A Review of Civil War Gateway Sites
Ron Maggiano
October 6, 2003

“Life,” observed Forrest Gump, “is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.” The same may be said of so-called “gateway” sites on the Internet dedicated to the American Civil War. These large mega-sites offer links to a vast collection of personal, corporate, organizational, and governmental web sites dealing with virtually every aspect of the Civil War. They can be especially useful for students, teachers, re-enactors, enthusiasts and others seeking information on particular people and events of the conflict. A patient and thorough examination of such sights can produce a rich harvest of primary and secondary source material. However, serious researchers and scholars may find these gateway sights frustrating and ultimately counter-productive.

Civil War gateways, as they currently exist, offer a seemingly endless variety of material, much of which is aimed at students, especially those in junior high and high school. As such, these sites can be powerful teaching tools when guided by a competent instructor or syllabus. That said, it must be pointed out that most of these gateways subscribe to the notion that quantity of material trumps the quality of the information provided. This quantitative approach to Civil War history is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because the linked materials more often than not contain worthwhile and valuable material that is not readily available through any other medium. It is a curse because among the nuggets of pure gold, one is likely to encounter large deposits of iron pyrite – fool’s gold - that can easily deceive the unsuspecting student.

Even gateway sites maintained by academic institutions often fail to deal with problems relating to bias, authenticity, and interpretation of sources and frequently link to web sites that are more commercial than scholarly. A case in point is American Civil War, a gateway maintained by Dakota State University. The index page of this site contains links to over fifty categories of topics from Archives, Libraries, and Institutes to Women in the Civil War. Some of the links provided are truly valuable such as the Gateways link to numerous other gateway sites on the Civil War. (I used this page to develop the list of sites evaluated in this report.) The list of Archives, Libraries, and Institutes is a useful repository of online archival resources.

For all of its strengths the American Civil War suffers from a number of significant deficiencies. First, many of the links are out of date or no longer active. For example, a researcher clicking on the Center for Electronic Records, of the National Archives listed on the Archives, Libraries, and Institutes page will find that the page moved as of May 31, 2002! This reviewer was frustrated by several inactive links to important collections or documents. The larger the gateway, the more difficult it may be for webmasters to ensure the accuracy of the hundreds, if not thousands, of links.

Another problem with the American Civil War is that of bias. The catalog of Diaries, Letters, and Memoirs reveals an interesting and eclectic list of primary source documents. The provenance and authenticity of these sources is verifiable as each document includes information regarding sources. The problem is that we do not know how the documents were selected. Were they solicited or submitted voluntarily? What filtering mechanism was used to determine which documents would be listed and which would not be linked. In other words, what if any bias, was at work here.

One of the best aspects of the American Civil War ste is the Discussion Groups/Message Boards feature. This link provides unfiltered access to a virtual community of scholars, researchers, students, enthusiasts, and re-enactors who have been able to engage in serious conversations about a variety of topics. Such a cyber-community is possible in no other medium, and it remains one of the most interesting and promising aspects of this and other web sites.

Another academic site containing many of the same strengths and weaknesses is The U.S. Civil War Center operated and maintained by Louisiana State University. The focal point of this web site is the Index of Civil War Information on the Internet. While there is much valuable information here, accessing it is not always easy. Several sites are no longer available and a number of links connect to sites that are less than scholarly if not outright commercial. The problem of bias is also notable. Click on the topic Causes will produce a number of links, many of which reveal a strong “state’s rights” orientation. For instance, clicking on A View of the Constitution: Secession as Taught at West Point takes one to an advertisement for a reprinting of an 1826 textbook used at the U.S. Military Academy that uses a traditional state’s rights view of secession. From here one can link to another page The South was Right! and learn that the South was indeed right! Such examples might be more acceptable if they were balanced by opposing points of view. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case with the USCWC. Indeed, the majority of sites listed under “Causes” proclaim a state’s rights and pro-secessionist viewpoint, for example the Scholarly and In-depth Studies Secession, Nation Building link reveals numerous essays supporting the current Free-State initiative and other pro-state's rights propaganda.

This is not to suggest that the USCWC does not have something to offer. Its Beyond Face Value: Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency project provides an excellent virtual learning experience showing images of slaves and slave labor on Confederate currency. USCWC also offers an excellent essay on Evaluating Sources that will be useful to students and teachers. Like so many gateway sites, the USCWC offers something for everyone – and that is its strength and its weakness.

Yet another Civil War gateway is the American Civil War Portal, a private site operated and maintained by Michael Froesch. This site describes itself as “one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Civil War related material available on the Internet.” It represents a major achievement by a private individual and is one of the most often visited Civil War gateway sites on the web. While its search engine seems somewhat limited in its ability and its collection of documents is equally limited in scope, it nevertheless contains much that is worthwhile if not unique. For example, it's Photo Database contains thousands of photos from the collection of the national archives. This database is searchable and can provide the student and historian with many valuable images. Also available are lists of Most Requested Images, Most Requested Research Pages, and Most Requested Pages. The catalog of Letters & Diaries will be particular interest to historians and students. It contains a number of noteworthy entries including the famous Sullivan Ballou Letter. Yet again, one faces the problem of bias and interpretation in these documents. How they were selected and why Mr. Froesch decided to post them remains a mystery. Another problem with this web site is one of audience. Just who will benefit most from this wide-ranging yet eclectic collection of Civil War “stuff” is uncertain. Clearly students and re-enactors will benefit from the "Links Database,” a searchable catalog of thousands of web resources on dozens of topics. Likewise, the serious historian will enjoy Links to Dyer’s Compendium of Regimental Histories and Duke University’s excellent site on Women in the Civil War..

As with The American Civil War web site, this site also contains an American Civil War Message Board. Given the wide-ranging appeal of Froesch’s web site, the message board contains discussions of an equally broad range of topics. Here, Froesch has succeeded in building a virtual community of students, teachers, scholars, enthusiasts and others who share varying degrees of expertise of the Civil War. The messages and discussions are as interesting as anything found on this web site and they attest to the public’s enduring fascination with the War Between the States. In the eyes of this reviewer, this is one of the better aspects of the web as used here.

Several additional Civil War gateways deserve consideration. While these sites are less all encompassing in their scope, they nevertheless represent certain types of gateways that have found their niche on the web. CivilWar.com is a well-known web site frequently used by teachers and students. It contains much that is useful and practical but little that is groundbreaking or revolutionary. The viewer can navigate to links on various topics including Timeline, Battles, Places, Music, and Documents. A connection to outside Links is also provided, although navigation is somewhat limited. The website does present a search engine, but it appears that this scans the internet and not merely the website itself. Thus accessing information on CivilWar.com is more or less hit or miss in approach. The web site proclaims, "With the advent of the internet, we now have yet another tool to study every single event in this great period of American history." The tool, for the serious historian, may not be equal to the task.

Another site worth mentioning is The American Civil War Homepage, maintained by George Henry Hoeman, Assistant Dean of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This web site is uses a shotgun approach to Civil War history. Topics are divided by categories and the viewer can scroll through these various sub-divisions and simply hope for the best. No search engine is provided, so accessing information on a topic such as “Andersonville” is simply luck of the draw. The site is virtually devoid of any attempt at historical interpretation and is quite simply a patchwork quilt of related and not-so-related web sites on the Civil War.

Finally, one must consider the iconoclastic Shotgun's Home of the American Civil War. Anyone looking at the splash-page of this popular site will know they are “not in Kansas anymore.” Shotgun proclaims, "I am a Southerner by birth and a Rebel by choice. As I read and study, I pull for Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet. As I live, I thank Grant, Lincoln, and Democracy." Well, at least we know where he stands. In a Webmaster's Note, we learn that Shotgun is a.k.a. Dick from Herndon, Virginia. While he wears his Confederate heritage on his sleeve, he does succeed in providing links to a number of interesting topics, including Letters About The War. This section is made up of several never-before published letters given to Shotgun by various associates. The letters are, indeed, interesting; yet the same old problems rear their ugly heads. Why these letters? Why not others? Are they authentic? Are they complete? Of particular interest is Shotgun's Opinions that speak for themselves.

Given the brief nature of this survey, the question must now be asked – what if anything do such gateway sites offer that can not be found in a traditional literary gateway to the Civil War such as James McPherson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Battle Cry of Freedom. The answer seems obvious. At there best, web sites such as The American Civil War provide opportunities for researchers to encounter a vast array of resources that simply cannot be accessed readily in any other medium. More a catalog than a narrative, these gateway sites offer glimpses into the nether regions of the past as though a glass darkly. One cannot gain a full or even partial understanding of the full and enormous nature of the Civil War from these sites. Rather one sees snapshots of history frozen out of time and space. Composed of images, documents, and narratives, Civil War gateways do not in and of themselves tell the story of the Civil War.

Nor do they succeed in interpreting the historiography of the Civil War in all but a most superficial manner. Questions of cause and effect, analysis, judgment, and interpretation remain beyond the scope of most gateway websites. For this reason, such resources will remain the preferred choice of amateur historians and enthusiasts for the foreseeable future, while serious academic historians will turn to gateways only as a last resort.