Civil War Resources at Wilson Special Collections Library: African Americans
Primary Sources
The 36th Infantry United States Colored Troops in the Civil War by ISBN: 9780786468782Publication Date: 2012-07-31- Communication from secretary of war ... : Nov. 28, 1864 byPublication Date: November 28, 1864Communication relative to the recent impressment of slaves in the state of Virginia appears via letter of transmittal with title: Message of the president ... Nov. 28, 1864.
- Amendment to Senate bill (S. 129) to provide for the employment of free negroes and slaves to work upon fortifications, and to perform other labor connected with the defenses of the country byCall Number: 180 Conf.Publication Date: 1864Also fully digitized online
- Opinion of Attorney General Bates on citizenship byCall Number: So. Pam. 3693Publication Date: 1862Also fully digitized online
- Convention of the Freedmen of North Carolina : official proceedings byCall Number: Cp326.8 N87f1Publication Date: 1865
Secondary Sources
Theses
- "This Is The Point On Which The Whole Matter Hinges": Locating Black Voices In Civil War Prisons byPublication Date: 05-2016The story of military prisons during the Civil War is both tragic and incomplete. While a number of historians have done significant work in analyzing and revising the narratives surrounding military prisons and POWs, in depth examinations conducted from the “bottom up” have only just begun to appear in Civil War prison historiography. As a result, black POWs are largely deemphasized as participants in the conflict, consigned to a passive role as catalysts for political sparring between Union and Confederate officials. However, black POWs were active participants in resisting capture and enslavement, and vocalized their treatment in various mediums, particularly through pension file affidavits. Placing these sources in conversation with white POW narratives and various officials’ discussions of prisoner policy, it is clear that prisons played a far more significant role in the conflict than is currently acknowledged, and black POWs’ experiences were tragically emblematic of the Confederacy’s consistent use of racial violence and subjugation to maintain its existence as a white supremacist power.
Other Resources
- Slavery and Reconstruction--African Americans In North Carolina Library GuideA list of resources, both secondary and primary, from the African Americans in North Carolina Library Guide for Wilson Special Collections Library.
- Slavery and the Making of the UniversityThis digital exhibit discusses the contributions of the enslaved, college servants, and free Blacks to UNC. Wilson Caldwell and George Moses Horton are included in the site. Each section of the exhibit is accompanied by documents from the Southern Historical Collection and University Archives.
- North American Slave NarrativesThis collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and formerly enslaved published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920.
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