For better understanding the most important event in 19th-century American history, NewsBank offers The Civil War: Antebellum Period to Reconstruction. This unique resource features more than 150 newspapers from all regions of the United States—plus approximately 50,000 government documents and 4,000 rare broadsides and pieces of ephemera. Together, this diverse collection of primary materials provides unprecedented local and national coverage of American culture, politics and society from 1840 through 1877—a tumultuous time that redefined a nation.

From newspapers to government publications to broadsides and ephemera
The newspapers in The Civil War include the Baltimore Sun, Charleston Mercury, Dallas Weekly Herald, Milwaukee Sentinel, National Intelligencer, New Orleans Picayune, New York Herald, New York Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Bulletin and more than 140 others. Featuring many titles of unique historical significance, this extensive selection of newspapers provides not only detailed news stories and illustrations, varied editorial views and illuminating advertisements, but also eyewitness military reporting by the nation’s best journalists.

Essential resources published by the U.S. government include “The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,” “Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America” and many others.

Rich with illustrations, the broadsides and ephemera include song sheets, poems, envelopes and other hard-to-find printed materials that shed new light on the Civil War era. These infrequently used documents—often no more than a single page—illuminate the daily struggles of not only the soldiers, but also the families they left behind.

Wide-ranging primary sources in one online resource
Created from the acclaimed Readex Archive of Americana, The Civil War: Antebellum Period to Reconstruction features highlighted search terms and article previews. Users can easily view, magnify, print and save digital facsimiles. All these primary source materials were selected from three authoritative collections: America’s Historical Newspapers, American Broadsides and Ephemera and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set.