel' by Lincoln Kirstein and 'One Gallant Rush' by Peter Burchard and the letters of Robert Gould Shaw.

Gods and Generals (2002)
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain left behind a quiet life and a career as a college professor to fight for the Union. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was a man of great religious faith who served in the defense of the Confederacy. And Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate army, was a man who was forced to choose between his loyalty to the United States and his love of the Southern states where he was born and raised. Based on the novel by Jeff Shaara, a "prequel" to Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels (see above).

Gone with the Wind (1939)
The story focuses on the life and loves of the beautiful and selfish Scarlett O'Hara and begins on the O'Haras' Georgia plantation of Tara in antebellum days and moves through the Civil War and Reconstruction. This Classic Academy Award Winner stars Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh and is based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell.

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Web Resources

Pittsburgh Region

• Civil War Veterans Burials, Allegheny County Pennsylvania
  Names and cemetery locations of Civil War veterans in Allegheny County.

Pennsylvania

• Gettysburg National Military Park
  Known as a turning point in our great Civil War, the battlefield is preserved by the National Park Service as a symbol of America's struggle to survive as a nation, and as a lasting memorial to the soldiers who served in that great conflict.
  • Suggested Reading
• The Valley of the Shadow
  The Valley of the Shadow is an electronic archive of two communities in the American Civil War: Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennyslvania.

United States

• The American Civil War Home Page
  Many links to web resources compiled by George H. Hoemann and Mary E. Myers, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Augustana College (IL) Civil War Diaries
  by Gould D. Moulineaux (1862-1866) and Basil Messler
• Civil War@Smithsonian
  Civil War@Smithsonian is produced by the National Portrait Gallery and is dedicated to examining the Civil War through the Smithsonian Institution's extensive and manifold collections. If you click on resources and then choose a topic, links to websites and a bibliography is provided.
• Civil War Reenactors
  Includes a gallery of historical Civil War photographs.
• Civil War Photographs from the Library of Congress, 1861-1865
  "The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men." This was one of the first digital archives on the web.
• Civil War Letters of Galutia York
  Hosted by State University of New York (SUNY) Morrisville College Library. Galutia York was the oldest son of a farm family from Hubbardsville, New York who enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 when he was 19 years old. Galutia York died of disease on May 20, 1863, in Berwick City, Louisiana, never having been in a shooting battle. The collection consists of 50 letters.
• Poetry and Music of the War Between the States
  collected by Kathie Fraser. "...if you want to understand the thoughts and emotions of the men who faced each other across the battlefield and those who waited for them at home, look to the poems and songs written during and after the war."
• The Civil War Preservation Trust
  This organization works to preserve historic battle sites of the Civil War and has developed the Civil War Discovery Trail.
• Civil War Traveler
  Have your parents take you on a trip of historic sites in the Shenandoah Valley or trace the route of the 1864 Overland Campaign by Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
• Cornelius C. Platter Civil War Diary, 1864 - 1865
  This digital collection from Georgia is the Civil War diary of Lt. (later Capt.) Cornelius C. Platter, of the 81st Ohio Infantry Volunteers, from November, 1864 - April 27, 1865. It details Sherman's march through Georgia from Rome to Savannah and the march north through the Carolinas. Note that Platter was a Union soldier, not a confederate.
• The Dred Scott Case
  Historical documents relating to the famous court case in which the slaves Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit. The historic US Supreme Court decision against them in which they were declared to be slaves was one of the events leading up to the US Civil War. The exhibit is part of Washington University in St. Louis.

• Eye of the Storm
  Musarium hosts this exhibit on the drawings and journals of Union Soldier Private Knox Sneden that have recently been published as Eye of the Storm: a Civil War Odyssey.
  
• The Gettysburg Address
  From the Library of Congress
• Jews in the Civil War
  This site contains letters and photographs of Jewish soldiers in both the Union and Confederate armies.
• Letters from an Iowa Soldier in the Civil War
  These letters are part of a collection written by Newton Robert Scott, Private, Company A, of the 36th Infantry, Iowa Volunteers. Most of the letters were written to Scott's neighborhood friend Hannah Cone, in their home town of Albia, Monroe County, Iowa, over the three year period that he served as Company A's clerk.
• The Underground Railroad (National Park Service)
  "In 1990, Congress authorized the National Park Service to conduct a study of the Underground Railroad, its routes and operations in order to preserve and interpret this aspect of United States history. The study includes a general overview of the Underground Railroad, with a brief discussion of slavery and abolitionism, escape routes used by slaves, and alternatives to commemorate and interpret the significance of the phenomenon."
• Underground Railroad (National Geographic)
  Experience the journey of a runaway slave in a "choose your own adventure" type site from National Geographic.
• Washington During the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865
  This Library of Congress American Memory Project presents three manuscript volumes, totaling 1,240 digital images, that document daily life in Washington, D. C., through the eyes of Horatio Nelson Taft (1806-1888), an examiner for the U. S. Patent Office. The diary details events in Washington during the Civil War years including Taft's connection with Abraham Lincoln and his family. Of special interest is Taft's description of Lincoln's assassination, based on the accounts of his friends and his son, who was one of the attending physicians at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot, on April 14, 1865.