On this website is a set of indexes to published primary sources (books and periodicals) dealing with the American Civil War that I have created over the past fifteen years or so. This began when I was on the road a great deal and so would take along collections of letters or diaries to examine for various research projects. I began noting items that might be of future use to my students or myself but soon expanded the scope to create rough subject indexes for each volume or article. Included is material from soldiers and civilians, Union and Confederate, items produced by a single individual as well some more general compilations. At this point the collection includes over one thousand book indexes and a large number of indexed articles. The collection is growing, and I plan on making continuous additions.
Users should be aware of important limitations in these indexes. For one thing, they vary considerably in thoroughness and reflect items I found interesting or important. Secondly, I can lay no great claim to consistency in terminology, so users may want to browse as well as search. Many of the volumes indexed here have no index of their own or a very poor subject index. Other volumes have a more thorough and certainly a more professionally done index than I have produced. However, I do think there is value in bringing so many disparate sources together on one website.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions, corrections, and additions that might be made. My great hope is that these indexes may prove useful to students, Civil War researchers, and to anyone who has some particular interest in a Civil War-related topic and wishes to dive into the rich (and indeed seemingly endless) primary materials.
-George Rable