The American Civil War, despite taking place 160 years ago on a distant continent, remains one of history’s most evocative episodes.
The bitter conflict was fought principally over the issue of slavery. Around 700,000 soldiers died as the Union (the North) fought the Confederacy (the South) in a war which tore the United States apart between 1861 and 1865. Now, a new UK-led project will help tell the stories of British and other immigrant sailors - including some from North East England - in the American Civil War in ways never before possible.
The “Civil War Bluejackets” Project - so named because of the distinctive uniform worn by US Civil War sailors - is a collaboration between historians at Northumbria University and computer scientists at the University of Sheffield. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project launches next week on September 6, with a call for citizen volunteers to help transcribe tens of thousands of Civil War “muster rolls”, documents that were carried on board US ships and which capture the personal details of the estimated 118,000 men who fought on water for the Union between 1861 and 1865.
