The Echo of Cannons

This morning, many Charlestonians awoke to the sounds of cannons, echoing the mortar fired onto Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.  These canons usher in the official sesquicentennial commemoration period, one that, for some, began with a Secession Ball held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in December 2010.  But what resources are available for those searching for ways to  “commemorate” sans hoop skirts and the strains of “Dixie?”

The Avery Research Center offers a variety of primary and secondary sources available to the public:

Primary Materials

Archival Collections

• Walter Pantovic Slavery Collection: These documents and artifacts span the African American experience from slavery to the Civil Rights era to the rise of African Americans in popular culture. Highlighted items in his assembled collection include shackles, slave tags, and manillas along with 1960s Civil Rights ephemera and 1970s African-American pop culture memorabilia.
  • Two letters from Union soldiers to loved ones that reference the soldiers’ attitudes towards the Civil War.
  • Artifacts, prior to and during the Civil War
• 19th Century Illustrations Collection: This collection contains selected images from Harper’s Weekly, New York Illustrated News, and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.
  • African American Individuals [Box 2]
  • African American Life and Labor, to 1865 [Box 1]
  • Military Images, 1860-1864+ [Box 2]
  • Cartoons and Stereotypes [Box 2]

Microfilm

• Records of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (Colored), 1863-1865
• Records of the Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War: Series F, Part 2: South Carolina and Georgia
  • Louis Manigault Papers, 1776-1865 [Reel 4]
  • James Henry Hammond Papers, 1835-1875 [Reel 9]
  • James Chesnut, Jr. Papers, 1779-1872 [Reel 16]
• Penn School Papers, 1862-1976
• Free South (Columbia, South Carolina), January 17, 1963-November 19, 1864: Includes The New South and The Palmetto Herald of Port Royal, South Carolina and The Camp Kettle and The Hospital Transcript of Hilton Head, South Carolina.
  

Secondary Materials

Vertical Files

• Civil War: 33rd United States Colored Troopers (1st Black Volunteer Soldiers)
• Civil War: General Information Regarding Black Soldiers
• Civil War: 54th Massachusetts Volunteers
• Civil War: 54th Massachusetts Volunteers — Re-enactors
• Civil War: 55th Massachusetts Volunteers
• Robert Smalls

Selected Books

We have a multitude of materials in our library related to the Civil War, which you can find with a subject search of “United States. History — Civil War, 1861-1865.”  Our reference staff recommends the following selections:

• African American History in the Press, 1851-1899: from the Coming of the Civil War to the Rise of Jim Crow as Reported and Illustrated in Selected Newspapers of the Time (1996)
• Borrowed Identity: 128th United States Colored Troops (2009)
• Guide to Tracing Your African American Civil War Ancestor (1997)
• Harvesting Freedom: African American Agrarianism in Civil War Era South Carolina (2004)
• “‘Liberty Dearly Bought’: The Making of Civil War Memory in Afro-American Communitites in the South” in Time Longer than Rope: a Century of African American Activism, 1850-1950 (2003)
• Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters: the 1st South Carolina Volunteers (2006)
• South Carolina African-Americans in the Civil War: Two Sides to a Story (1990)
• South Carolina Designated Regiments in Federal Service, 1862-1866: a Survey of the Research Required to Prepare a History and Roster of Those Black Americans Who Made Up the Five Infantry Regiments Raised and Identified with South Carolina in the Civil War (1997)
• A Voice of Thunder: the Civil War Letters of George E. Stephens (1997)
• Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families (2007)