The Ames family papers represent many generations of a family based in Milton, Northampton, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 18th and first half of the 19th century; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the mid- to late-19th century; and in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the late-19th and the 20th century. Civil War-era material includes diaries of Catherine Robbins, who described the news of battles as she heard them in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also detailed local reactions to the Emancipation Proclamation. J. Peter Lesley was traveling throughout Pennsylvania during some of these years, and his diaries have notations based on important political news. Additionally, some letters to Susan Inches Lyman Lesley from the years leading up to the Civil War describe meetings with friends who hid fugitive slaves and discuss sympathies for the actions of abolitionist John Brown.

This collection includes letters from Union soldiers, most in the Army of the Potomac, describing field conditions, battles, and military life.

Royal Pierce Barry enlisted in 1862 for nine months in Company D, Forty-fifth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers. In 1864, he married Eleanor (Nellie) Maria Jones. This collection includes their courtship letters and letters that Barry and others wrote while serving in the Civil War.

Under the auspices of the Schlesinger Library, the Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African-American women between 1976 and 1981. The project sought a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society in the first half of the twentieth century. Many interviewees had professional careers in such fields as education, government, the arts, business, medicine, law, and social work. Others combined care for their families with volunteer work at the local, regional, or national level. Some interviewees discussed ancestors who were enslaved or experienced the Civil War. Additional resources, including a keyword search of transcripts, are available via the Schlesinger Library Research Guide for the Black Women Oral History Project.

This collection documents four generations of a prominent Boston-area family. The largest body of papers are those of James Elliot Cabot and his wife Elisabeth Dwight, which describe life in nineteenth-century Boston and discuss the Civil War.

An abolitionist, reformer, and one of America's first women of letters, Child published an early antislavery book, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), that created a furor in Boston and helped attract many later famous, male abolitionists to the cause. She was on the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard (1841-1843), and became an increasingly outspoken proponent of emancipation as the Civil War approached. This collection consists mostly of correspondence, which includes discussion of the slavery issue, the abolition movement, and the Civil War.

This collection contains diaries by Mary Foster Bardwell, a relative of Cooke, describing daily life in Walpole, NH; her travels to Decorah, Iowa, in 1862 and 1866 to visit her daughter Sarah; the work of the Soldiers' Aid Society; and the Civil War.

Harreld was the daughter of Josephine Elizabeth Thomas, who was born a slave in Augusta, Ga., in 1834. This collection contains a transcript of Harreld's reminiscences about her mother.

Hart was living near Cleveland, Ohio, at the time when she wrote the diary that makes up this collection. The diary details her feelings during courtship and early in her marriage, her relationship with her mother, and news of the Civil War.

Joseph Burt Holt (1828-1899) and Julia Evelyn Rollins Holt (1829-1895) founded the town of Champlin, Minnesota; assisted freedmen in Jackson, Mississippi from 1868-1869; taught school in Atlanta, Georgia in 1875; and worked on Indian reservations in Lac Court d’Oreilles, Wisconsin, Los Pinos, Colorado, and Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, during the 1870s and early 1880s. This collection includes correspondence concerning the Civil War.

The Buck, Hall, MacMillan and Nevius family members in this collection were well-educated Methodists in Ohio and Pennsylvania. MacMillans and Bucks went to India as missionaries. The collection includes Caroline MacMillan Buck's travel diary, correspondence, and reminiscences of life in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the Civil War; and correspondence of and articles about her grandfathers: Dr. Edward Martin Hall, who lived in Ohio and had been wounded in the Civil War, and Philo Melvin Buck, a missionary in India.

Pomeroy was a nurse in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. This collection contains copies of letters concerning Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln and Pomeroy’s service as a nurse for their son, “Taddie” Lincoln.

Known as the "Angel of the Shenandoah," Jessie Hainning Rupert was born in Scotland and moved with her family to Ohio in the 1830s. Educated at Oakland Female Institute in Norristown, Pennsylvania, she became principal of the Ann Smith Academy in Lexington, Virginia, before moving to New Market, Virginia, where she directed the New Market Female Seminary. As an opponent of slavery and a Union sympathizer, she was ostracized by the townspeople; nevertheless she married Solomon P. Rupert (1823-1867) and throughout the Civil War provided food, shelter, and medical care to soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict. After the war she established the Cottage Institute, a boarding and day school for white children, and Woodworth Cottage Institute, a night school for black students. She later supported herself and her sons by lecturing in the north on her life as a Yankee in a southern town.

Abby Morgridge Sewall and her husband, Otis C. Sewall, lived in Chesterville, Maine, with their children, Augusta, Eugene, and Howard. Otis Sewall was appointed postmaster of Chesterville in 1845, acted as business agent for people away from the town, and had brothers who went west. Abby Sewall came from a large family in nearby Litchfield; she and some of her sisters had been schoolteachers. This collection consists mostly of correspondence, some of which addresses the Civil War.

Mary French Weir was the daughter of Clara Miller and John William French, who was chaplain and professor of history, geography, and ethics at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from 1856 to 1871. This collection includes Weir's correspondence, poetry, and writings, including four volumes and a transcription of a memoir entitled The Story of My Life: The Inner Life of a Human Soul, which includes reminiscences of the Civil War.

The daughter of Nancy (Duncan) and James Higson Ransom, Mary Rosamond (Ransom) White was born in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. In 1855 she married Samuel White (1832-1917); they had thirteen children between 1857 and 1881 and lived in Jackson County, Ohio, where Samuel had a farm and was a teacher. During the Civil War he served with the Ohio National Guard and was stationed in Gallipolis, Ohio. The collection consists largely of letters from Mary to Samuel detailing farm concerns, including sale of livestock, illnesses including the suffering and death of her son William, her loneliness, and other local news. It also includes a list of men drafted and a discussion as to whether the Samuel White drafted was her husband or an African American man.