Civil War Material in the South Carolina Room

This database lists the over one thousand items in the South Carolina Room Collection on the American Civil War. The bulk of the material is on the war as it was connected to South Carolina.  A variety of formats are included: books, pamphlets, DVDs, maps, vertical files,microfilm, and microfiche. The list is exhaustive, rather than selective. Inclusion of titles should not be seen as advocacy or approbation of the views expressed in the work. As this is a research collection, none of this material can be checked out or leave the South Carolina Room but youare welcome to come and use the sources at the Main Library. For most entries the call number, title, author or editor, and publication date are provided. Publishers were excluded for reasons of space consideration. With few exceptions, which will be explained below, each item is listed only twice, once in the “SCR-Full List” and once in its subject or format category.  The exceptions are with some of the format categories, particularly “Microfilm & Microfiche,” some items are listed under format and also under the appropriate subject. Several of the titles in “African Americans” also appeared in other subject categories.  The categories are as follows, each category is on a separate spreadsheet and tab.

SCR-Full List = That is just a complete list of all the categories and the entries on one spreadsheet.

SC General Works = Sources on the Civil War in South Carolina that are fairly general, not narrow to a single topic.  It also includes South Carolina material that didn’t fit any of the other categories.

Biographies = Lives of South Carolinians from the Civil War period written by someone other than that individual.

Letters, Memoirs, and Diaries = Collections of published letters written during the war by South Carolinians both on the home front and in battle. South Carolinians writing their recollections and memories of the Civil War, autobiographies.  Mary Boykin Chesnut’s Diary is the most famous of South Carolina’s published Civil War Diaries, but she wasn’t the only one to keep a diary during the War.

Unit Histories & Rosters = These involve histories of specific military units.  Not surprisingly in South Carolina, most are units with the CSA. In addition, though there are also several histories of US Colored Troops from South Carolina.  Rosters are lists of individual soldiers who served in a particular military company or unit.  Military units from states other than South Carolina are in ”Other States and General Sources” section.  

African Americans = Sources on the experiences of the African American community in South Carolina during the Civil War, as civilian and soldier.

Hunley & Ships = This category covers material on the first submarine, the H.L. Hunley; as well as blockade runners; ships; both Union and Confederate, in South Carolina waters.

Genealogy = Material useful for tracing a SC ancestor in your family history, who served during the Civil War.

Microfilm & Microfiche = Microforms are books, documents, government records, newspapers,etc. recorded on film. Microfilm is reels of film and microfiche is card size pieces of film. The South Carolina Room has three machines where both can be viewed and copied.  Print and microfiche versions of the same book are listed separately, to save confusion.  The publication date for microforms could be the copyright date of the original volume or the date of the microform publication, depending on how it was cataloged.

Maps, Audiobooks & DVDs = South Carolina Civil War information in those three formats.

Monuments & Memorials = Lists and descriptions of SC monuments and memorials connected to the Civil War, including ones to the 54th Massachusetts.   This section also includes materials on the current debate on whether Confederate Civil War monuments should be removed from public spaces.

Prisons & Prisoners = Prisons for Civil War P.O.W.s have a very dark reputation. In this section there are rosters of prisoners, memoirs of prison experiences, and general books on the topic.

Vertical Files = Vertical files are collections of unbound printed material such as newspaper clippings, magazine and journal articles, brochures, etc. These are arranged in files by subject.  The SC Room has three separate vertical files collections.  Charleston Vertical Files (CVF) are everything about Charleston County.  The South Carolina Vertical Files (SCVF) cover the rest of the state and the Biography Files (SCBF) are on famous and infamous South Carolinians.  Please ask SC Room Staff for assistance with the Vertical Files.

Other States & General Sources = Though the South Carolina Room focuses on material about this state, we do collect genealogy sources for the surrounding states of Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and Tennessee, which does include some Civil War references.  General sources aren’t specific to one state. 

Additional categories could have been added, such as Women in the Civil War or Forts, but it was felt there was enough subdivision of sources already.  Also, we didn’t want the size of the database to become unwieldy. Fiction wasn’t included, as it has limited research value.  Books with only a chapter or section covering the Civil War were not included to concentrate on titles where the primary subject matter was some aspect of the war.  

In each category, material is in call number order, except for those categories such as Maps and Vertical Files, which don’t have call numbers.  Toward the bottom of each spreadsheet is a Key, with explanations of abbreviations and codes.  For example, (J) is used to indicate a juvenile or Childrens book.  Appropriate items from the SCR Pamphlet Collection in the Charleston Archive, as well as some books were included in the database.  This database includes material in the Collection as of April 2022.  Updates to the database will be made when appropriate.

Marianne Cawley, SC Room Manager

May 2022