This past Monday actor Robert Duvall sent news agencies buzzing when he said “he will help preservationists in ‘chasing out’ [Wal-mart] from a site near the Wilderness Battlefield” where they are planning on building a 138,000 square-foot supercenter (a fight that began last year).

Preserving Civil War history is an important, and sometimes contentious topic. In this post we bring you a host of Civil War related resources online, for use in the classroom, in research, or in one’s free time.

Perspectives on History
The AHA’s newsmagazine, Perspectives on History, has featured a number of articles on the Civil War over the years. Here we share a few:

• Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: Hollywood and the Civil War since Glory
  Gary Gallagher contributes to the “Masters at the Movies” series with a look at the different ways in which Hollywood has interpreted the Civil War.
• Public Education and the National Park Service: Interpreting the Civil War
  A look at the evolution of the National Park Service’s presentations of the Civil War, by Dwight T. Pitcaithley.
• The Past in the Present: Why I Became a Civil War Historian
  In this article from 1998, James McPherson talks about why he became a Civil War historian.

AHA Today
Here on the blog we’re always looking to bring you interesting resources (as hopefully this post shows), so we’ve touched on some Civil War related resources in the past:

• History Podcasts, Take 2
  In this second post on history podcasts, we point to the Civil War Traveler site, which offers podcasts for you to listen to while touring a number of Civil War battlefields.
• Women and War Resources
  While this post covered more than just the Civil War, it did point to an article by Jane E. Shultz, professor of English, American Studies, and Women’s Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis. Her article, Ten Common Myths about Women in the Civil War and How to Dispel Them, sets the record straight on 10 myths about women in the Civil War.
• Archivist Discovers Long-lost Lincoln Letter
  Back in 2007 an archivist experiences the thrill of discovery when unearthing a previously unknown letter from Abraham Lincoln.

Civil War Preservation Trust
For those interested in the latest in Civil War preservation news, see the Civil War Preservation Trust’s web site. Their annual list of Most Endangered Battlefields is now up for 2009. They also offer lesson plans and resources for the classroom.

Web sites
There are many high quality Civil War sites online, and we encourage you to share some in the comments of this post. Here are just a few worth checking out:

• Documents of Civil War Women
  From the Duke University Libraries, Women of the Civil War:  Rose O’Neal Greenhow Papers, Alice Williamson Diary, Sarah E. Thompson Papers, and links to more resources on the web.
• Teaching with Historic Places – Civil War History
  We mentioned the Teaching with Historic Places site in a recent blog post. While the web site contains information on teaching with many types of historic sites, they have a section specifically on Civil War History.
• American Civil War Manuscript Guides
  Memoirs, papers, letters, and scrapbooks are available in this online collection from Virginia Tech.
• Valley of the Shadow
  An online project featuring two American communities, one from the North, the other from the South.

Lesson Plans, photographs, and maps
And finally, self explanatory links to lesson plans, photographs, and maps:

• EDSITEment Civil War Lesson Plans
• Selected Civil War Photographs
• Civil War Maps

This post first appeared on AHA Today.