• 1. GUIDED TOUR
• 2. INTRODUCTION
  • 2.1 INTRODUCTION
  • 2.2 UNDERSTANDING THE STRUCTURE OF THE DATABASE
  • 2.3 SEARCH NAVIGATION BAR
  • 2.4 TABLE OF CONTENTS NAVIGATION BAR
  • 2.5 NOTES ON MARK-UP CONVENTIONS
  • 2.6 ABOUT THE SEARCH SOFTWARE
• 3. FINDING TOOLS
  • 3.1 FIND SOURCES
  • 3.2 FIND AUTHORS
  • 3.3 FIND EVENTS
  • 3.4 FIND BATTLES
• 4. SEARCHING
  • 4.1 SEARCH OVERVIEW
  • 4.2 FULL-TEXT SEARCHING
    • 4.2.1 Full-Text Searching
    • 4.2.2 Wildcard Characters in Full-Text Searching
    • 4.2.3 Wildcards and Boolean Operators in Full-Text Searching
    • 4.2.4 Punctuation and Full-Text Searching
    • 4.2.5 Selecting a Search Option
  • 4.3 FIELD SEARCHING
    • 4.3.1 Searching in Specific Fields
    • 4.3.2 Advanced Field Searching with Regular Expression Operators
    • 4.3.3 Punctuation and Spacing in Fielded Searching
• 5. FIELDS AND THEIR DESCRIPTIONS
  • 5.1 LIST OF ALL FIELDS THAT CAN BE SEARCHED
  • 5.2 FIELD DESCRIPTIONS WITH SAMPLE SEARCHES
    • 5.2.1 # of Days to Death
    • 5.2.2 Age at Death
    • 5.2.3 Age When Writing
    • 5.2.4 Allegiance
    • 5.2.5 Author
    • 5.2.6 Battle Location
    • 5.2.7 Battle Name
    • 5.2.8 Campaign
    • 5.2.9 Cause of Death
    • 5.2.10 Confederate Losses
    • 5.2.11 Confederate Missing in Action
    • 5.2.12 Confederate Troop Size
    • 5.2.13 Confederate Wounded
    • 5.2.14 Day of Month
    • 5.2.15 Day of Week
    • 5.2.16 Document Type
    • 5.2.17 Duration [of Battle]
    • 5.2.18 Editor or Translator
    • 5.2.19 Educational Level
    • 5.2.20 Ethnicity
    • 5.2.21 Battle/Event Description
    • 5.2.22 Gender [of Author]
    • 5.2.23 Leaders
    • 5.2.24 Marital Status
    • 5.2.25 Military Rank
    • 5.2.26 Military Status
    • 5.2.27 Month of Battle
    • 5.2.28 Month Written
    • 5.2.29 Occupation
    • 5.2.30 Overall Losses
    • 5.2.31 Parental Status
    • 5.2.32 Personal Events
    • 5.2.33 Place of Birth
    • 5.2.34 Place of Death
    • 5.2.35 Publisher
    • 5.2.36 Race
    • 5.2.37 Recipient Gender
    • 5.2.38 Recipient
    • 5.2.39 Recipient Relationship
    • 5.2.40 Record Number
    • 5.2.41 Religion
    • 5.2.42 Residence
    • 5.2.43 School(s) Attended
    • 5.2.44 Source Type
    • 5.2.45 Source Subject
    • 5.2.46 Subject Headings
    • 5.2.47 Survived War
    • 5.2.48 Theater
    • 5.2.49 Title
    • 5.2.50 Troop Size
    • 5.2.51 Union Losses
    • 5.2.52 Union Missing in Action
    • 5.2.53 Union Troop Size
    • 5.2.54 Union Wounded
    • 5.2.55 War Events
    • 5.2.56 Where Sent
    • 5.2.57 Where Written (Geographical)
    • 5.2.58 Where Written (Setting)
    • 5.2.59 Winner
    • 5.2.60 Year of Battle
    • 5.2.61 Year of Birth
    • 5.2.62 Year of Death
    • 5.2.63 Year of Publication
    • 5.2.64 Year Written
      
• 6. RESULTS
  • 6.1 OCCURRENCES WITH CONTEXT/CONTEXT DISPLAY
  • 6.2 LINE-BY-LINE DISPLAY
  • 6.3 SORTING RESULTS BY AUTHOR
  • 6.4 SORTING RESULTS BY SOURCE
  • 6.5 SORTING RESULTS BY YEAR
  • 6.6 NAVIGATING DOCUMENTS FROM WORD SEARCHES

A basic 10 minute guided tour that shows the major features of the database is available. Please CLICK here for more.

2. INTRODUCTION

2.1 INTRODUCTION

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries provides sophisticated searching across large numbers of primary documents, as well as table of contents access to a wide array of primary sources. It also provides a database of battles and events.

For novices who wish to get quick access to key documents, we recommend using the Tables of Contents and the Simple Search tools.

For scholars who wish to conduct in-depth searches we recommend using the Advanced Search, Memoirs Search, Diaries Search, and Letters Search tools.

2.2UNDERSTANDING THE STRUCTURE OF THE DATABASE

There are three basic ways to use the database.

• Tables of Contents -- Use these to see what's contained in the database. This is the best way to check whether an author, a source, a date is included. It's also the best way to examine what personal or historical events are in the database. To use this tool, simply click on the appropriate table of contents button on the navigation bar.
• Find Tools -- The "FIND" tools let you search for specific authors or specific works in the database. Find Authors returns a list of all authors that match your specific criteria. Find Sources returns a list of all sources (works and manuscripts) in the database. The difference between the "FIND" tools and the "SEARCH" tools (explained next) is in the results they give. The "FIND" tools do not return documents, but rather lists of sources and authors. Note the difference between a source (a collection of documents) and the documents themselves (items within a source).
• Search Tools -- The "SEARCH" tools let you analyze words and documents that meet your search criteria. The "SEARCH" tools return documents or bibliographic citations or both. In this database a document is defined as a month of diary entries, or a letter, or editorial matter.

The Search Navigation Bar lets you move around the database retrieval tools, including the Search tools. It is the same as the Tables of Contents tool bar, except that the Search tools are expanded, and the Tables of Contents tools are reduced. You can toggle between the two by clicking Tables of Contents or Full-Text Search in the mauve section indicated above. (The graphic above is just an illustration; it does not have live links.)

The Search tools are divided into five separate categories, all of which search the texts in the database and return documents:

• Simple Search - for novice users or those wishing to do a quick search. It provides basic searching
• Diaries Search - a moderate number of fields, restricted to diaries
• Memoirs Search - a moderate number of fields, restricted to memoirs
• Letter Search - specific field searching for letters only
• Advanced Search - all fields, except specific letter fields

The Tables of Contents Navigation Bar lets you move around the Tables of Contents tools. It works in the same way as the Search Tool bar. When using these tools, the Tables of Contents are expanded and the Full Text Searches are collapsed. You can toggle between the two by clicking Tables of Contents or Full-Text Search.

The Tables of Contents are divided into seven separate categories, all of which provide quick access to specific documents within the database.

• Authors - a list of every major author in the database
• Sources - a complete list of every source (work or manuscripts) in the database
• Months - every letter and diary entry organized by month
• Places - memoirs, letters and diary entries organized by where they are written, sent and their subject
• Personal Events - a list of key life events affecting authors, with all documents pertaining to each event
• Day-by-Day - a day-by-day breakdown of events during the war, licensed from E.B. Long.

2.5 NOTES ON MARK-UP CONVENTIONS

Materials in the database have been transcribed using original spellings and grammar. In some documents spelling is inconsistent, even within a sentence.

For more information on mark-up conventions, contact the Editor.

2.6 ABOUT THE SEARCH SOFTWARE

PhiloLogic, a suite of software developed by the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago in collaboration with The University of Chicago Library's Electronic Text Services, provides sophisticated searching of a wide variety of large encoded databases on the World Wide Web. It is an easy to use, yet powerful, full-text search, retrieval, and reporting system for large multimedia databases (texts, images, sound) with the ability to handle complex text structures with extensive indexed metadata.

PhiloLogic in its simplest form serves as a document retrieval or look up mechanism whereby users can search a relational database to retrieve given documents and, in some implementations, portions of texts such as acts, scenes, articles, or head-words. This same document retrieval mechanism serves as the basis for defining a corpus in a full-text search. One can, for example, either retrieve all documents in a database written by women from 1935 through 1945 or one can search for words or phrases within database which fit those criteria. The typical PhiloLogic search is broken down into five distinct stages: 1) defining a corpus (i.e. limiting a search), 2) word expansion, 3) word index searching, 4) text extraction, and 5) link resolution and formatting (e.g., SGML to HTML conversion). In other words, after defining a corpus (or one may search an entire database), one can execute a single term, phrase or proximity search. By looking up indices of the word(s) in a relational database, PhiloLogic extracts blocks of text containing the search term(s) with links to larger blocks of text. These extracts are formatted to display on a Web browser and sometimes include links to images, sound recordings, other texts, or even other databases.

In addition to simple word and phrase searches, users can perform more sophisticated searches by using extended UNIX-style regular expressions for complex wildcard searching and, in some implementations, morphological and orthographic expansion. All of these mechanisms to expand words can be combined using Boolean operators such as OR (the vertical bar "|") and AND (a space) within a variety of searching contexts.

Its functions were originally designed for scholarly research in databases of literary, religious, philosophical, and historical collections of texts as well as important historical encyclopedias and dictionaries. PhiloLogic handles notes so as not to interfere with phrase searching. Users can easily search words with diacritics (either by specifying accents or ignoring them by typing in uppercase) and non-Romanized scripts. At present there are some fifty databases on the Web under PhiloLogic containing languages such as ancient Greek, Latin, Hindi, and Urdu as well as nearly all Western European languages. PhiloLogic can also be set up to recognize or ignore manuscript notations such as different brackets, which can indicate spurious text or editorial emendations. Because the software recognizes typical text structures as real data objects, it understands units, such as words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, and pages, permitting very flexible searching and retrieval of these textual objects. Other full-text engines on the market search for strings of characters. Rather than searching for two words within the same sentence or paragraph (intellectual units), other engines must search for two words within a certain number of characters regardless of sentence or paragraph. With PhiloLogic scholars always know where they are in a given text since pagination can be displayed along side other objects. Such a high degree of indexing can lead to decreases in speed, PhiloLogic indexing has been maximized such that it is still incredibly fast on the Web.

For more information on PhiloLogic, contact Catherine Mardikes, ETS Coordinator, The University of Chicago Library.

3.1 FIND SOURCES

The Find Sources tool lets you find all the original works in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find out all the sources published by the Pennsylvania Historical Society or see whether a particular edition is included.

Practical Example:
Find all sources that have slavery as a subject.

• Click on the navigation bar to get to Find Sources.
• Enter slavery in the Subject field.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all sources that meet the criteria.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Sources see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

3.2 FIND AUTHORS

The Find Authors tool lets you find authors in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find all the authors in the database that were born between 1820 and 1830.

Practical Example:
Find all journalists in the database.

• Click on the navigation bar to get to Find Authors.
• Enter Journalist in the Occupation field.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all authors that meet the criteria.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Authors see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

3.3 FIND EVENTS DAY-BY-DAY

The Find Events Day-by-Day tool lets you find events in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find all events in the database that occurred in February 1864. This events database is comprised of the complete text of E.B Long's The Civil War Day-by-Day..

Practical Example:
Find all days in 1861 that discuss emancipation.

• Click on the navigation bar to get to Find Events.
• Enter 1861 in the Year field.
• Enter emancipation in the Description of Day field.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all events that meet the criteria.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Events see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

3.4 FIND BATTLES

The Find Battles tool lets you find battles in the database that match your specific criteria. For example, you can find all the battles in the database that were fought in 1861 with fewer than 1,000 casualties.

Practical Example:
Find all battles fought in the Jackson's Valley Campaign.

• Click on the navigation bar to get to Find Battles.
• Enter Jackson's Valley Campaign in the Campaign field.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all battles that meet the criteria.

Note: For a detailed discussion of the fields in Find Battles see the section on Fields and their Descriptions below.

4.1 SEARCH OVERVIEW

There are two basic kinds of searching in the database.

• Full-Text Searching enables you to do keyword searching for occurrences of words or phrases in the database.
• Bibliographic Searching allows you to create a set of documents for subsequent full-text searching. When you conduct a Bibliographic search, you are using descriptive fields to execute the search.

4.2.1 Full-Text Searching

Full-Text Searching is when you search for specific words or phrases that occur in the texts themselves.

PhiloLogic supports wildcard characters and Boolean (logical) operators, which are modeled on UNIX regular expressions to perform "pattern matching" in full-text searching. Pattern matching allows identification of a large number of words corresponding to a defined pattern. Wildcard characters can be useful, for example, in identifying cognates made obscure by affixes and vowel weakening, inconsistencies due to irregular orthography, and variations on account of word inflection as well as for discovering potential emendations for uncertain readings. The most commonly used regular expression operators (wildcard and Boolean) are listed below.

4.2.2 Wildcard Characters in Full-Text Searching

. (period):

matches any single character (e.g., gentlem.n will retrieve gentleman and gentlemen).

* (asterisk):

matches any string of characters, anchoring the match at the beginning of a word (e.g., cigar* will match cigar, cigars, cigarette, etc.).

* (asterisk):

matches any string of characters, anchoring the match at the end of a word (e.g., *habit will retrieve habit, cohabit, and inhabit), or in the middle (e.g., c.*eers matches compeers, cheers, and careers).

.? (period question mark):

matches the characters entered or the characters entered plus one more character in place of the question mark (e.g., hono.?r matches both honor and honour and cat.? matches cat and cats, but not cathedral, Catherine, etc.).

[a-z] (brackets):

matches a single character found in the specified range (e.g., [c-f]at will match cat, dat, eat, and fat) or any letters within the brackets (e.g., civili[zs]e will match both civilize and civilise).

# (hash mark):

matches capitalized words only (e.g., #bacon will retrieve Bacon, but not bacon). Otherwise word searches are case insensitive. Please note that this operator does not work properly in conjunction with the vertical bar (e.g., searching #hamlet|#bacon will not retrieve accurate results).

E (capital letter):

matches all accented and non-accented forms (e.g., to search naïveté regardless of accents type naIvetE).

Note: If you are using wildcard characters and would like to see a full list of the words matching your search-term, then run your search as a Frequency by Author search. The results page of a Frequency by Author search lists all the terms found in a database that match your search-term.

4.2.3 Wildcards and Boolean Operators in Full-Text Searching

• The vertical line ( | ) is the OR operator (e.g., avarice|greed or holy ghost|spirit).
  
• Space: serves as the AND operator in sentence and paragraph Proximity Searching (e.g., church state retrieve all cases where church and state appear in the same specified context; this is not the case in phrase searching).
  
• These expressions can be combined for more sophisticated searches; for example, searching
  old|aged|ancient m.n|fellow*
  finds any of the three adjectives together with the nouns man or fellow in the singular or plural.

4.2.4 Punctuation and Full-Text Searching

• Hyphens: Hyphens act as word separators. Thus, one should treat hyphenated expressions as separate words excluding the hyphen (e.g., if searching for all-powerful, type in all powerful).
  
• Apostrophes: One must include apostrophes when searching words with apostrophes in them (e.g., only by typing God's will one find "God's"). In this database apostrophes do not act as word separators. Therefore contractions and elisions must be entered without spaces before or after the apostrophe.
  
• Ampersands: The ampersand (&) is not a searchable character. Avoid Phrase Searches where an ampersand may be used as a conjunction and realize that &c must be entered as simply c.

4.2.5 Selecting a Search Option

PhiloLogic at this time offers two kinds of searches: "Single Term and Phrase Search," which is set up as the default, and "Proximity Searching in the Same Sentence or Paragraph." One may select and deselect a search option by clicking on the "radio" buttons.

For a fuller discussion see the PhiloLogic User Manual

4.3.1 Searching in Specific Fields

When entering search terms in bibliographic fields, as opposed to the full text search box, use the following Boolean operators: uppercase AND, OR, and NOT. One can use a NOT operator by itself (e.g., in the Type field enter: NOT editorial). It must be the first term in the box with no spaces preceding and it cannot be used with other Boolean operators

4.3.2 Advanced Field Searching with Regular Expression Operators

As in full text searching, one can use regular expression operators for more specialized searching. The caret sign (^) at the beginning of a word anchors the match at the beginning of the entry (e.g., ^child will find the personal event "Childbirth," but not "Adoption of Child). One can also use the verticle line (|) as a Boolean operator OR. With this operator one can exclude two terms from one's search (e.g., NOT adams|burr).

4.3.3 Punctuation and Spacing in Fielded Searching

When entering terms, punctuation and spacing must match exactly that in the fields. The following marks of punctuation produce a "Nothing found" message: ampersand (&), parentheses, question mark, and double quotes (""). If necessary for searching, replace the mark of punctuation with a period, which stand for any single character.

5.1 LIST OF ALL FIELDS THAT CAN BE SEARCHED

Here is a summary table of all fields in the database, showing which tool they can be found on. Detailed descriptions can be found below.

Search Tools

5.2.1 # of Days to Death

Description: This is the number of days before the author died. It is calculated from the day of writing and the author's death date. In the case of diary entries it is rounded to within 30 days. It is not used with memoirs, where the date of writing is unclear, nor when a date cannot be determined.

How to use this field: Key in the number of days or range of days in the box # of Days to Death. For example, 5 or 40-50.

Practical Example:
Find documents by authors 50-100 days before they died.
Click on the navigation bar to Search Texts

• Click on the navigation bar to get to Advanced Search
• Key in 50-100 in the # of Days to Death field. This will restrict the search to items written by 50-100 days before the author died.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all occurrences in context.

Back to Top

Description: This is the age when the author died and is calculated from their birth and death dates where they are available. This field can be searched using Advanced Search and Find Authors only.

How to use this field: Key in the age or range of ages in the box Age at Death. For example, 35-45.

Practical Example: See Age When Writing.

Note: To search for occurrences of letters or diaries where we have been unable to determine the author's age, key in 9999 in the field box.

Description: This field is the age in years of the author when a document was written.

How to use this field: Use this field when you want to restrict a search to materials written by an author at a particular time in their lives. It is particularly useful for examining changing perspectives over time, to explore differences in the vocabulary and preoccupations of the young and the old.

Practical Example:
Give me writings by men aged 10-20 where they use the word battle.

• Click on the navigation bar to Search Texts.
• Click on the navigation bar to get to Advanced Search.
• Key in battle*  to the Subject Headings field. By keying in the asterisk you will retrieve all words that begin with battle - like battles, battledore, battleship, battlefield, battlefields.
• Key in 10-20 in the Age When Writing field. This will restrict the search to items written by authors aged 10-20.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all occurrences in context.

Note: To search for occurrences of letters or diaries where the author's age is not known, key in 9999 in the field Box.

5.2.4 Allegiance

Description: This field indicates the allegiance of the writer - Confederacy, Union, neutral, switched or not indicated.

How to use this field: Use this field to restrict your search to authors with specific allegiances.

Practical Example:
You are looking for Union Generals described in the database:

• Click on the navigation bar to Find Authors.
• Select the option "Union" in the Allegiance field.
• Key in General in the Military Rank field.
• Click on the SEARCH button.

5.2.5 Author

Description: This is the name of the author of the letter, diary, or memoir. The same official form of the name is used for display regardless of the form the author used at the time of writing.

How to use this field: Use this field to analyze word usage or materials written by a particular author. To see if a particular author is included in the database, go to the Table of Contents: Authors. Names are entered surname, first name, middle name or initial.

Practical Example: Find all mentions of Fort Sumter in Mary Chesnut's writings.

• Click on the navigation bar to Search Texts.
• Click on the navigation bar to select Simple Search.
• Key in Chesnut, Mary in the Author box. For a list of other authors, click the Terms button to the right of the author field for a list. Use your Browser's back button to go to the Simple Search screen and key the name in.
• Click on the SEARCH button.

5.2.6 Battle Location

Description: This is the place where a battle was fought. The place name is often, but not always, the battle name. You will be able to either see details of the battle, or link to records written about the battle from this search. If you are searching for all the records from a State, please use the full State name rather than the State abbreviation.

How to use this field: Use this field to find information about where specific battles were fought..

Practical Example:
Find all the battles fought in a Charleston, South Carolina:

• Click on the navigation bar to Find Battles.
• Key Charleston, SC (note postal abbreviation) in the Battle Location box. If you are not sure of the location name, click on the Terms button to the right of the search box for a listing of geographic locations. Use your browser's back button to return to Find Battles and key in the location name.
• Click on the SEARCH button.

5.2.7 Battle Name

Description: This field indicates the battle name and includes alternate names for battles. The display name for the battle will be the same regardless of which alternate name is searched. You will be able to either see details of the battle, or link to records written about the battle from this search. The phrase "Battle of" has not been included in battle names. This version of the field is available only in the Find Battles screen. In Advanced Search this field also contains other historical events that occured during the American Civil War.

How to use this field: Use this field to find information about specific battles.

Practical Example:
You are looking for information about the First Battle of Bull Run:

• Click on the navigation bar to Find Battles.
• Key First Bull Run into the Battle Name field. If you are unsure of the battle name, click on the Terms button to the right of the battle name field box for a listing of battle names. Use your browser's back button to return to Find Battles and key in the battle name.
• Click on the SEARCH button.

5.2.9 Cause of Death

Description: This field allows you to search the controlled vocabulary of causes of death. It is a controlled field with a special vocabulary. These terms can be seen by clicking the Terms button to the right of the search box. This field is found in Find Authors and all the Search Texts screens except Simple Search.

How to use this field: This field can be used to find authors who died a certain way (e.g. from wounds, in battle, or illness).

Practical Example:
Find me all authors who died in accidental deaths.

• Click on the navigation bar to go to Find Authors.
• Key in Accident in the search box. If you are unsure of the terms, use the Terms button to the right of the search box. Use your browsers back button to return to Find Authors and key in the term.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of authors who died of in an accidental death.

5.2.10 Confederate Losses

Description: This field indicates the number of soldiers lost in a particular battle.

How to use this field: Use this field to find battles with specific casualty figures.

Practical Example:
Find all battles with between 8,000 and 10,000 casualties.

• Click on the navigation bar to Find Battle.
• Scroll down to the Confederate Losses field.
• Key 8000-10000 into the search box.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system responds with a list of all battles meeting this criteria.

5.2.11 Confederate Missing in Action

Description: This field indicates the number of soldiers reported missing in action.

How to use this field: Use this field to find battles in which a specific number of soldiers have been reported as missing.

Practical Example:
Find me all battles in which more than 500 soldiers were reported as missing.

• Click on the navigation bar to Find Battle..
• Scroll down to the  Confederate Missing in action field.
• Key in the search 500-3000.
• Click on the SEARCH button.
• The system returns a list of battles in which between 500 and 3,000 soldiers were reported missing.

5.2.13 Confederate Wounded

Description: This field indicates the number of wounded in a particular wounded.

How to use this field: Use this field to find battles according to how many soldiers were wounded during in a bootlegger battle.

Practical Example:
Find me battles in which fewer than 100 confederate soldiers were wounded.

• Click on the navigation bar to Find Battles.
• Scroll down to the Confederate Wounded search box.
• Key in 1-100
• The system responds with a list of all battles in which fewer than 100 soldiers were wounded.