A new adventure and tracing Civil War soldiers

Well, I have exciting news to share with you all. I began my new job on June 5 with the North Dakota State Archives, with my title being Reference Specialist. I am overjoyed at the chance to work again in archives, as it allows me to use my skills in a more intimate way to help people in their research. Much of what I will do consists of handling questions from researchers about our collections and trying to answer them by providing the patrons with the appropriate documents, photographs, or other materials. So far a number of these requests have come from genealogists, which I suspect will be the majority.

I want to use one example that links to the Civil War to illustrate how you can trace Civil War soldiers. A gentleman called the other day seeking information on a man buried in Slope County, North Dakota that locals say was in the Civil War in order to try and get a veterans marker for the individual. The only information I had to go on was the name as well as the birth and death years.

I worked with the gentleman over the phone and checked a couple databases on Ancestry.com, as well as a couple items from our holdings. Unfortunately, I was unable to track down records that would be needed to verify service and eligibility for a veterans marker, in this case either the service record, or pension file.

When beginning to trace a Civil War soldier, there are several things to keep in mind. One, record keeping at that time was nothing like today. Births, if recorded, were usually done in a family Bible, with the only usual methods at that time of knowing a person was born from a governmental standpoint being the federal census and applicable state censuses. Having the birth and death dates, as well as the state the person resided in at the time of the war will be helpful in navigating database searches to find your particular soldier.

Once you have this information, there are two important databases within Ancestry.com (the databases are also on FamilySearch.org, but may be under a slightly different name) that you will begin searching. The first is “U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865.” This database compiles basic information on the soldier (Name, rank, unit, state of residence, muster in date, etc.), but does have limitations, as names can be misspelled and it is not complete. That said, it is a useful starting point to eventually ordering a service record from the National Archives.

The other database is “U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934” is much more important in genealogical terms. It contains scans of the original index file cards for federal pensions issued to veterans, their spouses, or minor children. They are important because you will need the number to assist the staff at the National Archives in getting your particular pension file to prove service, but that file also has affidavits from friends and relatives, which can offer unique glimpses into that soldier’s post-war life. Getting the original service-related documents will be crucial to proving service and eligibility for things like a veterans marker if a Civil War soldier does not have one.

Other records you can also search to prove service are the various reports of the adjutant generals for the several states, many of which are now on Google books and in the public domain. These books contain the historical information of the units raised in a given state, as well as the muster rolls for the units. In addition, published regimental histories often contain said rolls too. Finally, archival facilities around the country house manuscript collections that contain diaries, letters, and memoirs on the war that are at varying levels of accessibility to researchers.

In the case of the phone call, the information on the deceased was limited, which made searching difficult. Further, the birth year recorded for him in our cemetery book for Slope County indicated that the person in question would have been at best sixteen in 1865. While young people certainly served in the war in significant numbers, lacking information about a possible unit stymied the search.

This brings me to an important point on researching Civil War soldiers as part of doing local history. In the case of my reference call, the caller indicated that locals claimed the deceased was a Civil War veteran. In practicing local history, one can sometimes find that what a community believes and what is fact are two different things. Now in this case, I am not saying that the individual did not possibly serve in the war, but that based on the information I had available to me, the likelihood was not as high. In recent years, there have been numerous cases of what is known as “stolen valor” where persons claim to be decorated veterans, when in reality, they either didn’t serve, or had military careers that did not involve direct combat or the earning of decorations for valor. It it possible that this person claimed to be a Civil War veteran? Maybe, but, just as with the initial question of did he serve, there is no direct, hard evidence to say for certain.

To summarize, researching Civil War soldiers can be a fun and rewarding experience, as you not only dive into an individual soldier’s record, but can then seek out the history of their regiment, which lists significant battles and events the unit participated in. Further, you can also read mention of significant deeds that some soldiers did. Examining the war from the experiences of the ordinary soldier has been popular for a number of years thus far (heck, my master’s thesis dealt with that subject) as we can relate better to the average person than the lofty people of a society.

I want to leave you with a couple helpful links to get you started on the journey of tracing a Civil War soldier.

• ND State Archives website on military records, which has several good titles noted on researching military records.
• National Archives website on Civil War records
• National Archives site on ordering pre-WWI records
• Dyer’s Compendium of the War of the Rebellion
• Official Records of the War of the Rebellion (Army)
• Official Records of the War of the Rebellion (Navy)
• Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (through the NPS)

Until next time, happy researching.

Skype-ing the Civil War with students, part II

What a great day today! The St. Louis Blues beat the Blackhawks to advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs and I was hired as a year-long sabbatical replacement at Northland Community and Technical College, which has campuses in East Grand Forks and Thief River Falls, so I am staying in North Dakota for another year. An added plus is that part of my forthcoming teaching load includes a class on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Needless to say, it has been an awesome day that started out with another amazing Skype session.

Just as with my first Skype session with Gary Kaplan’s group of History Club students in California, I again used this technology to do a brief impromptu talk on the Civil War. Today, I was privileged to be invited to speak to an eighth grade class from Andover Central Middle School in Andover, Kansas. Since it was a morning talk, I was able to broadcast from my home, allowing me to show off my musket to the students and discuss several topics, including how the war relates to today, medicine, training, and some of my experiences as a reenactor.

What was fun was being able to share my screen with them to show via Google Maps where I was in Grand Forks, in relation to their location, as well as some of my pictures from reenacting. I was also able to relate some of my personal interests into history with them, which has its roots in my dad taking me to Fort Scott, Kansas for a living history event when I was six or seven years old (we were stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas at the time). I also wore my sack coat for them too.

The students asked some awesome questions, including one who asked about how I researched my own Civil War ancestors. I also took the opportunity to have them do a bit of drill (mostly basic facing movements) and also described the medical examination, or lack thereof for joining the army. I also told them about women serving in the army, as well as children that served.

In a follow-up email, Dyane Smokorowski, who reached out to me to arrange the meeting, shared that the students were excited and talking about the experience. It is my hope that there will be an opportunity for the students to provide some guest posts here, as well as use this blog as a vehicle to ask questions about the war.

I want to thank Mrs. Smokorowski, as well as Heather Hawkins, who assisted with the technological aspects on their end, for allowing me to share my knowledge on the war.

Reenactress: Examining female reeanctors as soldiers

As some of you may know, I have been involved with Civil War reenacting for five years now, serving in units portraying both sides of the conflict over that time. While I am no expert by any means, I do appreciate anything that raises awareness of the hobby. From articles on clothing to a best-selling book that devoted space to the subject, there are literally hundreds of resources available to learn about this exciting activity.

One area within it that causes quite a debate involves female reenactors and the roles they should portray. There are those who believe that women should only be allowed to portray traditional female roles of the time, while others, myself included, believe that women, if able to look the part of the soldier and handle the requirements of taking the field (no, I am not trying to equate this with real combat, but the strains on the body are there) should be allowed to join the ranks with the boys if she is interested and wants to learn. I’ve been fortunate enough to be with units that have taught women to stack arms and had ladies kit up and fill the ranks for infantry drill at a public event when numbers were needed. With the training, they performed admirably and were as capable as the guys.

I say all this to bring to your attention an interesting project over at Kickstarter. J.R. Hardman, a reenactor, is attempting to produce a documentary about her journey into living history portraying a soldier to examine the politics behind exclusion of women portraying soldiers among some units, despite women actually serving disguised as men during the war, as well as examining the real history behind women’s contributions on the battlefield. The film Reenactress is being Kickstarted to raise sufficient funds to complete the film. It is also getting some early press via places like the Smithsonian.

I encourage you all to go and check out the film’s official site and its Kickstarter page and consider supporting this project, as it will surely raise awareness of the hobby and maybe get more folks interested in it and Civil War history.

On an unrelated note, this represents my 300th post to the blog.

Interesting thoughts about Civil War manuscript collections

To my readers, I want to apologize for neglecting this blog for so long and not posting anything for almost a year. I have not left blogging and am not done with this site, but life’s been quite busy with teaching and trying to finish a dissertation, so my free writing time has been limited. That said, I want to thank you all for sticking it out with this site and hope you will come back, as I hope to get back into it a bit more in the near future. I am always willing to consider new topics to write about, so let me know.

That said, I want to tip my hat to Kevin Levin over at Civil War Memory for sharing this interesting article from the Gettysburg Compiler via Facebook. Written by Kevin Lavery, an undergraduate student at Gettysburg College, while part of their Civil War Institute, this article on manuscripts and the right to be forgotten from history really made me think.

As someone who has worked in a special collections department for over two years now, I deal with manuscripts of all types on a regular basis, including diaries and letters. These sources, as Mr. Lavery points out, are quite important to researchers, but the ethical dilemma he raises does hold some weight. Some of what he raises about historians’ responsibilities in dealing with unpublished sources is important, as we are dealing with another human being’s private conversation and while that individual may be dead, the intimacy of the words on the page do not lessen because of death. This means that such words must be treated with respect.

Does this mean that we should not use them to understand the past? Certainly not, but it does mean that we must strive to avoid what is termed presentism, or applying the standards of our time to those of the past. My mentor from my undergraduate days always used the example of one of your descendants picks up a letter you wrote describing eating a juicy steak and recoils in horror. Though a little tongue in cheek, his point was that we do not want to be judged based upon the standards and values of a time we are not familiar with, so we should not judge those who came before us by our standards because their time held different values than ours in some cases.

As I read such sources, I always try to see what such writings tell me about the past, but I am uncomfortable with the pseudo-psychological role that some scholars take when evaluating sources, as we can never fully understand what another human being felt during a given event, especially when recalling it in a later writing. One of the best examples would be the field of military history. In writing about warfare, a scholar, who happens to be a combat veteran may understand, to an extent, the gripping accounts of battle written by a soldier long ago, as they share the same broad experience of being in combat. Yet, the differences would be in the nature of that combat, the personality of the soldier involved that wrote the letter, diary, or memoir, as well as the societal norms of that period. Sherman’s generalization that “war is hell” is as accurate today as 150 years ago, but the nature of war has changed in many ways since then.

In the end, it seems that Mr. Lavery’s analysis would argue that we should let the authors of Civil War manuscripts speak for themselves and perhaps respect their privacy a bit by not delving into nuances regarding such writings. These men, and women, were writing to loved ones about an important event that was shaping their very lives, no more, no less. For them, it was a matter of staying in touch with home during a time when mail was slow and death could be quick. When faced with one’s mortality, even as a younger person, and with the technological limitations placed on your ability to communicate over great distances, the very soul of a man may be poured out on a piece of paper, in an effort to not leave something unsaid to those back home.

I welcome your thoughts on this interesting subject.

Portraits of Wounded Bodies: Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866

If you are in the vicinity of Yale University, consider checking this exhibit out. I do want to warn that some of these images are quite graphic and show the horrors of war. To view the online images, click here.

Portraits of Wounded Bodies:  Photographs of Civil War Soldiers from Harewood Hospital, Washington, D.C., 1863-1866

January 16th-April 1st, 2013

Tours open to all on Wed. Jan. 23rd, 4 p.m., and Friday Jan. 25th at noon!

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Civil War raged throughout the United States, creating thousands of casualties.  On view now, the Medical Historical Library explores Civil War medicine through the haunting photographs of wounded soldiers.  Curated by Heidi Knoblauch, a doctoral student in Yale’s Section of the History of Medicine, and Melissa Grafe, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, selections from a set of 93 photographic portraits from Harewood Hospital, Washington D.C. are on display in the Rotunda of the Medical Library.  These images, some quite graphic, depict soldiers recovering from a variety of wounds, including gunshot wounds.  The soldiers’ case histories and stories, analyzed by Heidi Knoblauch, are part of a larger examination of medical photography and Civil War memory as America commemorates the 150th anniversary of the war.  In the foyer of Sterling Hall, the exhibit expands to include a larger discussion of Civil War medicine and surgery, including hospitals and nurses, using images and materials from the Medical Historical Library.  An online version of the Harewood Hospital photographs is available in the Digital Library of the Medical Historical Library.

This exhibit is on display at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, 333 Cedar Street. For more information, contact Melissa Grafe, Ph.D, John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History, at melissa.grafe@yale.edu.

Civil War Events Feature Minstrel Song Revival – ABC News

Civil War Events Feature Minstrel Song Revival – ABC News.

Pretty interesting article on a revival of Civil War era music via reenacting. I had the opportunity to listen to the 97th Regimental String Band while at Pipestone, MN a few weeks ago and they were a great group.

While I understand some of the discomfort over some of the lyrics used in the songs, we must remember that society was different 150 years ago and did not subscribe to the same values and attitudes that we might. Such events must be understood in their proper historical context and they can serve a purpose for reflecting upon the past to hopefully open a civil and honest debate about the issues of slavery and race in America’s past.

Kansas event to honor black Civil War soldiers – KansasCity.com

Kudos to Civil Warriors for this article on commemorating African American Civil War soldiers.

3-day Kansas event to honor black Civil War soldiers – KansasCity.com.

New online resource for Civil War primary sources

Hats off to my colleague Stuart Lawrence for sending me information about this source. I posted about the site SoldierStudies.org three years ago, which provides transcriptions of letters written by the men who fought the war. Now, Alexander Street Press has put together an online database of memoirs, diaries, and letters from Civil War soldiers and others. It looks pretty interesting, but the one drawback is that a 30-day trial is available, but then a subscription is required, which limits its availability. The scope of the collection, as described on the website, is as follows:

Perhaps the most exciting descriptions of events during the Civil War are to be found in first person accounts. Detailed firsthand descriptions of historical characters and events, glimpses of daily life in the army, anecdotes about key events and personages, and accounts of sufferings at home written for private consumption, provide an immediacy and a richness that are unmatched in public sources.

The Civil War was responsible for an unprecedented displacement of Americans, and this in turn resulted in an unprecedented number of letters. This also was the last time a major war was fought without significant censorship.

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together more than 1,000 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs to provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war, including what was happening at home. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies are included. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also. The materials originate from all regions of the country and are from people who played a variety of roles.

Using a thesaurus of Civil War terms we’ve built specifically for the task, researchers can quickly find references to individuals, battles, theaters of war, and activities. A chronology of key events allows the user to see multiple perspectives surrounding a particular event. This level of indexing is unprecedented. Questions such as “Give me all accounts of letters written about hospital conditions by Union soldiers in the Western Theater” can be answered in seconds.

The collection includes approximately 100,000 pages of published memoirs, letters and diaries from individuals plus 4,000 pages of previously unpublished materials. Drawn from more than 1,000 sources, the collection provides in-depth coverage of all aspects of the war. More than 1,000 biographies will enhance the use of the database.

The collection includes one of the most comprehensive bibliographies of Civil War letters and diaries yet published. It lists over 1,000 published and unpublished items from a variety of sources, including online resources and microform. Subscribers to the collection are encouraged to participate in the maintenance of this bibliography by calling our attention to omissions, suggesting additions, and notifying us of newly discovered materials.

I will check this source out more in the coming days, but wanted to put it out there for readers to consider. On a side note, we are closing in on 100,000 hits and I would really like to do that today, so help me out and thanks for your support.

Update on Civil War soldiers webcast

As posted last week, I participated in a webcast on Civil War soldiers, sponsored by the American Military University. Well, the program is now available to listen online, and you can also access the materials relating to the webcast.

Click here to access the webcast.

It is done, well almost

Exciting news for myself. My thesis is finished, at least for the most part. I received preliminary approval on Thursday, which means that no significant changes will be required by my committee on the draft. I only have a couple of steps left to complete my MA. I defend the thesis on Friday, July 11 at 11:00 AM (I will let you know how that goes on Friday). I also need to make any last-minute changes to the draft before submitting the draft to the Graduate School for a format check. Sometime early next week, I will submit a final copy to the graduate school for approval by the dean and if all goes well, I graduate on August 1.

Needless to say, I am quite happy that I am finished with this project. Illinois camps of instruction have been a passion of mine for four years. I began the research into Camp Carrollton, near my hometown of Jerseyville, Illinois. That camp was used by the Sixty-first Illinois Infantry from late-September 1861 to the end of February 1862. The camp was located on the Greene County Fair Grounds, which was similar to almost all other camps in the state. Eventually, the research became my senior paper as an undergraduate. Since then, I have presented a paper on Camp Carrollton twice at history conferences, as well as a paper dealing with the overall topic at the Northern Great Plains History Conference.

My thesis focuses on the transition from civilian to soldier, which the camps facilitated. The transformation took on three forms: physical, mental, and social. The physical transition encompassed the entrance into camp and the world of the soldier, with events like the medical examination, receipt of the uniform, and the beginning of drill. The mental transition focused on increased emotional expression in the soldiers’ writings as well as the learning of increased self-discipline. Finally, the social transition, which I found to be a more significant part of the transition, dealt with the soldier learning to become part of the unit. Soldiers engaged in many social activities in camp that brought them together as comrades. In addition, the soldiers ventured into the neighboring communities for attending church, dining out in local restaurants, and touring the sites. These activities, as well as the men leaving their camp, served to distinguish the soldier from the rest of society as a distinct social group.

Overall, the story of camps has been largely ignored by scholars. Most works I have encountered by historians that deal with soldiers focus on soldiers once they were in the field. I concluded that most scholars focus not on a civilian to soldier transition, but a soldier to veteran transition. Studying camps is important because to fully understand soldiers we need to know their story before they face their first battle.

In conclusion, I am quite relieved to have my thesis mostly done. I am a bit nervous about my defense, but am confident that all will work out. I plan to start my doctoral work in the fall and am currently not sure what I will write my dissertation on, but am looking forward to the challenge. As for whether I will have my thesis published in some form as a journal article, I will let you know when that comes about.

Review of A Civil War Soldier’s Diary: Valentine C. Randolph, 39th Illinois Regiment.

This review of mine will appear in an upcoming issue of On Point, the quarterly publication of the Army Historical Foundation.

A Civil War Soldier’s Diary: Valentine C. Randolph, 39^th Illinois Regiment. Edited by David D. Roe. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006. 290pp. Maps. ISBN-10: 0-87580-343-1. Cloth $35.00

This is one of the best-written accounts of the Civil War from a soldier for a diary or memoir. Valentine C. Randolph takes the reader on a journey from the small town of Lincoln, Illinois to the eastern theater of the war. Along the way, Randolph served in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina with the 39^th Illinois Infantry Regiment until his discharge in September 1864. The reader will find himself or herself feeling as if they are with Randolph both in camp and on the battlefield.

Randolph’s diary reads like most soldier diaries. Most entries involve commenting on the weather, battles, sickness (Randolph notes this quite often, as he ends up in the hospital for several months with apparent malaria), and daily happenings in the camps. However, Randolph’s diary has certain unique qualities that set it apart from other published sources and unpublished sources. Besides being a common soldier, Randolph is an educated soldier. The biographical section provided by Roe notes that Randolph attended the preparatory school at Illinois College (the alma mater of this reviewer), which gave him training in Classics. Randolph occasionally using Latin phrases in his entries evidences this.

Another interesting characteristic is Randolph’s religious devotion, which is interspersed throughout the diary. He typically mentions when it is the Sabbath and often mentions the church services and other religious events occurring while he is in the Army. The biography notes that he attended college after the war, earning his Bachelor of Divinity degree. He then became a Methodist preacher and eventually professor of Greek and Latin at a Methodist college in Illinois. This all supports Dr. Steven Woodworth’s assertion on the back cover of Randolph being “the most educated and articulate private soldier I’ve ever encountered by way of a diary or memoirs.”

Randolph’s entries are very much worth reading, as it gives a first-hand account of the journey of not only him, but also his regiment through much of the war. However, the commentary by Stephen Wise allows the reader to gain an understanding of the work well. This is a double-edged sword, as the reader is tempted to just read the commentary and skip the entries, which warrants reminding the reader that they are reading a diary from a soldier and not a regimental history.

This book adds to the overall scholarship available to historians and general readers on Civil War soldiers, which is a growing field in history. In addition to Randolph’s entries, the book possesses other good qualities. The book is well researched, containing many informative content footnotes as well as maps and an index, which aid readers in locating places Randolph notes, and, finding specific topics to use the diary for research. David Roe, the editor and Stephen Wise, the commentator, have done an excellent job of presenting Randolph’s diary to today’s readers. Randolph’s diary stands out as a wonderful source for readers to begin learning about the enlisted man. Military readers will connect with Randolph, as he notes things that many soldiers face in the field, like weather and battle. Overall, this book is necessary reading for Civil War enthusiasts.