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GSBC General Meeting Recap — September 2014
Civil War Research
Presentation by Laura Congleton; Program Recap by Nancy Klujber
In recognition of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, the September meeting of the GSBC featured genealogist Laura Congleton, who spoke on “Researching Your Civil War Ancestors.” The Civil War was fought between 1861 and 1865 and more than two million people served in the Union forces. The Confederate States of America (CSA), consisting of eleven states that seceded from the Union, had over one million who served.
Despite draft riots, most who served were volunteers. In New York State, for example, 80% were volunteers. The remaining 20% consisted of:
1% – Draftees
1% – USCT (United States Colored Troops)
3% – Substitutes, where a draftee paid someone else to take his place
3% – Regular Army
4% – Paid commutation, where a draftee contributed money in lieu of service
8% – Sailors and Marines
Step 1 — Identify Possible Soldiers
The first step in researching your Civil War ancestors is to identify family members who lived in the United States during the Civil War and were of an age to serve.
Citizenship was not a requirement for service. Most who served were aged 18-25, but some were as old as their 50s.
Step 2 — Collect Information about Them
Before accessing any Civil War databases, collect as much information about your ancestor as you can to help you to distinguish your ancestor from others with the same name.
Some census records, including the 1910, 1930, and 1940 federal censuses, identify veterans and their wives, widows, and children under 18 years of age. 1890 Veterans Census was separate from the regular 1890 federal census and was not lost in the fire that destroyed the regular census. However, before the records were sent to the National Archives in 1943, the veterans’ schedules for states Alabama through half of Kentucky were destroyed. There are some fragments for those states. States alphabetically after Kentucky — including New Jersey and New York — are pretty much intact. Some state census records also contain information about military service. Many of these are available online at FamilySearch.org or Ancestry.com .
Union draft registration records, for all men ages 20-45 (age as of 1 July, 1863) and living in Union-occupied areas, can be found at Ancestry.com or at National Archives regional branches. The records detail previous military service and include those who may have previously fought for the Confederacy. All men in areas captured by the Union were required to register for this draft.
Step 3 — Use Online Service Databases
There are a number of free online sources for Civil War research, including FamilySearch.org , Google, and the National Archives site, Archives.gov . Records are also available on paid subscription sites, such as Ancestry.com and Fold3.com (free access at National Archives locations and Family History Centers, see page 3), and some paid sites are offering free access to records.
The National Park Service has an online Soldiers and Sailors database that identifies both Union and Confederate troops, including regular Army, volunteers, National Guard, and USCT. Information is limited, but it is particularly useful for information on African-American sailors.
Military databases generally give name, rank, and unit of service, but may have little or no genealogical information. As a general rule, Union records are more available and complete than those for the Confederacy.
The best sources of Civil War information are those databases that contain indexes and scans of pension files and applications. Files exist for everyone who applied for a pension, whether or not they were denied. Rules regarding pensions changed often. When pensions were first issued, the federal government gave pensions only to disabled Union veterans and to widows of Union veterans. Later all Union veterans could apply. If a soldier died unmarried, but was financially supporting parents, the parents could apply for a pension. Sometimes, widows who remarried lost their pensions, but many were later reinstated. Sometimes applicants may have had to show financial need.
Both Ancestry.com and Fold3.com contain Civil War pension indexes — and both should be checked, since one may contain information the other does not. Fold3 often gives more detailed information not available on Ancestry, such as full rank, muster in and out dates, and when and where the individual in question died, and has a powerful search interface. Other online databases include an index of U.S. pension applications of remarried widows of those serving between 1813 to 1911, and a 1 January 1883 list of pensioners who served in all previous wars.
FamilySearch.org and Archives.org have pension payment cards between 1907-1933 for Union Army and Navy veterans and their widows. These cards note the date and amount of each quarterly pension payment made by the federal government.
The federal government did not give pensions for service in the Confederate military. Confederate veterans who served in the U.S. military before and/or after the Civil War were eligible for pensions based on that service. Many Confederate states gave pensions to Confederate veterans based on the state where they lived — not where they served. If a Confederate veteran moved to a Northern state, they lost their right to a pension. If they moved from one Confederate state to another, they had to reapply for a pension. These pension applications are available in individual state archives. Some indexes or full images of Confederate pensions are available on Ancestry.com.
Step 4 — Locate Pension Files at the National Archives
The next step is to examine the pension files located at National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington DC. Files exist for regular military and for volunteers, and photo copies can be ordered.
Files for Navy survivors and Navy widows are available online at Fold3.com. Fold3 has started digitizing files for widows of Union volunteers, but only about 5% have been completed.
Step 5 — Work Backwards and Forwards from the Pension Files to Complete the Story
In addition to pension records, there are other sources of information on Civil War veterans, including:
- Service Enlistment Files — also known as rendezvous reports
- Records from ‘Old Soldiers’ Homes — these were retirement homes for elderly Union and Confederate veterans. Applications for admission often gave date of birth, rank, unit of service, battles the veteran fought in, and a notation indicating whether the veteran was buried in the home cemetery.
- Muster Rolls
- Veteran Databases Compiled by Individual States — Virginia, for example, has posted a database of all Virginians who served in the Confederacy.
- Compiled Military Service Records (CMSRs) — a summary of information from Civil War military documents, is available for Union and Confederate volunteers only, not for regular Army, Navy, Marines, and militia. The originals are at the National Archives in DC, but indexes are accessible at Ancestry.com. The CMSRs list units and locations where the volunteer served, but do not contain much genealogical information.
- Newspapers and Local Histories — some newspaper accounts and obituaries may not be very accurate, and often contain information only on more affluent residents.
- Libraries and Historical Societies
Assumptions to Avoid
There are a number of assumptions that should be avoided when researching Civil War ancestors. These include:
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If your ancestor was not identified as a veteran on an applicable census, he did not serve. |
Census records are unreliable, and not all veterans are identified as such. If an ancestor was of an age to serve, assume that they did until proven otherwise. |
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If an ancestor is not listed in a Civil War database, he did not serve. |
Many data bases are incomplete, or not available online. Understand what records your data base contains. |
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If an ancestor was a Civil War veteran and lived in the South, he must have been Confederate. |
With the exception of South Carolina, all Southern states raised troops for both the Union and Confederate forces. |
| An ancestor who served must have enlisted in the state where he lived. |
Many actually served far from home. Another unit may have been more interesting to them, or offered a better bounty. |
Always check as many sources as possible. More Civil War records are coming online every day. If you don’t find your ancestor, check back at a later time. Happy hunting!
Some Tips and Links from GSBC:
Online Records
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington DC is the primary source for Civil War records of the Union Army.
Many of the records of the Confederacy are available at NARA as a good number of these records were salvaged by Union troops and bought to DC. Some records, especially early records and draft cards, remain in their respective states and many of these repositories are putting their indexes online to help researchers.
Ancestry.com and Fold3.com are the primary digitization partners of NARA and both sites are accessible for free at NARA and NARA regional locations. (Ancestry LE is available on-site at the Bolger Heritage Center at the Ridgewood Public Library.)
National Archives — Research in Military Records: Civil War
Ancestry — Civil War Records Gateway
Fold3 — Civil War Records Gateway
Original Records
Original records, once located through the online catalogs, can be viewed in person at the National Archives in DC. See NARA’s website for terms, researcher registration, call times, and other rules of access. (Editor’s note that the majority of these records have yet to be digitized, and once they are digitized, they may be removed from circulation for preservation.)
These records can range from summary service cards, which list muster-in and muster-out dates and locations, to highly detailed pension and invalid reports, including original correspondence and affidavits from soldiers, friends, physicians, colleagues, neighbors, and family members.
Following are a few of the online resources available to researchers. Ancestry and Fold3
Records of Union Soldiers
National Parks Service — Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS) Database
U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865 (NARA>Ancestry)
U.S. Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 (NARA>Ancestry)
U.S. Census of Union Veterans and Widows of the Civil War, 1890
- https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1877095
- http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=8667
U.S. Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 (NARA>Ancestry)
Records of Confederate Soldiers
National Archives DC Guide to Researching Confederate Soldiers
Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
U.S. Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865 (Ancestry)
State Records
NJ State Archives, Civil War Service Records, 1861-1865
List of State Archives Compiled by NARA
