The uses and value of military records in genealogical research for ancestors who were veterans are obvious, but military records can also be important to re-searchers whose direct ancestors were not soldiers in any war. The fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and other close relatives of an ancestor may have served in a war, and their service or pension records could contain information that will assist in further identifying the family of primary interest. Due to the amount of genealogical information contained in some military pension files, they should never be overlooked during the research process. Those records not containing specific genealogical information are of historic value and should be included in any overall research design. The wars considered in this site are grouped as follows:
At least the remnants of records exist for every war that the colonies and states were involved in; but, as with other records maintained in the United States during the first centuries of its existence, there is little uniformity of content or style in those records.
Service records of soldiers in the colonial wars have more historical than genealogical information and usually provide only the name of the soldier and the colonial unit in which he served. They consist primarily of rosters, rolls, and lists that survived the wars and several fires. Most of these rosters and rolls have been published and can be found in genealogical and historical libraries throughout the nation.
Despite the scanty genealogical information these records provide, you should not ignore them. They may be sparse, but few records in general exist for that period to help locate an ancestor. The presence of a soldier in a particular unit may be a valuable clue to his place of residence as well as useful in identifying his family in other records of the same location, even though there may be problems in distinguishing between two or more soldiers with the same name.
Revolutionary War and Frontier Conflicts (1775–1811)
Some of the original service records of the Revolutionary War were destroyed by fire, but those remaining are on file at the National Archives, compiled primarily from rosters and rolls of soldiers serving in the Continental Army, state lines, and militia units, with additions from correspondence and filed reports of military officers. These service records contain much more genealogical information than colonial records: name, rank, and military organization of the soldier. Included in some records are the name of the state from which the soldier served; the date that his name appears on one or more of the rolls; sometimes the date or dates of his enlistment, or the date of his appointment; and, rarely, the date of his separation from the service. His physical description, date and place of birth, residence at the time of enlistment, and other personal details are also included in some categories.
Revolutionary war service records are indexed. Most of the indexes have been microfilmed, and many libraries have copies. The service records themselves can be searched at the National Archives and its regional archives or at the Family History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its family history centers, and at other research libraries.
Genealogists who have access to the microfilmed records can search them more efficiently by following the guide in table 9-1. Those using the collection of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City or one of its family history centers should check the Military Records Register for the appropriate call numbers for the above microfilms. The collection of the Family History Library is almost as large as that of the National Archives, making these records more widely available throughout the United States, especially since the NARA interlibrary loan program for microfilmed military records has been discontinued. Copies of individual records can, however, be obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. Patrons must use the current NATF Form 80 to request a particular record.
Three types of records are available from NARA: (1) pensions (2) bounty-land warrant applications, and (3) military service records. A search of these records cannot be completed without the full name of the veteran, his branch of service, the state from which he served, and the war in which he served. You may also use this form to request records pertaining to soldiers of other wars prior to World War II. Expect a six-to-eight week processing time before you receive the records.
Many revolutionary war roster lists and other service records have been published. For a list of titles available in many genealogical library collections, consult the chapter bibliography.
Loyalists and German Auxiliary Troops
Many American colonists retained their allegiance to the British crown. Known as Loyalists, they probably comprised about one third of the colonial population. In some areas they may have been in the majority. Some of them simply refused to support the revolutionary cause. Others took up arms against it. With the defeat of the British, many fled to other points of the Empire, notably to what was called Canada West (Ontario) and the Canadian Maritime Provinces.
The British forces were also augmented by a large contingent of German auxiliaries imported to America to help suppress the rebellion. Inaccurately labeled mercenaries or Hessians, these troops originated not only from Hessen Kassel and Hessen Hanau, but also from Braunschweig, Ansbach-Bayreuth, Waldeck, and Anhalt-Zerbst. Perhaps as many as 7,000 of the nearly 32,000 German auxiliary troops remained in North America.
Post-Revolutionary Wars (1812–48)
There are service records for the War of 1812, Indian Wars, and the Mexican War. The information included, similar to that in the service records of soldiers in the colonial wars and the Revolutionary War, has been indexed and microfilmed. If a personal search of the microfilmed indexes at the National Archives, the Family History Library, or elsewhere is not possible, you can request a search of the indexes of the National Archives using NATF form 80.
During the Mexican War, special units came from the Indian nations, the Mormons (Mormon Battalion) and New Mexico (Santa Fe Battalion of the Missouri Mounted Volunteers). Each of these units compiled its own records.
Civil War (1861–65)
Union Service Records
Union Army records contain enlistment papers, muster rolls, prisoner-of-war papers, death reports, and others. The records are indexed by state and by military units for those units organized within a specific state. You must know the state in which a soldier served or the unit with which he served to obtain his service records. Note that there is a separate index for soldiers in the United States Colored Troops (USCT), which encompassed black troops from all states.
Enlistment papers often contain a description of the soldier and the place where he enlisted. Typically, though not necessarily, a soldier enlisted near his home. This information can be valuable in helping you pinpoint the movements of an ancestor between 1850 and 1880, when pioneers were on the move in great numbers.
The National Archives will search its index to service records if you know the branch of service and the state from which a soldier served in the Civil War. Use NATF Form 80 to request Civil War service records for the Union Army. There are microfilmed copies of the indexes at the National Archives and its regional archives, the Family History Library and its family history centers, and at various other libraries throughout the country. The actual service records are available, however, only at the National Archives.
Civil War Soldier Draft Records, 1863–65. The U.S. government enacted a draft in March 1863, creating a pool of men age twenty to forty-five who were subject to conscription. Assuming they were physically fit, the law affected white citizens as well as most aliens who had declared their intention to naturalize.
Civil War (1861–65) Confederate Service Records
When Richmond was evacuated by the Confederate government in April 1865, the centralized military personnel records of the Confederate Army were taken to Charlotte, North Carolina, by the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General, Samuel Cooper. When the Confederate civil authorities left Charlotte after agreeing to an armistice between the armies in North Carolina, President Jefferson Davis instructed Cooper to turn the records over, if necessary, to “the enemy, as essential to the history of the struggle.” When General Joseph E. Johnston learned, after the armistice, that the records were at Charlotte, he turned them over to the Union Commander in North Carolina, saying, “As they will furnish valuable materials for history, I am anxious for their preservation, and doubt not that you are too.”
The Confederate records surrendered or captured at the end of the war and taken to Washington, D.C., have been augmented by other records collected or copied in later years. In 1903, the War Department began to compile a service record for each soldier by copying the entries pertaining to him in these records. The result is an immense file of “compiled military service records” from which inquiries about Confederate soldiers are answered. Because of the efforts made over many years to incorporate all available information into this file, it is by far the most complete and accurate source of information about Confederate soldiers.
This file is accessed through the massive consolidated index to Confederate soldiers (NARA microfilm publication M1290), contained on 535 rolls of microfilm. If no record can be located by using this index, there is another set of Confederate records: those which were never identified as pertaining to a specific soldier or were not used in compiling the service records when the government ceased that project.
The compiled military service record of a Confederate soldier consists of one or more card abstracts and usually one or more original documents. Each card abstract entry comes from such original records as Confederate muster rolls, returns, descriptive rolls, and Union prison and parole records. If the original record of a soldier’s service was complete, the card abstracts may serve to trace his service from beginning to end, but they normally do little more than account for where he was at a given time. The compiled military service record may provide the following information of genealogical interest: age, place of enlistment, places served, place of discharge or death, and often, physical description.
The original Confederate records from which the cards were made are among the holdings of the National Archives. Microfilm copies of all indexes and some records are available at the National Archives and at the Family History Library. The index will provide the rank, unit, and name of the soldier, and the pertinent file can then be ordered from the National Archives.
The National Archives also compiled histories of Confederate military units and vessels (M861). They are arranged alphabetically by state and then by unit.
Because prisoner exchanges late in the Civil War were not working, approximately 28,000 Confederate soldiers, sailors, and citizens died in the North. While federal legislation from 1867 to 1873 provided for the reburial of Union soldiers in national cemeteries and for durable headstones, this early legislation made no specific provision for Confederate dead. Their graves were sometimes given thin headstones with a grave number and the soldier’s name. Many of the non-Union graves, however, were marked with wooden headboards that disintegrated, although the names were often preserved in cemetery burial registers.
Finally, in 1912, a typescript register of Confederate soldiers and sailors buried in federal cemeteries was compiled in accordance with a 1906 statute, to provide for marking the graves of Confederate soldiers and sailors who died in Union prisons. This register (M918) was generally arranged alphabetically by name of prison camp, other location where the death occurred, or occasionally by cemetery name. The individual burial lists are also arranged alphabetically by the name of the deceased and generally include rank, company, regiment, date of death, and number and location of grave. Some cemeteries did not bury the dead in numbered graves. Some regimental and company designations or death dates are not entered in the register. The registers also include few entries for private Confederate citizens. Some are unknown. Other entries are for bodies “removed,” “sent home,” and “taken home by friends.” Entries for the Green Lawn Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana, have been lined through and a notation added: “Remains of above removed to lot 285, sec. 32, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana, and reinterred as unknowns on October 27, 1931.” (Check other explanatory notes at the beginning or end of the burial list.) This register is now part of Record Group 92, Records of the Quartermaster General.
State Confederate Records
The War Department Collection of Confederate Records is not complete, even though great efforts were made to assemble all official information. A soldier may have served in a state militia unit that was never mustered into the service of the Confederate government. Records of service in such units, if extant, may be in the state archive or in the custody of the state adjutant general. Since the federal government of the United States did not pay benefits to Confederates, pensions and other state benefits are recorded only in state records.
The Family History Library has the single largest collection of microfilmed state Confederate records. The call numbers for ordering the microfilms through family history centers are most easily located in the Military Records Register, Vol. II: Civil War. If the center does not have a copy, have the librarian request a copy from the main library in Salt Lake City.
Two additional categories of records require special mention: military academy records and Reconstruction court records. Many Confederate officers received their early training in Southern military academies. Others had attended West Point and had to choose which side to support. Consult Bvt. Major-General George W. Cullum, Biographical Register, Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, 3rd ed., 9 vols. (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1891); Stanley P. Tozeski, Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the U.S. Military Academy (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1976); and Jon L. Wakelyn, Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977). Second, the confiscation of land by the Reconstruction government led to lengthy and bitter court battles. Genealogists seldom check these records, which can yield numerous details about Southern soldiers even though they are not technically military records. Also see chapter 7, Research in Court Records.
Spanish-American War Through Modern Wars, 1898 To the Present
Service records for soldiers serving in the armed forces after the Civil War are not as readily available, even though the records of these later wars are more detailed.
Using records for soldiers who served within the last seventy-five years is restricted to the service person, the next of kin if the veteran is deceased, or requesters with release authorization signed by the veteran or, if deceased, by the next of kin. Many of the federal records in this category are housed at the National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63132. Records protected by privacy laws cannot be copied or viewed by the public, but some information contained in the records can be provided upon request. Use the current version of Form 180.
Documents issued to the veteran at time of discharge (or to his or her next of kin, in case of death) usually contain important genealogical information. The National Personnel Records Center candidly acknowledges that its priority is providing information on benefits, not genealogical data, and encourages contacting the veteran or next of kin. However, under the Freedom of Information Act (amended 1974), it will release an individual’s age or date of birth, salary, photographs, source of commission, duty status, office telephone number, military and civilian educational level, decorations and awards (including a copy of the citation, if available), present and past duty assignments (including geographical location), future assignments which have been finalized, records of court-martial trials (unless classified), marital status, education/schooling, rank/grade, serial/service number, date of rank/grade, promotion sequence number, and dependents, including name, sex, and age.
If the identity needs to be verified, the center will also add such items as name of father and/or mother, home address, etc. This service takes several weeks; you will be billed for researching, processing, and photocopying.
On 12 July 1973, a fire on the top floor of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis destroyed millions of military records and damaged millions more. According to James E. Cole, Jr., acting assistant archivist for federal records centers, eighty percent of the army records for 1912 to 1959, sixty percent of the air force records for 1947 to 1963, and one percent or less of army records for personnel discharged since 1 January 1973 were destroyed.2
The center has since reconstructed a portion of the records of living military personnel who need the data to apply for pensions and other benefits. There are no plans at this time to reconstruct the records of deceased personnel where no benefits are owed.
Certain draft records and veterans’ medical treatment records were not in the fire. World War I draft records have been microfilmed and are available for searching.
Discharge Records
Each county in the United States was required to record the honorable discharge of soldiers and sailors who served in World War I. Some discharges for the Civil War and Philippine Insurrection are also on record, as well as some dishonorable and medical discharges. The records are kept in the local courthouse and usually consist of typed or handwritten transcripts of the original documents given to the soldier. Some of these discharge records from county collections have been microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, but most have not.
The records may contain the individual’s name, race, rank, serial number, reason for discharge, birthplace, age at time of enlistment, occupation, and a personal description. His or her service record, sometimes included with the discharge record, gives the length of service, prior service, marital status, arms and horsemanship qualifications, advancement, battles, decorations, honors, leaves of absence, physical condition, and character evaluation.
The same requirement for recording discharges was in effect for World War II veterans. The information contained in these records is the same as that on file for veterans of World War I.
United States Merchant Marine
Records pertaining to the service of merchant marine personnel are on file with the U.S. Coast Guard. Records of discharged, deceased, and retired merchant marine personnel are in the custody of the National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records, 9700 Page Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63132. Records of officers and active or reserve personnel prior to 1929 are in the custody of the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Washington, DC 20590.
Regular U.S. Army Enlistments
If a search of the relevant index or indexes does not reveal a service record for an individual, remember that there was another capacity other than that of volunteer or draftee. The veteran could have served in the Regular U.S. Army. The registers of enlistments for the period 1798 to 1914, except those for hospital stewards, quartermaster sergeants, and ordnance sergeants, have been microfilmed as NARA microfilm publication M233, forty-seven rolls. Prior to 1821, the records of officers are included as well. The records are arranged in subcategories of time blocks. The alphabetical arrangement within each subcategory varies.
The provision of benefits was not widespread until after the revolutionary war, although the separate colonies sometimes provided pensions for veterans disabled by injuries incurred during their service. Fighters in Indian skirmishes and local riots submitted claims for supplies, equipment, and time spent to both legislative assemblies and county courts. Bounties were also paid in both land and money for some military actions.
Pension Records (1774–1811)
The first congressional legislation authorizing the payment of pensions for Revolutionary War service was dated 26 August 1776, but the government did not begin paying pension allowances until 28 July 1789; applications for pensions were made to the federal government from that date. Many of the early applications were destroyed by fire in 1800 and 1814. A partial record of the earlier pensioners is included among reports to Congress in 1792, 1794, and 1795.
Although applications for pensions were made to the U.S. government, they were initiated in the courts of the counties and towns in which the veterans lived. Note that a Pension Board refusal often led the claimant to seek relief from Congress directly.
The pension records for the revolutionary war and later wars can contain much of genealogical value: affidavits made by the veteran and his neighbors or associates to support his claim, summaries of his service, the military organization in which he served, the dates of his service, his date and place of birth, names of heirs, relationship to others who served with him, his movements after the war, and information from family Bible records. Sometimes the Bible pages, torn out of the book, are enclosed as evidence.
For example, the revolutionary war pension file of Reuben Johnson was filed in Anderson District, South Carolina, on 19 November 1832. The file is too long to reproduce in its entirety but is illustrative even in summary. Reuben Johnson filed a sworn statement with the justice of the peace of Anderson District to apply for a pension for his revolutionary war services as a member of the Fourth Regiment of the North Carolina Line. He enlisted with Richard Phillips in 1776 at Surry County, North Carolina, and served for two and one-half years in the command of Captain Joseph Philips. On his statement he also named the marches in which he took part. After reenlisting he was present at the siege of Charleston, where he was taken prisoner by the British.
While his affidavit does not indicate his birth date or place of birth, many applications do contain that information, as well as the veteran’s residences after the war.
Reuben’s wife applied for a widow’s pension after her husband’s death. This document contains information of greater importance. Nancy Johnson’s affidavit of 29 March 1843 states that she was the widow of Reuben Johnson, that they were married 20 November 1788, and that her husband died 26 January 1833. Her sister Margaret Burroughs made a sworn statement that her sister was Nancy Johnson, nee Greenlee, who had married Reuben Johnson in North Carolina many years before. Margaret was six years old when Nancy and Reuben were married and did not know the exact date of their marriage, but she knew Reuben and Nancy had moved to South Carolina with her father, Peter Greenlee, and that the two families lived on the same plantation. Peter died about forty years before her testimony. Her mother died 1 December 1842.
Reuben Johnson’s file also contained a copy of his marriage record from Wilkes County, North Carolina. The documents in Reuben Johnson’s file permit the researcher to outline his movements from the time of his enlistment to his death and document two generations of ancestry.
A four-volume set by Virgil D. White will prove useful in locating information from these files: Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files (National Historical Publishing Co., 1990–92). Also helpful are the compilations by Murtie J. Clark, including The Pension Lists of 1792–95; With Other Revolutionary War Pension Records (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1991. Reissued 1996). The National Genealogical Society’s Special Publication No. 40, Index of Revolutionary War Pension Applications in the National Archives, indexes applicants and indicates the disposition of their applications. This last publication will identify certain applications that were rejected.
Rejection of revolutionary war pension applications did not necessarily mean that the applicant made a dishonest claim. Hundreds of applicants simply could not provide the necessary proof of service to be awarded a pension. The majority of applications were filed when Congress granted permission to all veterans in 1832. Discharges had often been lost or, in many cases, never issued. Comrades-in-arms who could have attested to service were often deceased or had moved away.
The revolutionary war pension application files have been microfilmed by the National Archives, and copies are on file at libraries throughout the country, including the Family History Library and its centers. This library has facilities for inexpensive photocopying. You may also request copies from the National Archives using NATF form 80.
The Act of 1832, mentioned earlier, required pension applications to include the birthplace, age, and residence of the applicant, and more. Applications may also include mention of a soldier substituting for another relative who was drafted into service. Once all of the applications pertaining to a veteran were received, including those of the widows and other claimants, they were combined into one file.
Bounty-Land Records
Bounty-land warrants were authorized by Congress in 1776 as a substitute for the wages it was unable to pay its soldiers. If the soldier was deceased, his heirs took claim to the land after the war. The number of acres granted was based upon the soldier’s rank and ranged from 100 to 1,100 acres. This method of decreasing military costs worked so well that bounty-land warrants continued to be issued for post-revolutionary war service. Congress eventually authorized bounty-land warrants to be issued for military service performed prior to 1855.
The number of applicants for bounty lands far exceeded the number of persons applying for pensions, but the bounty-land warrant application file is basically the same as that of the pension application file. The application provides the veteran’s name, age, residence, the military organization in which he served, and the term of his service. If his widow or other heirs made claim, their names, ages, and places of residence are given. Not all veterans actually farmed the land granted to them. Many assigned their warrants to others for a fee.
Not all bounty-land applications were approved. The claimant had to prove his service in the war in exactly the same manner that a pensioner had to prove his service. Again, a rejected claim did not necessarily indicate that the claimant’s service was never rendered, only that the claimant was not able to provide sufficient proof.
An estimated 450,000 bounty-land claims are on file in the National Archives. Some early claims were destroyed by the fires previously mentioned, but those remaining are available from the National Archives upon request using NATF form 80. In addition to land grants made by the federal government for revolutionary service, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia chose to reward their soldiers with bounty land. Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck has indexed the bounty-land records from these nine states in Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awarded by State Governments (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1996).
Pension Records (1789–1861)
Pension records exist for the period between the end of the revolutionary war and the beginning of the Civil War, primarily dealing with the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, and the Mexican War. All of the indexes to these pension records have been published. These records are classified in three groups as the Old War Series Pension Records. These records pertain to pension applicants who were disabled or killed while serving in any war after the close of the revolutionary war and before the start of the Civil War, except for the War of 1812 pensions included in the regular War of 1812 pension application files. A few early death and disability claims of Civil War veterans prior to July 1861 are included. The original applications are located at the National Archives and can be requested in the same manner as all of the records discussed earlier. These pension applications have been indexed; the microfilmed index is available at the Family History Library.
War of 1812
Pension application files for veterans of the War of 1812 include applications of veterans still living after 1871, when Congress authorized pensions to veterans who did not later support the Confederate States of America. Applications for death, disability, regular service, widows, and other claimants are included in the same collection. A second act of Congress in 1878 authorized pensions for veterans who saw as few as fourteen days active duty. Virgil D. White’s three-volume Index to War of 1812 Pension Files (National Historical Publishing Co., 1989) indexes applicants eligible for pensions or bounty lands under these two acts.
These pension files will give you the veteran’s name, age, and place of residence. If he was married, the marriage date and the maiden name of his wife are stated. The unit in which he served, the date and place of enlistment, and the date and place of discharge are also given. The widow’s pension file will provide her name, age, and place of residence, their pertinent marriage information, the date and place of the veteran’s death, his enlistment date and place, and the date and place of his final discharge. The pension files are available from the National Archives, but the microfilmed indexes are available in various libraries throughout the United States.
Indian Wars
There were innumerable Indian Wars between 1817 and 1858. Veterans of these wars received pensions for and claims dating from 1892 to 1926. The files are classified as Indian survivors, originals, Indian survivors’ certificates, Indian widows’ originals, and Indian widows’ certificates. These files are indexed, and the microfilmed indexes are available at various libraries throughout the United States. The pension files are located at the National Archives.
Mexican War
Pension application files from the Mexican War were authorized by Congress in 1887, permitting veterans and their widows to file claims with the government. New restrictions specified a minimum of sixty days of service, a minimum age at application of sixty-two, or being disabled or dependent.
These files contain basically the same information required in other pension applications but also required the maiden name of the wife, the names of former wives, death or divorce information about previous wives, and the names and dates of birth of living children. Pension applications were accepted between 1887 and 1926. They are indexed by name, and the index has been microfilmed as NARA publication T317. Copies of the files can be obtained from the National Archives.
Civil War and Later Pensions Records (1861–1934)
Pension applications filed for the Civil War and later include records of Union soldiers. The files are arranged in nine categories: navy survivors, originals, navy survivors’ certificates, navy widows’ originals, navy widows’ certificates, survivors’ originals, survivors, certificates, widows’ originals, widows’ certificates, “C” and “XC” files.
Federal pensions were granted to veterans of the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Philippine Insurrection of 1899 to 1902, the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, and the regular establishment. Pensions based upon such service are included in the same index for Union Civil War veterans for 1861 to 1934.
Pensions of Civil War veterans, their widows, minor children, or parents have been indexed by the name of the veteran. You should not presume, however, that the actual files of a Union pensioner will be in the National Archives in Washington. While most of them are, others are still maintained in appropriate federal agencies across the nation. If the file is not in the custody of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., you will be directed to the proper agency for copies.
The indexes have been microfilmed and are available at local libraries. Figure 9-2 shows the index card of John W. Fulton, who served in three different companies of the 12th Illinois Cavalry, applied for a pension 20 November 1901 in Pennsylvania, and was granted a certificate of pension based on his application. The same information would be included for a widow’s or minor’s pension.
Civil War pension application files are the best of the early military documents compiled and contain valuable genealogical information. These files do not all contain the same amount of information, but one can expect to find the name of the veteran, the military or naval unit in which he served, the date and place of his enlistment, his birth date and place (in some files only), the date and place of his marriage, the names and birth dates of his children, the maiden name of his wife, information about subsequent marriages, the date and place of his discharge, physical disabilities connected with service-related injuries, and his residences since his discharge. There will also be general affidavits of individuals who could attest to his disabilities and copies of the findings of examining physicians at the time of his injury and during subsequent periodic physicals.
Each pension applicant was required to complete a Declaration for an Original Invalid Pension. Pensioners also completed periodic requests for additional information. Another document in the pension file is the termination of the pension. If the cause was death—the most common reason—the death date is usually listed.
One of the most valuable contributions that a pension file can make in genealogical research is listing the veteran’s residences after discharge. Westward expansion sent many families leapfrogging states between censuses in the post-Civil War years. Tracing the exact movements of individuals and families during that period is difficult at best and sometimes impossible without the assistance of the “road maps’’ provided in these pension files.
Because the Confederacy was dissolved after the war, no central governmental agency provided pensions for service or disability of Confederate soldiers. Some of the former Confederate states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, authorized pensions to veterans and their widows. Each state had its own regulations which applicants had to meet. In each case, however, the pension could be paid only if the applicant continued to reside within the borders of the state. If he or she moved elsewhere, the applicant had to qualify under the regulations of the new jurisdiction. Many of these pension files are on microfilm in the Family History Library. The originals will be found with the various state archives. There is no standard format for pension applications for the Confederacy
Tennessee compiled a valuable but little-used record consisting of the biographical sketches of veterans of the Civil War who were still living in 1922 . These records are filled with valuable genealogical information, including the veteran’s name, residence, age, place of birth, occupation, the unit he served in during the war, his parents’ names and birthplaces, the names of his paternal grandparents, and their residence. The residence of the veteran’s father and all facts known about parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents (including when the family came to America, property owned by the veteran and his parents, education, and the general quality of the veteran’s life) are included in these sketches.
Similar to the Tennessee Civil War questionnaires were censuses of pensioners taken in 1907 and 1921 in Alabama, 1911 in Arkansas, and 1911 in Louisiana.
War of 1812 Prisoner-Of-War Records
Records relating to British and American prisoners of war for 1812 to 1815 include miscellaneous correspondence and lists of prisoners sent from the Treasury Department to the Adjutant General’s Office and from the Navy Department to the Adjutant General’s Office. Some of these records have been microfilmed by the National Archives as M2019, Records Relating to War of 1812 Prisoners of War (one roll). These are indexed in M1747, Index to War of 1812 Prisoners of War (three rolls).
Burial Records
Veterans of the military services have had the benefit of being buried in one of the many national and other federally administered cemeteries since 1861. The most famous of them is Arlington National Cemetery just outside of Washington, D.C. Records pertaining to almost all soldiers and veterans buried in the cemeteries under federal jurisdiction are in the custody of the Cemetery Service, National Cemetery System, Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Ave., Washington, DC 20420. The names of the deceased are indexed, and information will be furnished on request.
Some soldiers were buried on U.S. military installations between 1807 and 1939. Records of those buried in the U.S. Soldiers’ Home Cemetery in Washington, D.C., national cemeteries, military installations in the United States, and post cemeteries in Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and China are also included in this collection. You must know where the soldier is buried to find the burial record. The early burial registers record primarily burials of active-duty soldiers except in the case of frontier army posts, where family members and civilian dependents were also buried in the post cemeteries.
Four volumes of records dating from 1861 to 1868 pertain to burials of soldiers at the U.S. Soldiers’ Home Cemetery. The registers provide the soldier’s name, military organization, date and place of burial, rank, place of residence before enlistment, name and residences of the soldier’s widow or other relative, age, cause of death, and place and date of death. Each volume is indexed by the initial letter of the soldier’s surname.
Three correspondence files also contain information pertaining to soldiers’ burials: letters relating to buried soldiers (1864–90), quartermaster’s notifications (1863–66), and reports of Arlington National Cemetery sexton (1864–67).
Applications for headstones to be placed at the graves of soldiers and veterans range in date from 1879 to 1924. The information in the applications includes the name and addresses of headstone applicant, name of the veteran, rank, years of service, place and date of burial, and sometimes the date and cause of death. Most of these applications are filed by state, then by county, then by cemetery. Applications for headstones for soldiers, sailors, and marines buried outside the United States between 1911 and 1924 are arranged by country of burial. Soldiers buried in the cemeteries of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers for whom headstone applications were made are arranged by the name of the home.
A card file indexing applications for headstones for 1870 to 1903 has been compiled and includes the serviceman’s name, military organization, date and place of death, name and location of the cemetery, and date of the application. These cards are arranged alphabetically by the surname of the soldier and include Confederate and post-Civil War veterans’ applications.
The names of 228,639 Union soldiers who were buried in more than three hundred national cemeteries during the Civil War are published in Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers Who Died in Defense of the American Union, Interred in the National Cemeteries, Numbers I–XIX. Originally published by the Quartermaster General’s Office in 1868, the entries are arranged by name of cemetery and thereunder alphabetically by name of soldier. The date of death is shown. In 1994, the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore reprinted this work. In 1995, the same company published an alphabetical list of soldiers and a comprehensive, state-by-state index to burial sites: Martha and William Remy, comps., Index to the Roll of Honor.
There are also card file records of World War I-era soldiers who died overseas between 1917 and 1922. These files consist mainly of grave registrations, records of American names in European chapels, and records of American soldiers who were buried in Russia. They are arranged alphabetically by surname of the soldier or name of the cemetery. The collection of grave registrations includes the name of the soldier, military organization, date of death, a statement that he was killed in action, name and address of the nearest relative or guardian, and name of the chapel. The record of American names in European chapels includes the name of the soldier, military organization, date of death, statement that the soldier was killed in action, name and address of the nearest relative or guardian, and name of the chapel. These records are all on file in Record Group 92, Records of the Quartermaster General, in the National Archives.
A list of soldiers missing in action is in the custody of the National Archives under the Records of American Battle Commission, Record Group 117. The information includes the name of the missing soldier, the unit in which he served, and the date of disappearance.
Veterans’ Homes
Records pertaining to the federal veterans’ homes are housed in the National Archives in Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, and in Record Group 231, Records of the U.S. Soldiers’ Home. Below is a list of the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (now known as Veterans Administration Centers) and the dates of their creation:
Eastern Branch, Togus, Maine: 1866
Central Branch, Dayton, Ohio: 1867
Northwestern Branch, Wood, Wisconsin: 1867
Southern Branch, Kecoughtan, Virginia: 1870
Western Branch, Leavenworth, Kansas: 1885
Pacific Branch, Sawtelle, California: 1888
Marion Branch, Marion, Indiana: 1888
Roseburg Branch, Roseburg, Oregon: 1894
Danville Branch, Danville, Illinois: 1898
Mountain Branch, Johnson City, Tennessee: 1903
Battle Mountain Sanitarium, Hot Springs, South Dakota: 1907
Bath Branch, Bath, New York: 1894
Saint Petersburg Home, Saint Petersburg, Florida: 1930
Census information involving military service was taken in 1840 and 1890. At the time of the 1840 federal population census, enumerators were asked to list all living pensioners of the revolutionary war or other military service. These names and the accompanying information have been published in A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services; With Their Names, Ages, and Places of Residence, as Returned by the Marshals of the Several Judicial Districts Under the Act for Taking the Sixth Census (Washington, D.C.: 1841, 1956. Reprint. Baltimore: Genealogical Books in Print, 1996). The 1840 census provides the veteran’s name, age, and residence.
The schedules for the 1890 census of pensioners for (in alphabetical order) Alabama through Kansas and approximately half of those for Kentucky are missing. The remaining schedules for the latter half of Kentucky through Wyoming (including Washington, D.C.) have been microfilmed as Special Schedules of the Eleventh Census (1890) Enumerating Union Veterans and Widows of Union Veterans of the Civil War. This microfilm publication, M123, consists of 118 rolls.
This special 1890 census provides the veteran’s name; rank; company, regiment, or vessel; dates of enlistment and discharge; length of service in years, months, and days; aliases; post office address of the institution in which living at the time of the enumeration; and disabilities incurred in service. Entries include those who had served in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States in the war of the rebellion, and who were survivors at the time of the 1890 census, or the widows of soldiers, sailors, or marines.
Contrary to instructions, for the former states of the Confederacy, the records sometimes contain entries for Confederate veterans and widows of Confederate veterans as well. Separate indexes for many state enumerations of 1890 Union veterans and widows have been published by Byron L. Dilts (Index Publishing).
The 1910 census indicates whether an individual was a veteran of the Union Army, Union Navy, Confederate Army, or Confederate Navy. In the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses, there is a category devoted to military personnel. The 1900 and 1920 military censuses have Soundex indexes.
Military records, which may be referred to as militia records, were also created and preserved by state and local jurisdictions. Their contents are much like those described above. These militia records, however, are often the first to be disposed of because local militias no longer exist. They will be found scattered through state archives, historical societies and museums, military forts (both those still active and museums for those discontinued), and among the papers in the county clerk’s office. These records may sometimes be located using state and local record inventories.
Private collections of military records also exist, often housed in a records repository some distance from the location where they were created or refer to. Check the National Union Catalog of Manuscripts Collections of the Library of Congress (NUCMC) and The National Historic Trust for Records Preservation, available in most research libraries of any size, to discover their locations.
The first entry in the Civil War Soldiers System Database was made on 28 April 1993. This joint project of the National Archives, the National Park Service, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, and the Genealogical Society of Utah is utilizing the efforts of thousands of volunteers through the country. The Civil War Soldiers System will be a database of every soldier who fought in the Civil War. Each entry will identify whether the soldier was Union or Confederate, his regiment, and his rank. It will provide the location of every identified civil war soldier buried in the cemeteries operated by the National Park Service. The database will also provide information about the 7,000 regiments and units formed during the war and on many of the 10,500 battles and skirmishes.
