University of Virginia Library

The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from the time of John Brown's Raid through the era of reconstruction. In this digital archive you may explore thousands of original letters and diaries, newspapers and speeches, census and church records, left by men and women in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Giving voice to hundreds of individual people, the Valley Project tells forgotten stories of life during the era of the civil war.