The Civil War: Antebellum Period to Reconstruction database allows searching across the entire database and by the specific nature of the materials being presented.
There is a useful link right below the general search box that will offer alternate names for battles. Given that the North and South referred to locations and battlesites by different names or changed the name once it was noticed that the wrong location was used, this is a very useful cross-reference list.
Upon entering a subsection of the database, additional collections of materials will appear in faded text. These are not accessible in this database. The link offering the ability to search All of America's Historical Newspapers will not actually work because Ottenheimer Library does not subscribe to the entire file.
Historical Newspapers offers a collection of historical newspapers containing extensive local and national coverage of American culture, politics and society during this tumultous period. Searches can be restricted by date, types of articles, languages, places of publications, and newspaper titles. The newspapers offered here include local papers not available in any other database offered by the library at this time.
The Broadsides and Ephemra collection is based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection, and contains song sheets, poems, and other rare materials covering a diverse range of Civil War topics. The collection can be narrowed down to Genre, Subjects, Author, History of Printing, Place of Publication, and Language. Each of those files then offers numerous additional sub-categories to further focus your search.
The Congressional Documents file offers a collection of Congressional documents spanning 1843 - 1930 based on Civil War topical content. Searches can be narrowed into three time periods: Antebellum, the War Years, and Reconstruction. Within each of the time periods, searches can again be focused by an extensive range of topics which are broken down by subject, geographic names, and personal names.
The traditional Boolean AND, OR, and NOT connectors can be used to combine search terms and limit results. They can be used as part of a search statement on the Simple search screen or selected from a drop-down menu on the Advanced search screen.