A new Documentary Heritage of the Civil War from NUCMC has been gathered. The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) commemorated the sesquicentennial of the Civil War by compiling information about historical documents from library and archives across the country, complete with links to the historical societies and repositories of the materials.

NUCMC is a cooperative cataloging project at the Library of Congress that has been operating for many years. Their Civil War effort, entitled “NUCMC and the Documentary Heritage of the American Civil War,” can be viewed here.

The online presentation is the first of a five-year, five-part program highlighting Civil War collections for the sesquicentennial. The online information for this year focuses on the election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession crisis, the outbreak of hostilities, mobilizing for war and foreign public opinion.

The finished product,  “Documentary Heritage of the Civil War from NUCMC,” is available here:

Part 5, 2015 (“At War’s End: A Nation Mourns and Rebuilds”)

Final battles waged, surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln’s assassination, veterans’ organizations, and Reconstruction.

Part 4, 2014 (“The Soldier’s Dream of Home”)

The home front, women in the war, economic aspects of the war, the role of charitable organizations, and patriotic societies.

Part 3, 2013 (“Make Way for Liberty!”)

The sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and the African American experience from slavery to the end of the war.

Part 2, 2012 (“Gone to be a Soldier”)

Personal narratives of members of the Union and Confederate armed forces.

Part 1, 2011 (“A Southern Confederacy will be Formed!”)

The election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession crisis, the outbreak of hostilities, mobilizing for war, and foreign public opinion.

Of the project, Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum said, “With this timely commemoration of the Civil War, NUCMC succeeds in showcasing its work and demonstrating the wealth of materials in previously ‘hidden collections’ that we are interested in exposing, not just at the Library of Congress but at our colleague institutions nationally.”

NUCMC sought the assistance of eligible repositories in identifying and describing archival collections relating to the conflict. Eligible repositories must be located in the United States or its territories, must regularly admit researchers, and must lack the capability of entering their own archival cataloging into the bibliographic database managed by OCLC, the world’s largest library cooperative.

Give Documentary Heritage of the Civil War from NUCMC a try. And for more posts on Civil War research for genealogy, click here.