Civil War Hand Writing

[Virginiacee]

I am looking for hand writing styles of the Civil War and would like to know if anyone here has any ideas?

I want to do a calligraphy piece for my son in law who is a member of the Civil War Reenactments in his area.
I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions. Thanks so much for help in this.

My great grandfathers both fought in the Civil War for the South. Nice to find this site. I think it will be fun to learn more about the Civil War and what folks say about it.

 

[LoriAnn]

Welcome!

I'll let the forum vets take this one first. However if after they reply, you'd like more examples, I can direct you to an ongoing project that involves transcribing era telegrams. You don't have to sign up to take a good look at these telegrams, and you'll get a nice feel for some of the handwriting of the time.

 

[Seduzal]

Welcome to CWT from the Smoky Mountain side of North Carolina.

 

[MRB1863]

Hello and welcome from 35 miles north of Gettysburg!

 

[jackt62]

Welcome to the forum. The only thing I can say about handwriting styles in the CW is that compared to today's lost art, calligraphy was absolutely magnificent.

 

[Frederick14Va]

Victorian era penmanship is a scholarly subject all on its own accord... There was no single standard of script style writing at the time... a host of different publications and schools taught various forms and methods thereof... that differ from each other to some degree... Many of these styles overlapped... and commonly depended on the era and education forte one received...

Most were evolutions or variations of the earlier "Round Hand" style... also "Copperplate"....
"Spencerian" was also emerging in the 1840-50's taught at some schools.... became much more popular and a typical standard in post war decades... Spencerian tends to be the easier one to study, since some of those penmanship books have been reprinted in recent years... Also more examples of it are still around...

The form of script-cursive our parents or grandparents learned was usually the "Palmer Method" (1880's-1950's).... Looking at WW-I or WW-II era letters is a good example of this....... This was later replaced by either the Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian method style that many of us were taught in school... when it was actually still being taught at least... These were much different and simpler as compared to the Civil War era vintage writing.... Lots of folks that learned cursive in school commonly still have trouble reading CW era letters and documents.... different format and verbiage style used...
Calligraphy, is actually something different... and more tuned to a embellished decorative style of writing... rather than what was more common in everyday use..

 

[chellers]

Welcome to CivilWarTalk.
Beautiful examples of handwriting can be found in the 1860 census records.
Perhaps someone can provide links.

 

[Aussie Billy Sherman]

Welcome

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Hello @Virginiacee, welcome to CivilWarTalk.

A few of us are helping transcribe Civil War telegrams.

While far from calligraphy or Victorian era script styles, you might enjoy seeing examples of war time communications at the site we're helping.
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/decoding-the-civil-war

I encourage you to jump in and help out with the transcriptions.

It's actually been very fun.

 

[Hunter]

I am looking for hand writing styles of the Civil War and would like to know if anyone here has any ideas?

I want to do a calligraphy piece for my son in law who is a member of the Civil War Reenactments in his area.
I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions. Thanks so much for help in this.

My great grandfathers both fought in the Civil War for the South. Nice to find this site. I think it will be fun to learn more about the Civil War and what folks say about it.

You could go to your state archive and ask to look at letters and journals/diaries from that period. As indicated above, you will find a very mixed bag of styles.

 

[Private Watkins]

Howdy-do! and welcome from Oklahoma...

A sample of one man's handwriting over a few decades shows how handwriting can evolve but in other ways stay constant, even in the case of Gen James Longstreet, who though naturally a righty had to learn to write left handed due to a war wound suffered in 1864. Here are some example Longstreet letters:

Resignation letter on May 9, 1861 (check out all of @Mike Serpa 's resignation letter series as a source for your project)
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/resignation-letter-5-of-7-james-longstreet.120287/​

Wartime letter to Gen Joe Johnston on October 5, 1862, shortly after the battle of Sharpsburg:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/letter-from-longstreet-to-johnston-oct-5-1862.115118/​

Letter in response to an inquiry on Appomattox, 1877:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/longstreet-remembers-appomattox.119943/​

And this thread contains a letter written to his son Lee in 1895:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/robert-lee-longstreet.110547/​

 

[James N.]

Welcome to the forums from the host of the Stonewall Jackson Forum!

 

[Waterloo50]

I am looking for hand writing styles of the Civil War and would like to know if anyone here has any ideas?

I want to do a calligraphy piece for my son in law who is a member of the Civil War Reenactments in his area.
I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions. Thanks so much for help in this.

My great grandfathers both fought in the Civil War for the South. Nice to find this site. I think it will be fun to learn more about the Civil War and what folks say about it.

Edit:
Just realised that I posted a link below which has already been mentioned. Still, you should definitely take a look.

 

[Waterloo50]

Hello and welcome.
You could follow the link posted by @LoyaltyOfDogs on this thread,
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/wanted-volunteer-codebreakers.125451/ there are literally thousands of hand written letters and codes.
Whilst you take a look why not have a try at being a Civil War code breaker.