KHS had previously worked with the University Press of Kentucky to publish documentary editions of twentieth century governors. Those printed volumes, however, only published a few hundred documents from a governor’s term. The complexity of Kentucky’s Civil War experience demanded a more ambitious undertaking. The larger scope of a digital edition allows KHS and CWGK to tell broader stories and connect public audiences with Kentucky’s wartime experiences. 

After several years of planning, active editorial work began in 2012. Project staff first identified relevant repositories, searched for in-scope material, and scanned documents. This work collected approximately 20,000 documents from late 1860 through 1865. Between 2012 and 2016,  CWGK not only  curated the documents, but they began the multi-stage process of documentary editing work–transcribing, coding, and proofing documents. 

In 2016, CWGK entered a new phase of editorial work, as it published its Early Access website and began the process of annotation work. Project staff uploaded the first 10,000 transcribed documents. Additionally, they began the process of annotating every person, place, and organization that appeared within those documents. Supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), CWGK hired graduate students from across the country to assist in the development of these biographies. Between 2016 and 2023, CWGK staff annotated over 3,000 documents, creating profiles for over 17,000 people, 787 places, and 1,000 organizations. 

Alongside the Early Access site’s launch, CWGK also hosted a symposium on Civil War Kentucky in 2017. KHS invited leading scholars from across the country to use the site to research their own questions about the Civil War Era, Kentucky, and the Border South. They came to Frankfort in June 2017 and later published their research in a special issue of the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 

CWGK staff have expanded the core work of the edition with the introduction of the annual Civil War History Day program in 2023. Each of these days connects scholars of Civil War Era Kentucky with public audiences, living the mission of the project to connect historians, good scholarship, and public audiences together.