Searchable Civil War Letters and Diaries

Additional Civil War Personal Papers

Explore Part I: "The Eve of War" Valley Archive

Explore Part III: "Aftermath" Valley Archive

Letters tell stories that no amount of data or newspapers can reveal. They talk to us from across time and space. No archive is complete without them. In the Valley project archive we have brought together letters from, about, and to our two communities. A mention of Staunton or Chambersburg in a letter of a passer-by or occupying soldier was sufficient for us to include the letter in the Valley archive. Any letter written out of or to Augusta or Franklin during the war is also included in the archive.

Unlike the letters in Part I of the Valley archive, these letters are marked up in SGML and are completely searchable. Through our collaboration with the Electronic Text Center at UVa, we have put these letters into this new and powerful format. The searchable archive in its first installment includes 148 letters of Civil War soldiers from Augusta and Franklin, comprising almost 1 megabyte of text. To search these letters by keyword, date, or subject, just choose "SEARCHABLE CIVIL WAR LETTERS AND DIARIES" and follow the choices from there.

To view other Civil War letters not yet in searchable format choose "ADDITIONAL CIVIL WAR PERSONAL PAPERS." Here you will find collections of transcribed Civil War letters organized into Franklin and Augusta County letters.