8. Texas in the Civil War: Part A (Links to material about all or most of the Civil War era)
(Back to Civil War Table of Contents)
Suggestion: One might also find it useful to consult the list of documents and collections of documents at List 2, "Texas in the Nineteenth Century: General."
United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (1880-1901). There is much material about the military involvement of Texas in the Civil War. If you know the series, volume, and page number(s), find the section titled "Browse the War of the Rebellion by volume." Follow links and directions to the exact page(s) you need. If you do not have a specific document in mind, but wish to search for some name, place, battle, etc., having to do with Texas and the Civil War, find the section titled, "Search The War of the Rebellion" and choose "simple search." Enter your search term. At the next screen, scroll down to the page link or links. Link to document
United States. Naval War Records Office. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (1894-1922). There is material about the naval involvement of Texas in the Civil War. If you know the series, volume, and page number, find the section titled "Browse Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion by volume." Follow links and directions to the exact page(s) you need. If you do not have a specific document in mind, but wish to search for some name, place, naval engagement, etc., having to do with Texas and the Civil War, find the section titled, "Search The Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion" and choose "simple search." Enter your search term. At the next screen, scroll down to the page link or links. Link to document
Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Claugh Buell, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols., 1884-1888. Memoirs of war experiences by participants. Link to document
Confederate States of America. Congress. Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865. 1904. Seven volumes plus an Index. There are references to Texas and to how Texans voted. The following link is to a page that has links to each volume and a general index. Link to title page. Once you have clicked on a volume, use the "Navigator" button to find the data for a particular day. Note: The general index will only indicate in which volumes a subject is found. One must go the index of a particular volume for page references to detailed notices of various subjects. Problem: The "Navigator" does not indicate the page number of a particular day's data. One way to deal with this is to use the "Page image" function, which takes one to images from the printed version. To do an online search, there is a search engine for these volumes. To use it, go to this link. Then go to the drop down menu under "NOTE: Not every title . . . ." Select "Journal of the Confederate Congress (full text)." Then type in your search query in the box provided. Also, choose whatever search parameters you wish. Then click on the "Search" button.
Texas slave narratives. Twenty narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. They are included in this particular list because of their subject matter. In many cases there are few clues to the exact time period being discussed. To find these narratives, select the link at the end of this entry, then type "Texas" in the "Search Descriptive Information" field. Then click on the "Search" button. This will take you to a list of the narratives. Select a narrative. This will take you to bibliographic information about the individual. Then select "View Page Images" to read the typed transcript of the narrative. See note on the language of the narratives. Link to documents
Navarro County slave narratives. There are thirteen narratives at this site. They are included in this particular list because of their subject matter. Some are identified as being from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. Others are not so identified, although they probably come from that project as well. They are all in dialect. Link to documents
Troy Groves. "The Online Archives of Terry's Texas Rangers." This site contains links to diaries and journals, personal letters, and memoirs of members of The Eighth Texas Cavalry, plus official documents (among other data). Most of the material does not relate to events in Texas during the era of the Civil War, but rather to experiences of individual members of the unit in campaigns in Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. An exception (at least for its beginning) is the document that follows this one. Link to document
J. K. P. Blackburn. Reminiscences of the Terry Rangers. Written long after the events described. Blackburn tells of events from his youth in Texas to events in 1861 that influenced him to join Terry's Texas Rangers. In the process, he recounts how the military unit came into being. Most of the document is about his experiences in various campaigns in the war. Link to document.
Anita Dwyer Withers. Diary, May 4, 1860-June 18, 1865. Author, a resident of San Antonio, was married to a captain in the U.S. Army until he resigned to join the Confederate Army with the same rank in March of 1861. Almost immediately she and her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she remained until the end of the Civil War, at which time she returned to San Antonio. The Texas material, then, is rather brief. The content is mainly about personal and family matters, although there are some references to politics and the war. Link to document
Louise Wigfall Wright. A Southern Girl in '61: The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator's Daughter (1905). Author was the daughter of Louis T. Wigfall of Marshall, Texas. The book tells of her childhood in Marshall and of events through the end of the Civil War, when the author was a teenager.) Link to document
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