13 July 2011

I've mentioned the Civil War Day by Day blog before, but as it's such a notable resource, I thought I'd introduce it in earnest. Here is an introduction from the creators at the Southern Historical Collection of Wilson Library (UNC):
One hundred and fifty years ago today, America was at war. For four years, southerners and northerners fought, died, survived, mourned, and rejoiced when loved ones returned. And they wrote.
The Civil War Day by Day, a new project from the Louis Round Wilson Special Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will present samples of the Civil War’s documentary remains. Every day for the next four years, the library will publish online a document that is 150 years old to the day.
The chronicle begins at the war’s outbreak, the first military engagement at Fort Sumter, S.C., on April 12, 1861. It will continue through April 26, 2015, 150th anniversary of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s surrender to Gen. William T. Sherman at Bennett Place.
The four years of war will be recounted through pamphlets, books, photographs, sheet music, letters, diaries, telegrams, order books, and much more, as these items are found in the Library’s stacks and reading rooms. Readers will be invited to walk with those who lived the war, and are encouraged to share their own reflections about these documents and their significance a century and a half after the war.
As I've recently come on board to help out a bit, I can attest to the great letters and other documents that will be featured over the next four years, documents that reveal the human story behind the battles.

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