I have a book titled: Civil War Diary Quilt and another called The Civil War Love Letter Quilt. The blocks in these books are said to be inspired by the War and events happening locally and some further away from communications that were received. Blocks titled Will Virginia Secede, and Greatest Jollification, Soldier's Box, etc are coupled with a story that describes how the block came to be named. Each book has 121 blocks and I got them at Joann's.
It seems like the blocks in these two books may have originated from blocks like the wagon wheel, monkey wrench, dresden plate, north star and many of those attributed to the Underground Railroad and quilts from then. There was an earlier thread about the Underground Railroad that got pretty intense about whether or not the underground railroad existed and a disbelief about the use these blocks would have but that's another story :). Hope this helps get you started. Are you planning a sampler quilt?