Tag Archive for Military Records

Essential Reference for Military Records

March 5, 2011 Craig Family History, Genealogy

I came across this book on Google Books:

A Dictionary of all Officers, who have been Commissioned, or have been Appointed and Served, in the Army of the United States, Since the Inauguration of their first President in 1789, to the first of January, 1853,–With Every Commission of Each;–Including the Distinguished Officers of the Volunteers and Militia of the States, and of the Navy and Marine Corps, who have served with the land forces:  Indicating the Battle in which Every Such Officer has been Killed or Wounded–And the Special Words of Every Brevet Commission

by Charles Kitchell Gardner (New York: G.P. Putnam & Co., 1853)
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Georgia Confederate Pensions: Follow-up

February 18, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

After returning home to Upson County, Georgia, after 17 years in Texas, George Preston (“Pres”)  Birdsong applied for, and was denied, a pension for his four years of service in the Confederate Army.  His brother, Albert Hamill Birdsong, who had gone to Texas with Pres in 1884, returned to Upson County in 1903.  Albert had served two years in the same unit as his brother during the war.  He applied for and was granted a pension.

What of this apparent discrepancy? Like much in life, it was all a matter of timing.

Georgia had adopted its first Civil War pension law in 1866, styled  “An Act for the relief of maimed indigent soldiers and officers, citizens of this State who belonged to military organizations of this State, in the State or Confederate States armies.”   [The Confederate Records of Georgia, volume 4, p. 523.  See reference to act in Governor's Order appointing surgeons, 19 April 1866. Available at

http://www.archive.org/stream/confederaterecor04geor/confederaterecor04geor_djvu.txt]

This law seems to have extended benefits to persons living in the state who belonged to any Confederate unit anywhere.  But in 1867, the pension law was amended as “An Act for the relief of maimed Officers and Soldiers who belonged to military organizations of this State, or of the Confederate States.”  Apparently, under this law, there no longer was a requirement for Georgia “citizenship.”  As funding was uneven over the years, Georgia amended its pension law numerous times between 1867 and 1910.

Pres Birdsong applied for his pension in 1903.  The pension law then in effect was the 1897 Act. Under this law, an applicant had to be a resident of Georgia as of the effective date of the law, which was 6 December 1897.

On 6 December 1897, Pres Birdsong was residing in Milam County, Texas, where he had gone in 1884 with his “mulatto” consort, Matilda (“Mattie”)  Manson.   His pension application seems to have been properly denied.

George Preston Birdsong died, ill and indigent, in 1905.  We don’t know the exact date of his death that year, except that it was likely before August 22.  On that date in 1905, almost as if in reaction to Pres’s case, the Georgia Legislature reenacted the pension law, applying it to persons served in a Georgia military  unit and “who are residents of this State at the date of the approval of this Act,  . . .  regardless of previous residence . . . .”

Albert Hamill Birdsong, who had accompanied Pres and Mattie to Texas and who remained there until 1903, applied for his pension in September, 1905, under the new law.  His application was granted.

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Ancestry.com Adds Lincoln & Civil War Docs

February 12, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

This announcement on the 24/7 Family History Circle blog today:

PROVO, UTAH – Feb. 12, 2009 – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online resource for family history, announced today it will commemorate the 200th birthday of one of the nation’s greatest Presidents – Abraham Lincoln – with the addition of five new databases to its Civil War Collection. This historically significant collection includes unique content such as photographs, handwritten letters, slave manifests and pension applications, and spans the days of slavery to the Civil War and through Reconstruction. The new databases will make millions of important Civil War era records easily searchable alongside other records already available at Ancestry.com, creating the largest online collection of Civil War documents, containing more than 12 million names.

Among the five new databases, The Abraham Lincoln Papers is an incredible collection of more than 20,000 documents – most from the 1850s through Lincoln’s presidential years – which include drafts of speeches and the Emancipation Proclamation, incoming and outgoing correspondence and notes, and printed material. The Abraham Lincoln Papers Collection will be searchable for free on Ancestry.com.

“We’re very proud to be adding these amazing Civil War era historical materials to our already robust Civil War Collection,” said Gary Gibb, Vice President for U.S. Content for Ancestry.com. “As the 200th birthday of one of our nation’s greatest Presidents approaches, we thought it was the perfect time to add these databases to our site and to help individuals discover their family members who lived during a time of such dramatic change in America.”

The Civil War Collection is part of Ancestry.com’s U.S. Military Collection, which includes more than 100 million names from the 1600s through Vietnam. The five new Civil War era databases now available on Ancestry.com include:

  • Abraham Lincoln Papers (from the Library of Congress) – a collection of more than 20,000 letters written to and from President Lincoln, as well as drafts of speeches. The collection includes a letter from Mary Lincoln, Lincoln’s wife, who chides him for not responding promptly to her letters and requests a check for $100. Other documents include a draft of Lincoln’s speech from 1863 condemning slavery and a letter from May 11, 1863 written by Ellie B. Reno, niece of Brig. Gen. Jesse Reno – who had disguised herself as a male to fight in the Union Army – asking him, “…iff [sic] I can remain in your Service…” These letters can be searched for free on Ancestry.com.
  • New Orleans Slave Manifests, 1807-1860 – includes images of ship manifests transporting more than 30,000 slaves en route to New Orleans from the upper Southern states. It offers insights into the lives of these men and women, who were likely being moved to the lower Southern states to provide labor for the booming cotton industry. The manifests will be transcribed by a global community of family history enthusiasts through Ancestry.com’s World Archives Project in the coming months.
  • Confederate Pension Applications from Georgia – more than 60,000 records documenting pension applications filed in Georgia from Confederate soldiers and their widows. As part of the application process, applicants answered a series of questions about themselves and signed the document, resulting in a wealth of personal information.
  • Confederate Applications for Presidential Pardons – a collection containing more than 15,000 records of former Confederate soldiers and government officials requesting Presidential pardons.
  • U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles – contains more than 4.2 million records and profiles about nearly every officer and soldier who fought in the Civil War. Many of the records include actual photographs of the individuals.

Over the next two years, Ancestry.com will add millions more historical records from the Civil War period to its Web site, as the country approaches the sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary of that historic conflict. The five new Civil War databases are now available online as part of Ancestry.com’s Civil War Collection.

About Ancestry and The Generations Network
The Generations Network, Inc., through its flagship Ancestry.com property, is the world’s leading resource for online family history. Ancestry.com has local websites in nine countries and has digitized and put online over 7 billion names and 27,000 historical records collections over the past ten years. Since July 2006, Ancestry.com users have created 9 million family trees containing 865 million profiles and 16 million photographs and stories. The Generations Network also includes myfamily.com, Genealogy.com, Rootsweb.ancestry.com, MyCanvas.com, dna.ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Magazine. More than 7.9 million unique visitors spent over 4 million hours on a TGN website in December 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide).

I was thrilled about this announcement. But then, in a brief moment of cynicism, I thought, “Okay, but I bet they forgot the U.S. Colored Troops!” So I went to the U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, and entered the name of my gg-grandfather, Zeke Johnson.   Much to my delight, his name and profile immediately appeared!

I then looked up my Confederate gg-grandfather, George Preston Birdsong’s name in Confederate Pension Applications from Georgia.  Here I found a transcription error. George P[reston] Birdsong was listed as George R. Birdsong.  Every other identifier (unit, county, etc.) was correct for George P.   So I made a correction to that page.  George P. Birdsong was from Upson County and served with the 5th Regiment, Georgia Infantry.   George R. Birdsong, his cousin, hailed from Clay County and served in  the 51st Regiment, Georgia Infantry.

I learned quite a bit about George P. Birdsong, including why he didn’t get his pension–something I had wondered about for many years.  I’ll write about it one day soon.

These are great additions by Ancestry.com–be sure to check them out!

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UPDATE: Register of U.S. Army Enlistments

May 6, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

Well, I am both gratified and chastened! In the comments to the original post below, Chad Milliner points out what should been obvious to me. That is, essentially, that the Register of U.S. Army Enlistments includes only original federal enlistments. Chad reminds us that in the 18th and 19th
centuries, American wars were fought largely by troops raised by the States. The Regular Army was very small. So the database is complete as to the years it covers for the enlistments in the U.S. Army.

And you’d think an old National Guardsman like me would have remembered that! (Don’t tell anybody how badly I blew this one–they’ll revoke my retirement and order me back into uniform for remedial training!).

Thanks, Chad, for keeping us straight!

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Research Resource: Register of Enlistments In U.S. Army

May 2, 2008 Craig Uncategorized

I got an e-mail from Ancestry.com recently that touted some new databases that had been added. Among these was “Registration of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798 –1914. So of course I was interested. I put in the search box a number of my family names, particularly the more unique ones, and turned up nothing. So then I tried the common family names like Johnson and Martin. Still nothing. This made me a little suspicious. I couldn’t believe that from 1798 to 1914, for example, only 161 men from Missouri named Johnson had enlisted in the United States Army.

I decided to find out just how many names were actually in the database. I did this by simply leaving the name boxes blank and indicating “United States” in the country box and “any state” and searching. The program reported back that there are something over the 845,000 names in the database. Then I repeated the process placing in the country box the names of countries I thought most likely to have supplied members of the U.S. Army during the time. 1798 — 1914. Here are the interesting results:

UNITED STATES 845,041
IRELAND 155,122
GERMANY 92,440*
ENGLAND 37,732
CANADA 20,740**
PHILLIPINES 17,005
SCOTLAND 12,083
FRANCE 6,492
RUSSIA 6,195
AUSTRIA 6,107
ITALY 2,396
NETHERLANDS 1,646
POLAND 1,518
TOTAL 1,049,395
*includes 8,329 from Prussia
**includes 10 listed as being from “North America” since Canada was referred to as “British North America”

Are you surprised by these data? I am. More than 10% of the enlistees were born in Ireland. I never would have thought that.

But my purpose was to discover how many records were in the database in order to determine how complete it is. So consider the total number. Except for the Civil War, the Army was fairly small between 1798 and 1914; it could well be 1,050,000 names represents a fairly complete database. But then, it’s estimated that during the Civil War, 2,200,000 men served in the Union Army. If that’s the case, I reasoned, perhaps most of the records in this database came from the Civil War era. To check this theory, I put in the year box “1863″ selected “any country,” left all other fields blank, and searched. That yielded a total of 13,568 enlistments. Hmm! Clearly it would take more of an 13,000 enlistments a year to sustain an army of over 2 million. (The total for 1861, the first year of the war, was 29,265).

So perhaps it is that this database contains mostly non-Civil War enlistments. In any event, it’s clear that this is not a comprehensive database of U.S. Army enlistments during the period 1798-1914.

Ancestry.com says the original data was found in National Archives Microfilm Publication M233, 81 rolls; Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780’s-1917, Record Group 94.

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Family History Out in the Cold–Again

August 23, 2007 Craig Uncategorized

It’s been almost two years since we reported on the discovery of the body of an airman in California’s Sierra Nevada. The airman was later identified as 22 year-old aviation cadet Leo Mustonen of Brainerd, Minnesota. He and three other airmen were on a training mission from Mather Field near Sacramento on November 18, 1942, when their aircraft disappeared. The bodies of the other three airmen were not recovered in 2005.

The body of Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen is handled with honors at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. (Department of Defense Photo by Sgt. Michael Caya, U.S. Army)

This week, the story took another turn:

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A 1923 buffalo nickel, an old Army uniform and a crumbly wallet with faded photographs might help investigators figure out exactly which missing World War II airman’s remains are lying in the county morgue in Fresno.

But it will probably come down to something more modern and foolproof – DNA matching.

The remains of what is believed to be the second of four crewmen who died on a 1942 training flight were found by hikers last week on a remote Sierra mountainside in Kings Canyon National Park. The body was taken by helicopter and coroner’s van to the morgue Monday.


Read the rest of the story here.

The three missing airmen are 2nd Lt. William Gamber, 23, of Fayette, Ohio; and aviation cadets John Mortenson, 25, of Moscow, Idaho; Ernest Munn, 23, of St. Clairesville, Ohio. As before, the identification will be done by the Central Identification Laboratory of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. JPAC has world-class personnel and uses the best available science to perform its sensitive mission. Its facility in Hawaii is the largest forensic anthropology laboratory in the world. Hopefully, another family is about to get closure.

You Can Help
There are over 35,000 Americans still missing but deemed recoverable from World War II. The Government is committed to bringing closure to their families as well as the families of missing servicemembers from other conflicts. DNA samples contributed by family members will aid in the identification process. If your family stories include the lore of a loved one who never returned from war, it may not be too late to help write the end of the story. See the JPAC website for information on how to contribute a DNA sample.


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Today is "Zeke Johnson" Day

June 6, 2007 Craig Uncategorized

A week from this Thursday, which would be June 14, 2007, is the 160th anniversary of the birth of my great-great-grandfather, Ezekiel Johnson. I’ve written about him before (here, here, and here). For awhile, he was one of my very difficult brickwalls. And then one day, a sudden breakthrough gave me some special insight into his origins and at the same time raised more questions. I’ve been trying to solve some of those questions.

In genealogy, it never hurts to go over ground that may have been plowed once or twice before. I was exploring various databases for “Ezekiel Johnson” or “Zeke Johnson,” when I found buried treasure! I’m so thrilled about this that I hereby declare today to be “Zeke Johnson Day” at GeneaBlogie.

What I found were Grandpa Zeke’s military records in a database labeled “U.S. Colored Troops Compiled Military Records.” I realized that I had looked here before for “Ezekiel” but not for “Zeke,” which is how the records were indexed. These records contain a lot of information.

A key element of these records is a card which is transcribed as follows:

18 | USCT

Zeke Johnson,
Co. D, 18 Reg’t US Col’d Inf
Appears on
Company Descriptive Book
of the organization named above.

Description
Age 17 years; height 5 feet 4 inches
Complexion Black
Eyes Black Hair Black
Where Born Missouri
Occupation Farmer

Enlistment
When July 23, 1864
Where Kansas City
By Whom Capt Hall; term 3 years
Remarks: Battle of Sand Mountain,
Ala.; Jan 29, ’85

That document tells me several things I did not know: that he was a short man (his granddaughter and great-granddaughter are in miniature as well). He enlisted at age 17.

Another significant document is this one:

Click on image to enlarge
Image Copyright (c) The Generations Network, Inc. Used in accordance with Limited Use License

Now we know quite bit more about Ezekiel Johnson, to wit:

Born in Clay County in 1847, Zeke Johnson was in 1864 the slave of one Henry Wilhite. In May, 1864, he “left” Wilhite and in July, 1864, in Kansas City, he enlisted in the 18th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. He received a bounty7y of $300 for enlisting. In September 1864, he joined the regiment at Benton Barracks near St Louis.

The regiment moved to Nashville in November 1864 and participated in the Battle of Nashville in December of 1864. They then moved on into Alabama, fighting the Battle f Sand Mountain in January 1865 and then remaining in Alabama until February 1865. Moving to Tennessee next, the 18th remained there until being reassigned to Huntsville, Alabama in 1866. The unit was mustered out at Huntsville in February 1866. Zeke Johnson was present for duty at all of these times except part of August 1864 and Sept-Oct 1864 when he was hospitalized for diarrhea

When he was mustered out, Zeke Johnson was entitled to keep his musket and “accoutrements.” He owed the Government $21.54 for clothing, but the Government still owed him $100 as part of his bounty.

We don’t know exactly what Grandpa Zeke did immediately after leaving the Army, but we know that on September 5, 1867, he married Sarah Gilbert back in Clay County. In the late 1880′s, the Kansas City directory showed him residing at 2544 Cherry and working as a carpenter for Standard Implement Co.

And what of his erstwhile master, Henry Wilhite? He joined the Confederate Army, but beyond that, we don’t know any more about him.

I had never known the name of Zeke’s slave-owning family until I saw it in these records. This knowledge will advance my research significantly. For reasons that I’ve written about before, I don’t think Wilhite was Zeke’s original or only master. I think Zeke is the 3 year old male shown in the ownership of Emmons Johnson on the 1850 slave schedule. We need to find some transaction between Emmons Johnson and Henry Wilhite.

Ezekiel Johnson died on August 8, 1933, having lived long enough to see his great-granddaughter, my mother.

The U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records are on Ancestry.com as part of their Military collection. Curiously, they are not part of the Civil War collection. The records are from the National Archives, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780′s-1917, Record Group 94.
The use we made of these records here illustrates the value of such records to the family historian. Of course, the National Archives has available similar records for military personnel of all races. Check this page for pre-World War I records.

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