The transcriptomes of four ginseng accessions such as Cheonryang (Korean ginseng cultivar), Yunpoong (Korean ginseng cultivar), G03080 (breeding line of Korean ginseng), and P. quinquefolius (American ginseng) was characterized. As a result of sequencing, total lengths of the reads in each sample were 156.42 Mb (Cheonryang cultivar), 161.95 Mb (Yunpoong cultivar), 165.07 Mb (G03080 breeding line), and 166.48 Mb (P. quinquefolius). Using a BLAST search against the Phytozome databases with an arbitrary expectation value of 1E-10, over 20,000 unigenes were functionally annotated and classified using DAVID software, and were found in response to external stress in the G03080 breeding line, as well as in the Cheonryang cultivar, which was associated with the ion binding term. Finally, unigenes related to transmembrane transporter activity were observed in Cheonryang and P. quinquefolius, which involves controlling osmotic pressure and turgor pressure within the cell. The expression patterns were analyzed to identify dehydrin family genes that were abundantly detected in the Cheonryang cultivar and the G03080 breeding line. In addition, the Yunpoong cultivar and P. quinquefolius accession had higher expression of heat shock proteins expressed in Ricinus communis. These results will be a valuable resource for understanding the structure and function of the ginseng transcriptomes.