I’m getting familiar with Confederate records. This is an explanation of the most-used, and how they’ve been digitized. I’ve made appointments for more days in the National Archives, but I just learned that a lot of the Confederate ordnance material was accessible online and that’ll save me more trips to downtown DC.
“Confederate Records Digitization Project
The Archives I Reference Section is currently engaged in an in-house digitization project in honor of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. The end result will be the full digitization and online publication of the 2,750 volumes comprising the Collected Record Books of Various Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Offices of the Confederate States of America, 1860-1865. This particular project was chosen as a digitization effort because of the intrinsic value of the records.
These record books, part of Record Group 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records, are a significant collection of bound volumes encompassing nearly all aspects of the Confederate Government and military. These records, which were created by various elements of the Confederate States during the Civil War, came into the custody of the U.S. War Department during and at the end of the war by capture or surrender. A significant portion were captured along with Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. In the post-war years, the U.S. War Department added to their collection of Confederate records through purchase or donation by private individuals throughout the South.
Between 1874 and 1898, the records comprising RG 109 were in the physical custody of the Archive Office as well as the Record and Pension Office of the Adjutant General’s Office. During this period, the Confederate records were catalogued and organized. They were heavily used as part of the publication of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, andwere consulted and transcribed as part of the creation of both the Union and Confederate Compiled Military Service Records.
As part of the cataloguing and organizing of the Confederate records, the bound volumes were classified according to provenance into groups called “chapters.” Volumes were then numbered serially within these chapters. The chapters are as follows:
I: Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office
II: Military Commands
III: Engineer Department
IV: Ordnance Department
V: Quartermaster Department
VI: Medical Department
VII: Legislative Records
VIII: Miscellaneous Records
IX: Office of the Secretary of War
X: Treasury Department
XI: Post Office Department
XII: Judiciary
The War Department transferred their Confederate records to the National Archives in 1938. NARA rebound the Collected Record Books, but still maintains the “chapter volume” arrangement. The Preliminary Inventory of the War Department Collection of Confederate Records (Record Group 109) compiled by Elizabeth Bethel in 1957, describes each of the volumes in detail. Within RG 109, the Collected Record Books are the most heavily used series, and are requested by historians, genealogists, and preservationists on a regular basis. They are also perhaps the most interesting, not only because of the wide range of information they contain, but in their wide physical variety – an assortment of shapes, weights, paper color and paper type, and ink and pencil, prevail throughout the collection.
To access the volumes online, go here:
About the National Archives Catalog Type 596501 in the search box, then click View All Online Holdings. The volumes, in pdf format, will appear as a listing, in no particular order”
