I have been looking for civil war blocks...not patterns. Want to know which blocks were common to do back in those days. I know they did monkey wrench, nine patch, hourglass, jacobs ladder....what else can I add to this list??

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?

Several years ago I had a book about Civil War blocks, the most helpful of any I saw before purchasing. Barbara Brackman, a great quilt researcher,wrote the book--I gave it to my son-in-law, who studies that era. There are lots of legends about the blocks, but Brackman tries to stay with the truth. Perhaps on Amazon, the book may be available. piecefully, the old one

Not really wanting to do a sampler, trying to decide what would be a good pattern to use my civil war fabrics I have accumulated. I like traditional quilts over the more artsy styles of today.

If you have Block Base you can do a search on civil war blocks and pick a date and all the blocks for that era will come up....

Quilt in a Day has a book with blocks called Underground Railroad.

Take a good look at a Dear Jane quilt. Any of her blocks could be enlarged and since that quilt was made during the CW the blocks must be authentic. Research antique quilts of the mid 1800's.

I bought two patterns when in Indiana last year but I think she had other kinds. There is a history professor at Purdue doing Civil War things. Her email is www.carolhopkinsdesigns.com.