About

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War on the horizon this blog will be presenting newspaper articles, letters, dairies, and photographs from the American Civil War as a means of telling the story of the men and women who experienced this tumultuous time in American history. The mediums used to present these stories have all been gathered from local sources that can be found at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls (UWRF) University Archives and Area Research Center, located in the Chalmer Davee Library on the university campus. The letters, diaries, photographs, and newspapers are all from the Area Research Center’s 4-county area in Northwest Wisconsin (Burnett, Pierce, Polk, St. Croix counties). Like many small-town newspapers of the time, much of the national news was reprinted from other sources. The letters, dairies, and photographs are from and of persons who lived in Northwest Wisconsin during this time.

Like the War itself, the blog will begin slowly and pick up speed as time goes by. All items are being reprinted on the date they either appeared in a local newspaper or were written, not when the event or battle actually took place. You will learn about the progress of the War days and even weeks after the events took place, not at today’s Internet-fast speed.