Primary Sources: Civil War Effects

The Civil War affected Kentuckians in many different ways. Here are some primary sources -- letters, diaries, and personal memoirs -- that offer us a picture of how several Kentuckians in various circumstances experienced those times. Causes of the Civil War

Families Divided -- Many families were divided by the Civil War, as parents and children or brothers and sisters found themselves on opposite sides. The following letters and diary entries give a few examples:

• a father and son at odds over slavery
• a son's note to his pro-Union family that he has left to join the Confederate army
• a wife's letter telling her pro-Union husband that their son has left to join the Confederacy

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Kentuckians Fighting in the War -- A soldier's life was hard, be he Confederate or Union. Letters and diary entries by these men express their own hardships and their concern for the family at home:

• a Kentucky Union soldier's letter to friends, 1862
• a Kentucky Confederate soldier's diary entry at the Battle of Shiloh, 1862
• a Kentucky Union soldier's diary entry at the Battle of Shiloh, 1862
• a Confederate soldier's letter about the "Kentucky Campaign", 1862
• a Kentucky Union soldier's diary entry at the capture of Fort Donelson
• a Kentucky Confederate soldier's memories of life as a prisoner of war

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African Americans: Slavery and Freedom -- The Civil War was a turbulent time for slaves in Kentucky. They were not legally free, like slaves in the North, and even Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not affect them. Many slaves took the opportunity to run away to free states or to gain their freedom by enlisting in the Union army. The following letters and diary accounts by African Americans in Kentucky document these times:

• a letter from an escaped slave to her former mistress
• memoirs of a preacher working with newly freed slaves at Camp Nelson
• a former slave's account of slavery in Kentucky
• an African-American preacher's writings from a Louisville refugee camp
• a diary account by a Logan County minister whose slaves had run away

An excellent collection of primary source documents is the University of North Carolina's Documenting the American South: North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920. The goal of the project is to "document the individual and collective story of the African-American struggle for freedom."

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Women and Children at Home -- The battles, skirmishes, guerrilla raids, and food shortages that Kentucky experienced during the Civil War made the homefront almost as dangerous as the battle front. Here are letters and diary entries by or about the women and children who experienced these times:

• a preacher's account of his wife's wartime journey
• a letter from a sister to her soldiering brother
• a grandmother's recollection of a Civil War childhood in Owensboro
• a South Union Shaker woman's Civil War diary
• a letter from a mother to her son in the Union Army

The University of North Carolina's Documenting the American South: The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865 documents Southern life during the Civil War.