Finding Service Records of Civil War Ancestors

Online Index to National Archives and Records Files

Oct 21, 2009

The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System is an online database containing basic information about those who served in the Union and Confederate armies and navies.

The National Archives and Records Service Administration (NARA) preserves and makes available many records that are of value to historians and genealogists. Some of these records, those dealing with the service records during the Civil War, are accessed via the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (CWSS) website. Civl War ancestors may be identified in a variety of ways, including the use of certain U.S. census records.

The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System

Names and other basic information from 6.3 million soldier records in the National Archives are the basis for much of this online information. Other information includes histories of regiments in the Union and Confederate Armies and links to descriptions of significant battles. More information about soldiers, sailors, regiments, and battles, as well as prisoner-of-war records and cemetery records, is being added.

The CWSS project is sponsored by the National Park Service and several public and private partners working together to computerize information about the Civil War. Partners include the Genealogical Society of Utah, the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the African American Civil War Memorial, the Civil War Preservation Trust, Howard University, the National Archives, United Daughters of the Confederacy, the United States Civil War Center, the Allen County Public Library (Fort Wayne, Indiana), and the Utah Army Corps. The goal of the project is to increase the accessibility of information in order to help people better understand this era in U.S. history.

Union Records

For Union army soldiers, three sets of records in the National Archives are indexed in this database:

Confederate Records

For Confederate army soldiers, two sets of records provide information on military service:

Many Confederate records did not survive the war, so records on these veterans are often not as complete as those for Union soldiers.

The CMSR for an individual is an envelope (or jacket) containing one or more cards. These cards often include payroll records, records of hospital stays, and muster rolls, as well as the date of enlistment and discharge, and any bounty paid. Place of birth may be shown, and in some cases, enlistment papers or records indicating the soldier’s capture and release, or other personal information, is included.

Pension Files

Many Union army soldiers or their widows or minor children, or even dependent parents, later applied for pensions. Pension files are indexed in NARA microfilm publication T288, General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934. This information is also available online at Ancestry.com.

Pension files for Confederate veterans are not available from NARA because no federal pensions were awarded to Confederate soldiers. Some state pensions were granted to Confederate veterans and their widows and minor children in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Researchers will find information on these records in the appropriate state archives.

Obtaining Civil War Service Records

For genealogists seeking information about Civil War veterans, this database is an excellent starting point. Searching the Soldiers or Sailors database will produce the Regiment, Company, Rank, and a film number so that the records may be ordered from the National Archives. Service records and Union pension files can be ordered online, and anyone over age 16 may access the original Civil War military service and pension files at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

Civil War Lineage Societies

The copyright of the article Finding Service Records of Civil War Ancestors in Genealogy is owned by Katharine Garstka. Permission to republish Finding Service Records of Civil War Ancestors in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.