Research Guides: U.S. History: Primary Source Collections Online: Military & Wars

Specific Wars

For resources on the American Revolution & Early Republic, Civil War, World War I, World War II, or the Vietnam War, select from the sub-menu on the left.

Other Wars / General Military History

Conflicts & Terrorism: Video from the AP Archive
Birth of the Navy
(Mariners' Museum)
Bosnian War (1992-1995): Intelligence and Clinton's Presidency CIA, State Department, Department of Defense & White House Files. 343 declassified documents dating from 1990-1997. Highlights the accomplishments of the Clinton Administration in brokering the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which resolved the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, and the role the Director of Central Intelligence Interagency Balkan Task Force (BTF) played in informing policymakers' decisions.
Digital Military Newspaper Collection
Contemporary and historical military newspapers from around Florida, Kennedy Space Center, Panama Canal Zone, and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (Univ. of Florida)
FBI Files on Counterterrorism
From the FBI Vault. Covers topics such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, September 11, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, and more.
Historical Firearms: Image Galleries from the National Firearms Museum Fifteen themed galleries display the museum's collection. Guns date from 1350 up to present-day. (National Firearms Museum)
National Security Agency: Declassified Documents
Naval History and Heritage Command - Digitized Collections Manuscripts; Action reports; Commander Naval Forces Vietnam; Naval Facilities Engineering Command History. (U.S. Navy)
The Nuclear Vault: Resources from the Nuclear Documentation Project De-classified documents, photos, info, related reading lists, and links related to nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon policies, nuclear crises, and nuclear proliferation (in the U.S. and around the world) from the 1940s through the present. (George Washington Univ.)
Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800 "The Papers record far more than the era’s military history. Between 1784 and 1800, the War Department was responsible for Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs (until 1798), as well as militia and army matters. During the 1790s, the Secretary of War spent seven of every ten dollars of the federal budget (debt service excepted). The War Office did business with commercial firms and merchants all across the nation; it was the nation’s largest single consumer of fabric, clothing, shoes, food, medicine, building materials, and weapons of all kinds. “Follow the money,” it is said, if you want to learn what really happened, and in the early days of the Republic that money trail usually led to the War Office. For example, the War Department operated the nation’s only federal social welfare program, providing veterans’ benefits (including payments to widows and orphans) to more than 4,000 persons. It also provided internal security, governance, and diplomacy on the vast frontier, and it was the instrument that shaped relations with Native Americans." (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University)
Pre-WWII Field Manuals (1920-1940)
Archival copies of field manuals in PDF format.
Spanish-American War Online Collection (Library of Congress)
Spanish American Documents from DocsTeach (National Archives)
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo Online Collection (Library of Congress)
U.S.-Mexican War
(Descendants of Mexican War Veterans)
U. S. Air Force Historical Research Agency
Photographs documenting the history of U.S. military aviation, including early Wright Brothers' machines and WWII images. Also provides organizational history fact sheets for divisions, wings, squadrons, etc., and historical studies of various recent operations.
U. S. Army Center of Military History
U. S. Army Heritage and Education Center: Digital Collections
(U.S. Army)
U.S. Mexico War Collections - "A Continent Divided"
Look at the links in the left-hand menu under the heading "Collections" for primary sources, including proclamations, letters and diaries, maps, and more. Other areas of the site contain secondary-source content, so be careful to distinguish between the two. (Univ. of Texas at Arlington)
United States Military Academy Library Digital Collections Extensive documentation of the history of West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, and Academy alumni. (U.S. Military Academy)
Veterans History Project The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. (Library of Congress)
Veterans Remember: Oral History Project
(Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)
Wilson Center Digital Archive: International History Declassified "Contains once-secret documents from governments all across the globe" in "the history of international relations and diplomacy," focusing on "the interrelated histories of the Cold War, Korea, and Nuclear Proliferation." (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
Women Veterans Historical Project Documents the female experience in the Armed Forces through letters, papers, photographs, published materials, uniforms, artifacts, and oral histories. (Univ. of North Carolina Greensboro)