Building a personal reference and resource library

[61Cadillac]

In 4 years I am retiring from a 47 year career as a firefighter in a large metropolitan fire department. It's been a long ride and needless to say my body is pretty beat up. I have always been interested in the Civil War since my family took a vacation to Gettysburg for the 110th anniversary of the battle in 1973. Over the last 10 years I have started to collect a lot of reference materials, my corner stone being a complete set of the Official Records of the War of Rebelion, including the atlas. I have too many numerous books to list here now, and to be honest, until I get the bookshelves built this winter and get them in some order I'm not even sure what all I have. My question for the members who are truly entrenched in the research aspect is what other reference materials would you recommend? What good websites should I be scouring? I'd like to focus my research on individual soldiers and the lesser known events of the war. I'd like to bring aspects and people of the war back from being lost to time. The people and events who's stories are there but hidden in the records. Ultimately, my goal is to start writing essays on these people, events and topics. The stories withing the stories if you will.

 

[gary]

Dornbusch - all four volumes. Tells you what book/magazine to find for specific people/units/battles. Is there a fifth volume yet?
Silfakis - for Confederate units. A volume for every Corn-fed state
Battles & Leaders - all 6 volumes
Annals of War - both volumes
Boatnar - Civil War Dictionary
Patricia Faust - Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War
Ezra Warner - Generals In Blue and Generals in Gray & Allardice More Generals in Gray
Krick - Confederate Staff Officers

If you have the money and space, O. R., Suppemental - that's over 100 volumes but allows you to track individual companies. Only place I've ever seen/used it is the Virginia State Library in Richmond. If you got there, eat at the nearby medical college cafeteria. It's cheaper than most restaurants.

Sometimes you have to know the unit to see where the soldier fought (if not on detached service, leave or sick).

if you want to know about the material culture, Authentic Campaigner.

Good luck with your bookcase projects. I am far behind in mine.

 

[61Cadillac]

Dornbusch - all four volumes. Tells you what book/magazine to find for specific people/units/battles. Is there a fifth volume yet?
Silfakis - for Confederate units. A volume for every Corn-fed state
Battles & Leaders - all 6 volumes
Annals of War - both volumes
Boatnar - Civil War Dictionary
Patricia Faust - Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War
Ezra Warner - Generals In Blue and Generals in Gray & Allardice More Generals in Gray
Krick - Confederate Staff Officers

If you have the money and space, O. R., Suppemental - that's over 100 volumes but allows you to track individual companies. Only place I've ever seen/used it is the Virginia State Library in Richmond. If you got there, eat at the nearby medical college cafeteria. It's cheaper than most restaurants.

Sometimes you have to know the unit to see where the soldier fought (if not on detached service, leave or sick).

if you want to know about the material culture, Authentic Campaigner.

Good luck with your bookcase projects. I am far behind in mine.

Thank you Gary. Is the O.R. Supplemental an additional series to the 128 volume set?

 

[USS ALASKA]

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/basic-library.211179/

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Booner]

I retired in 2016 and moved back to Missouri. Prior to that, I had a decent library of Civil War books, based on the general, overall war. When I moved to Missouri, I soon began to narrow my interest on the war to where I'm much more interested on what happened here in the state, and my home library is a reflection of that, to the point I really don't have much interest in what happened outside the state. This means that my addition to my library in the last 10 years is mostly based on the guerrilla activity that our state is famous for.

Perhaps like me, your interest will go from the general to the specific, and if so, your library will reflect that.

I wish you a long and happy retirement.

 

[gary]

Thank you Gary. Is the O.R. Supplemental an additional series to the 128 volume set?

Yep. If you want to know where a certain company was and why it was absent from a battle or campaign it's useful. However I'd rather use the library's if there's a good state or univ one near you. VA State is a good library.

 

[CWdiaryPA]

This is heartening to read. It's those individual stories that aren't known that are so important, that need to not get blown away in the winds of time. And there are so many now calling out from the grave to be heard at last, at last. I often worry that the more time passes, the less accessible these human stories will become, just harder to find or dig through to. Yet the Internet hopefully alleviates potential losses, who knows, right?

I've found good repositories for these narratives to be in local county archives or historical societies. Also, diaries. There's the website (also on FB) "Spared and Shared." You'd likely find compelling, never-ending material there. The O.R. definitely contains material no one has yet extrapolated out, events that got glossed over for one reason or another. One ex. is the doctor my gfather worked under, whom Lincoln kicked out of the army, then let right back in. Made national headlines, yet to this day it's a silence unto itself. The story is right there, as you put it, yet remains hidden in the record.

When I transcribed my 2x gfather's diary, I annotated quite a bit with unknown stories like the one here, of the 11 year old girl named Matilda. Maybe this type of undergirding of the war gets at what you're interested in exhuming:

Day 103. June 11, 1862. – We Saw a Grate Smoke Raise Up: Letters, Diaries, Wires from the Valley of the Late Rebellion

jacksonsvalleycampaign.com

 

[Drew]

@61Cadillac, appreciate you journey. Just know the "Official Records of the War of Rebellion" was written at the North.

There are tons of primary source records that contain soldiers' thoughts on the whole thing. It's too early in the morning for me to begin to offer them, but I can come back later. Cheers.

 

[gary]

OR was predominantly Northern but only because a lot of Southern reports were lost and thus excluded.

 

[Library Lady]

Dornbusch - all four volumes. Tells you what book/magazine to find for specific people/units/battles. Is there a fifth volume yet?

Here is some information I found from AddALL that indicates there are 5 volumes and an index.

Military Bibliography of the Civil War | Volumes One Through Five Plus Full Set Index Volume | Complete Set in Six Volumes by Dornbusch, C. E.; Felton, Silas [Compilers]: Near Fine Hardcover (1994) Mixed Editions | Plunder and Salvage

Free Shipping - Mixed Editions - Hardcover - New York Public Library, New York - 1994 - Condition: Near Fine - No Jacket (As Issued) - Octavo (8vo) and quarto (4to); six volumes (1-5 plus index) bound in full burgundy cloth. Volume One (Fifth Reprinting, 1994) was originally published by NYPL in...

www.abebooks.com

For those who have Volumes 1-4, Volume 5 and the Index are available from Books of Valor on eBay.

MILITARY BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CIVIL WAR - DORNBUSCH - VOLUME V & FULL SET INDEX | eBay

MILITARY BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CIVIL WAR MOST RECENT AND CURRENT EDITION VOLUME V AND COMPREHENSIVE SET INDEX COMPILED AND REVISED BY SILAS FELTON MINT CONDITION This book set is brand new, unread and in pristine condition. It comes in the original, publisher’s shrink-wrap. Sharp; Bright, Clean...

www.ebay.com

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Just a wild question and a follow-up: Is there such a thing as a Digital Version of the Official Records, and if so, is there a Searchable Version of the Digital Official Records? NEVER MIND - FOUND THE RECORDS ONLINE. (Not Searchable)

 

[JohnG0609]

Just a wild question and a follow-up: Is there such a thing as a Digital Version of the Official Records, and if so, is there a Searchable Version of the Digital Official Records?

Not wild at all. There is. HathiTrust. I access it through the Cornell University site:

Browse | Cornell University Library Making of America Collection

collections.library.cornell.edu

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

Not wild at all. There is. HathiTrust. I access it through the Cornell University site:

Browse | Cornell University Library Making of America Collection

collections.library.cornell.edu

THANK YOU!

 

[JohnG0609]

THANK YOU!

Of course! HathiTrust has just about everything you want. B&L, CV, SHSP.

Also internet archives for OOP books

LOC Chronicling America
and
Newspapers.com
for newspapers

 

[gary]

Just a wild question and a follow-up: Is there such a thing as a Digital Version of the Official Records, and if so, is there a Searchable Version of the Digital Official Records? NEVER MIND - FOUND THE RECORDS ONLINE. (Not Searchable)

I used to have the OR and ORN, SHSP, CMH and CV on CD but since I moved I can't find them.

Ciivil War books can be broken down into several categories:

1) Campaigns & Battles (whether land or naval)
2) Autobiographies and biographies (soldiers 'n ginerals), diaries/memoirs, published letters
3) Unit histories (battery, battalion, brigade, division, specialized unit)
4) politics (Abe, Jeff, pro/con slavery, international)
5) material culture (guns, uniforms, hard tack 'n coffee type of stuff, ships 'n stuff)
6) social history

They cross over a lot and if you're studying a particular unit, you might have to read the brigade history or other regiments of the brigade. It might go higher to corps history and commander. This is why Dornbusch is so important. You can identify every book/article/journal that has something relevant to your research (finding them is a different matter).

Lucky is the (wo)man who lives near DC and can go to the library of Congress (read rare books for free). Lucky is the (wo)man who lives near a historical site/museum/university (or college) with a good library.

 

[redbob]

Welcome to the group and as I too am a somewhat rather beat up retired firefighter and from one dinosaur to another, it may help you if you decide on one particular field of interest and start from there. I went with Civil War artillery and built my reference library with that in mind. Regardless, good luck and feel free to call on the group with any questions that you may have. It's a good group of folks who don't mind sharing.

 

[DaveBrt]

I have put together biographies for 75 Confederate railroad officers and Transportation Agents. There are no bios of most of these men except below Please enjoy the whole site.

Biographies of Confederate Railroaders

 

[61Cadillac]

Thank you all for the excellent suggestions! I just added the The Bachelder Papers to the library and they should arrive by next week. I envision putting together series of essays at some point (once I can get a foundation of 15 or 20 well written ones together) starting a web/blog page and adding more as I write them. They say "The Internet is forever" so maybe that is how I end up leaving my mark on the world.

 

[Lisa Murphy]

Oh yes!!! Thanks so much for raising this, 61Cadillac. I look forward to seeing what you write. It is so much fun, researching and recreating aspects of the war. And a person just can't have enough books, can they? Thank heavens so many are available second hand, or I'd be broke! I'm a novelist, working on the 4th and final volume of a Civil War saga. Since, like you, I'm particularly interested in obscure corners of the war-- the forgotten, hidden, and less celebrated--I've a strange collection. Might not be of use to anyone else-- you'll find your own corners, I'm sure-- but here's the collection in pictures:

The whole kit and Kaboodle

Civil War medicine

Home grown camp newspapers

Pictural references

Riding with Stonewall's army. It's missing my all-time favorite book, Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Solider, The Legend by James Robertson because I loaned it to a friend, and you know how loaned books get cozy in their new homes and forget all about you.

The naval war... lots of emphasis on running the blockade.

A slave's experience of the war

Spies and spymasters

Women in the war

The Erie Canal in the Civil War... who knew it was so vital?

And my reading for my current chapters... Atlanta and Sherman's March... just got started on this, so I've a little space on the shelf to fill. (Oh boy!)

Yeah, ok, so a bit nutty, but is it any crazier than collecting butterflies?

 

[JulieWeathers]

In 4 years I am retiring from a 47 year career as a firefighter in a large metropolitan fire department. It's been a long ride and needless to say my body is pretty beat up. I have always been interested in the Civil War since my family took a vacation to Gettysburg for the 110th anniversary of the battle in 1973. Over the last 10 years I have started to collect a lot of reference materials, my corner stone being a complete set of the Official Records of the War of Rebelion, including the atlas. I have too many numerous books to list here now, and to be honest, until I get the bookshelves built this winter and get them in some order I'm not even sure what all I have. My question for the members who are truly entrenched in the research aspect is what other reference materials would you recommend? What good websites should I be scouring? I'd like to focus my research on individual soldiers and the lesser known events of the war. I'd like to bring aspects and people of the war back from being lost to time. The people and events who's stories are there but hidden in the records. Ultimately, my goal is to start writing essays on these people, events and topics. The stories withing the stories if you will.

You're going to get some excellent advice here. I like the Time Life Civil war series. I also have the Old West series. Over all, I think they did a pretty good job. Shelby Foote is one of my favorites.

I have over 600 Civil War books and I still find myself going to the Library of Congress and here when I'm researching.

I tend to like journals, memoirs, and collections of letters. Mosby's memoir was great. You can tell he was an attorney. Everything is painstakingly referenced and footnoted. Books like Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee written by his son was wonderful. Reading collections of letters written in the moment are much more valuable to me than books written 100 years later by "experts" who may or may not know what they're talking about.

I would suggest you form some kind of focus. There are thousands and thousands of Civil War books out there. It's a deep rabbit hole, as my sagging bookcases attest.

Good luck with the hunt.

Julie