"Hidden Patterns of the Civil War" collects a number of interrelated projects on the sectional crisis, slavery, and emancipation during the Civil War era, with a particular emphasis on the histories of the city of Richmond and the state of Virginia.

Grouped as "texts" and "maps," these projects use digital tools and digital media to uncover and represent patterns that are not easy to find when we look at particular pieces of evidence in isolation and only become evident when we visualize a wealth of evidence in graphs, maps, and models. Revealing patterns in text and across time and space, many of these visualizations are intriguing and surprising, offering us new insights into this dramatic era of intense social, political, and military conflict.