The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consist of approximately 20,000 documents. The collection is organized into three "General Correspondence" series that include incoming and outgoing correspondence and enclosures, drafts of speeches, and notes and printed material. Most of the 20,000 items are from the 1850s through Lincoln's presidential years, 1860-65. This collection contains articles on the Emancipation Proclamation and the Lincoln assassination.

Alfred Whital Stern (1881-1960) of Chicago presented his outstanding collection of Lincolniana to the Library of Congress in 1953. Begun by Mr. Stern in the 1920s, the collection documents the life of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) both through writings by and about Lincoln as well as a large body of publications concerning the issues of the times including slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and related topics. The collection contains more than 11,100 items. This online release presents more than 1,300 items with more than 4,000 images and a date range of 1824-1931. It includes the complete collection of Stern's contemporary newspapers, Lincoln's law papers, sheet music, broadsides, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, letters, campaign tickets, and other ephemeral items.

The papers of vice president, senator, and representative Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who became the seventeenth president of the Unites States in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, consist of 40,000 items. The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, diaries, messages and speeches, courts-martial and amnesty records, financial records, lists, newspaper clippings, printed matter, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers relating chiefly to Johnson’s presidency.

The papers of U.S. Army officer and governor of New Jersey George Brinton McClellan (1826-1885) consist of 33,000 items. The collection spans the years 1783-1898, with the bulk dating from 1850 to 1885. The collection contains correspondence, telegrams, memoranda, diaries, writings, notes, military papers, McClellan family papers, scrapbooks, printed copies of speeches, articles and books, and other papers relating primarily to General George B. McClellan's Civil War service, particularly in the 1862 Peninsular Campaign in Virginia and battle of Antietam in Maryland.

The papers of Gideon Welles (1802-1878), newspaper editor and U.S. secretary of the navy under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, consist of 15,070 items spanning the years 1777-1911, with the bulk dating from 1820 to 1878. The collection includes correspondence, diaries, writings, naval records, scrapbooks, and other papers relating to Welles's work as editor of the Hartford Times; his activities as a member of the Democratic Party, later the Republican Party, in Connecticut state and national politics; his service as U.S. secretary of the navy; and his literary pursuits.

The papers of United States and Confederate army officer, lawyer, and Virginia state legislator Jubal Anderson Early (1816-1894) consist of 5,000 items spanning the years 1829-1930, the bulk of which were created after the Civil War. The collection includes correspondence, diaries, military papers, speeches and articles, clippings, a scrapbook, printed matter, and maps relating to his military, legal, and political careers.

The papers of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), army officer and eighteenth president of the United States, contain approximately 50,000 items dating from 1819-1974, with the bulk falling in the period 1843-1885.

This collection presents three manuscript volumes that document daily life in Washington, D. C., through the eyes of Horatio Nelson Taft (1806-1888), an examiner for the U. S. Patent Office. The diary details events in Washington during the Civil War years including Taft's connection with Abraham Lincoln and his family. Of special interest is Taft's description of Lincoln's assassination, based on the accounts of his friends and his son, who was one of the attending physicians at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot. Search this collection to find additional references to Lincoln and his family.

The papers of General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) span the years 1810-1897, with the bulk of the material originating between 1848 and 1891. They consist of approximately 18,000 items. The collection consists of correspondence, a volume of recollections during and after the Mexican War, military documents, printed matter, memorabilia, and manuscripts of Sherman’s Memoirs. The manuscript of the Memoirs and a long narrative of wartime experiences supplement the correspondence for the Civil War period. Other documents pertain to Sherman’s early military career, his activities as a civilian in banking, law, business, and education, and his life after retiring from the United States Army.

The maps and charts in this collection number well over two thousand different items, with easily as many or more unnumbered duplicates, many with distinct colorations and annotations. Almost six hundred maps are original manuscript drawings. This presentation contains approximately 2,240 Civil War maps and charts and 76 atlases and sketchbooks that are held within the Geography and Map Division, 200 maps from the Library of Virginia, and 400 maps from the Virginia Historical Society. Most of the items presented here are documented in Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress, compiled by Richard W. Stephenson in 1989.

The cornets and saxhorns that made up the all-brass bands of the 1850s remained a popular, though decreasingly prominent, feature of American wind bands through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War, in the field as well as for the entertainment of the officers. It is an unusual online collection in that it is not based on a permanent collection within the Music Division but has instead been created solely for presentation online.

The Civil War Sheet Music Collection at the Library of Congress consists of over 2500 pieces culled from the Library's collections. This collection is unique in that it offers a contemporary perspective from both sides of the conflict, unfiltered by generations of historical interpretation. Recurring themes in this collection include emancipation (represented by sundry polkas and quicksteps), constitutional reconstruction, reconciling the nation, and of course, songs heralding the Union or the Confederacy.

This collection consists of around 7,000 views and portraits made during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and its immediate aftermath. The images represent the original glass plate negatives made under the supervision of Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner as well as the photographic prints in the Civil War photographs file in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room. These negatives and prints are sometimes referred to as the Anthony-Taylor-Rand-Ordway-Eaton Collection to indicate the previous owners.

The collection of African American Photographs provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered, with scattered examples through 1945. Most of the images are photographs, including 270 cartes de visites.

More than 4,000 special portrait photographs, called ambrotypes and tintypes, and small card photos called cartes de visite represent both Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War (1861-1865). The portraits often show weapons, hats, canteens, musical instruments, painted backdrops, and other details that enhance the research value of the collection. Other photo topics include flags, city views, veterans, and ships. Among the most rare images are sailors, African Americans in uniform, Lincoln campaign buttons, and portraits of soldiers with their families and friends.

This collection contains more than 8,000 stereographs online, representing roughly 15 percent of the 52,000 stereographs produced from the 1850s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the collection dating between 1870 and 1920. The online images feature cities and towns around the world, expeditions and expositions, industries, disasters, and portraits of Native Americans, presidents, and celebrities

The Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library of Congress is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the collection comprises 28,000 primary source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompassing key events and eras in U.S. history, including the American Civil War.

The collections housed in The Rare Book and Special Collections Division amount to nearly 800,000 books, encompassing nearly all eras and subjects maintained in well over 100 separate collections. All of these collections offer scholarly documentation about the western and American traditions of life and learning.

The American Civil War Sesquicentennial Web Archive is a collection of websites presenting various projects and events in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. This anniversary is historically significant, and this significance is reflected in the number and diversity of the associated websites. This web archive will serve as a useful tool for researchers in studying the American Civil War and its memorialization. Over 200 sites comprise this archive.