Research - Use Your Local Library

Without a doubt, one of my most valuable resources while researching material for I Will Give Them One More Shot was the research department of my local library.  The staff there was extremely helpful in tracking down multitudes of obscure books.  As mentioned in a previous post, period newspapers can be a goldmine of information when doing research. The folks at the research desk were able to obtain a multitude of microfilm rolls for old newspapers from libraries and archives from across the country, saving me precious time and money that would have been spent traveling to these repositories. Here are just a few examples of newspaper microfilm which I examined at the facilities of the Henderson County (NC) Public Library:

 

Atlanta Daily Intelligencer

Atlanta Gate City Guardian

Atlanta Southern Confederacy

Augusta Daily Constitutionalist

Columbus Daily Enquirer

Columbus Daily Sun

Columbus Daily Times

Columbus Weekly Times

Cumberland Evening Times

Macon Daily Telegraph

Macon Weekly Georgia Telegraph

Sandersville Central Georgian

Savannah Republican

 

Most public libraries can also provide their patrons with log-ins for various research sites. For example, the Henderson County Library is associated with the NC LIVE program (North Carolina Libraries for Virtual Education) through which I was able to access sites such as Heritage Quest (www.heritagequestonline.com) which contains census records and old books.

 

Lastly, one more fantastic online resource is at www.archive.org – this wonderful site contains a multitude of digitized public books which can be accessed by a fairly easy search engine. Among the public domain works to be found on this site, and which were used as sources in my book, are Isaac Hermann’s Memoirs of a Confederate Veteran 1861-1865, originally published in 1911, and Oscar Cantrell’s 1864 book Sketches of the First Regiment Georgia Volunteers. The books on this site can be either read online, or downloaded in various formats, such as .pdf, DjVu, or even Kindle. Archive.org can even find defunct websites using its “Wayback Machine” search engine.