Civil War-in-the-West center to open in Kentucky

Western Kentucky University will soon be acquiring a state-of-the-art Civil War research collection that will focus on the War in the West, battles primarily in Kentucky and Tennessee. The center will also contain information about battles in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri.

The Center for the Study of the Civil War in the West, to which the university has agreed to fund $300,000 over four years, will contain the nation’s largest collection of letters, diaries, unit and regimental histories and other information on microfilm and microfiche.

The collection, which will be housed in the Kentucky Library, will also contain “service jackets,” which were cards carried by every soldier who fought in the Civil War detailing where they had been and what happened to them.

The collections will be open to the public ...

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