Civil War Letters – An Extensive Collection

Research Arsenal’s Powerful Civil War Letters Database

The American Civil War involved over 2.8 million soldiers fighting on both sides and impacted the lives of everyone living in the country. In 1860, the total population of the United States was 31 million, which gives some context to just how massive this fielding of soldiers was. Whether these men served voluntarily or were forcibly conscripted or drafted into the army, the war tore countless families apart and letters became a vital source of comfort and communication to their dear ones back home.

Letters were penned by people from all walks of life and all education levels. Those that could not write for themselves asked friends and relatives that could to write and read their letters for them. In the century and a half that has followed the war, innumerable letters have been lost, many burned shortly after reading to prevent them from falling into unintended hands, but the thousands that remain offer a treasure trove of insight into thoughts and feelings about the war, as well as what daily life was life for soldiers and civilians during the Civil War.
Now through digitization, these records are available instantly to anyone online, opening the door to a more intimate portrayal of the war and access to data at a scale and breadth that could previously only be dreamed about.

Civil War Letters as a Historical Source

As with any historical event, the thoughts and opinions on the Civil War were as varied as the people who experienced it. Studying Civil War correspondence gives insight into what people thought and believed and were willing to say to those closest to them. It also grants a look into the opinions of people who at the time would not have been given a public platform to express those views or who felt they had to hide their views from all but close family.

Reading letters chronologically also allows researchers to experience the war as a “current event” rather than a series of battles with outcomes already long decided. Many early letters express the hope and expectation that the war will reach a swift conclusion, writers always feeling that things are “just about played out.”

This unique feeling of living in the times that letters provide is something that other historians have tried to recreate on social media. Alwyn Collinson, a digital editor at the Museum of London, runs the X (formally Twitter) account called @RealTimeWWII which posts hourly updates of the progression of the second world war so that people can experience the day by day progression over the course of six years. He’s run through the war twice since beginning the project in 2011 and is currently in the third iteration of the project.

While most letters offer a more intimate portrayal of the war, focusing more on the lives and health of loved ones rather than major battle movements, they also offer a deep insight to the stories and events that drew the sharpest interest and outpouring of feelings, even when these events are often overlooked in modern memory.

One example of this is the massacre of the largely African-American garrison of soldiers at Fort Pillow in Tennessee by soldiers under the command of General Nathaniel Bedford Forrest on April 12th, 1864. While there is still historical debate over the facts to this day, the killing of 300 Union soldiers by the Confederate forces that overran them, and many of the bodies having wounds that suggested they came from executions rather than the battlefield, was a shock to the North and appears in the content of many letters written during that time.

In a letter to her husband, Captain Lot Abraham of the 4th Iowa Cavalry, Sarah Cornelia (Alden) Lot exclaimed, “Oh this terrible war! How it rages! And worst of all, the better part of my life, my heart’s idol, my Lot, is in the front, perhaps to fight on equal terms with the inhuman butchers of Fort Pillow. Oh Lot, how can I bear it. And yet I would not have you shrink from the danger. No, could I speak to you as you hurry on I would say hunt them to the death. Follow them till the last wretch bites the dust & bid him as he falls, “remember Fort Pillow.”

Another Union soldier, John L. Hebron, who served as a bugler in the 2nd Ohio Infantry, cited Fort Pillow numerous times as an incident for which soldiers were eager for revenge, and compared it with the treatment members of his own regiment had received.

Writing to his mother only a couple weeks after the event Hebron said, ““It appears the rebels have hoisted the black flag from the way they used our prisoners — both black and white — at Fort Pillow. They took six of our men down at Ringgold, all white men, and shot them and then punched them full of holes with the bayonets. If that ain’t showing no quarters, I don’t know what is.”

Then in August of 1864 Hebron described an incident of revenge (not historically recorded elsewhere) that demonstrates the lasting impact of the attack:

“We have been busy ever since I wrote before going up and down the railroad. The rebels tore up about a mile of track at Dalton and some at Graysville. That is about all the damage they have done. The negro troops whipped them at Dalton. They did not take any prisoners. They hollered Fort Pillow and bayonetted every rebel they came across and I believe that was right too.”
History books, and history curriculums must necessary focus on the “forest” to present a coherent narrative to make sense of past events. Resources like letters, however, provide a valuable opportunity for the many individual “trees” of that forest to be studied and recognized for the part they play in weaving together the strands of the past.

The Value of Digital Collections in Civil War Research

One of the most revolutionary aspects of modern times is the unprecedented opportunities and access that the digitization of records has given us. Not only does digitization allow for the preservation of documents, ensuring their survival even if the paper they were originally recorded on succumbs to time, it also allows people all over the world to have instant access to collections that were previously only available by traveling to individual archives across the country.

For Civil War documents, sites like the Research Arsenal and Fold3 are dedicated to preserving records and making them accessible. The Research Arsenal in particular focuses on a wide range of documents and sources, including thousands of letters from hundreds of regiments and civilians documenting the war, many of these letters coming from private collections. These letters are also keyword searchable, allowing users to find letters focusing on the specific topics that interest them, whether that be a historic battle or a wife writing of home to a confederate soldier.
The Research Arsenal’s letter collection is an invaluable supplement to its many official documents, such as morning reports, and order books, and stands alongside its extensive photo collection with thousands of images extensively keyword tagged so that users can easily find exactly what they’re looking for.

Digitization of letters with high resolution scans alongside reliable, human made transcriptions allows researchers both the ease of reading and searching printed text, while also ensuring that all of the original fidelity of the documents is preserved, alongside any sketches, letterheads, doodles, and other errata that would be otherwise lost.