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Dig For Details About Civil War Vets

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By SHARON TATE MOODY

Tribune correspondent

Published: August 3, 2008

When an ancestor was a Civil War veteran, your search for information can lead to genealogical gold. The Civil War produced substantial records, starting with military service files and applications for pensions, both of benefit to family historians.

Service files will show when a soldier enlisted, any injuries and whether he died of disease or wounds. His widow's pension application may yield more personal information such as dates of birth, marriage and death, and details about why the pension is needed. Also included may be personal stories about when and how the veteran was wounded or died.

When those military records don't contain all the information you want, they will whet your appetite for further research.

I have five ancestors who served in the Civil War. Their military records barely contained enough material to allow me to write a few paragraphs in my family history. Certainly, their service and sacrifice were worth more than that. Each had spent four years fighting for the Confederacy. One gave his life and two others were left with disabilities.

Like many of you eager to know an ancestor's story, I hungered to understand what had happened to mine. I wanted to know why they fought in the war and what they experienced.

When the service and pension records didn't enlighten me, I knew I had to widen the scope of my research. I became a student of the Civil War in order to understand those four years in my ancestors' lives. The Civil War wasn't just about fighting. It was about disorganization, boredom, filth, bad food, disease and sporadic delivery of mail - always killers for troop morale.

Meanwhile, the first step in any search for a Civil War veteran is still the military service file because it will contain the basic facts, including his regiment.
Family historians tend to focus on records of individuals. But that approach needs to be scrapped when searching for the story of a Civil War veteran. To truly understand his life, you need information about what happened to his regiment.

Service records are held by the National Archives in Washington. To get an overview of what's available and how to get records, go to www.archives.gov/genealogy /military/civil-war/index .html. Follow directions on the site to locate your ancestor's regiment number.

Most soldiers served with companies and regiments formed within their communities. The regiment designation usually consisted of a state name, the kind of unit, and a number the government assigned, such as the 20th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

The service files won't give you personal and family information. They mostly consist of muster rolls and pay sheets, plus rolls that show individuals who were injured, hospitalized or died.

Many researchers see no benefit in that material and toss it aside. Don't fall into that trap; that is the material to guide you into more in-depth research.

From 1890 to 1903, the war department compiled regimental records of events from original muster rolls and company activity reports. You can take the description of those activities and movements of the companies within the regiment and combine it with information from your soldier's service file. That allows you to determine where he was and what he did during specific time periods.

If your ancestor was among the Union forces, you need National Archive microfilm M594, "Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in Volunteer Union Organizations." For Confederate regiments, use microfilm M861, "Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in Confederate Organizations."

When you begin writing your narrative, be careful not to state your ancestor fought in a particular battle just because the records show his regiment was at the site. If he was injured in a battle you can safely say he fought in it. If he was mustered with the regiment immediately before and after the fighting, you may "assume" he was in the battle, but be sure to write that is an assumption and why you made it.

One of my soldier ancestors was Joseph O'Neal who enlisted with Company F, 19th Alabama Infantry Regiment. His file shows that on Dec. 31, 1862, he was "wounded slightly" while his company was fighting in the left wing of the battlefield at Murfreesboro, Tenn.

In Joseph's 1898 pension application to the state of Georgia, he stated his injury was to his hip.

Muster sheets in his service record provide documentation that Joseph remained with his regiment at least through February 1864. Using archives records, I was able to trace the 19th Alabama as it fought from the Battle of Shiloh in Mississippi in 1862 to the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina in March 1865.

I made an outline of various battles in which the 19th Alabama fought, where they marched or traveled by troop trains and where they camped.

Another ancestor, Joseph Tate, joined Company C, 9th Georgia Infantry Regiment in 1861 but transferred to the 23rd Georgia Infantry Regiment in October 1863. In reconstructing his military career, I had to assemble the battles the 9th fought until October 1863 and then jump over to the battles the 23rd fought after that date.

Of course, the only one I can be absolutely sure of is the second Battle of Kinston, N.C., in which his service and pension files state he was shot.

Besides service and pension files, there are other materials such as letters and journals that can help you trace where your ancestor may have fought or what he experienced.

In upcoming columns, we'll explore those sources along with what Civil War troops soldiers did when they weren't fighting. We'll also look at the resources that can help you understand those four important years in your family history.

Write to Sharon Tate Moody in care of The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606; or e-mail stmoody0720

@mac.com.

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