How to Research Your Civil War Ancestor
The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 and the average soldier was 18-45 years old. So if you have a white, male ancestor who was born between roughly 1816 and 1847 and lived in the United States in the early 1860s, then he probably played some part in the Civil War.
If you are researching more than one Civil War soldier, you may want to create a bookmark for this article to serve as a handy check list of sources.
This is a general rule but there were many exceptions of drummer boys as young as 12, as well as men 60 years old or more who enlisted. In addition, more than 175,000 free black men, more than 3,000 native Americans, and at least 400 women (disguised as men) also served in the war. Then there were civilian scouts, teamsters, doctors, nurses, and other support personnel who weren’t technically soldiers but who worked under contract with the army. Lastly, the Southern armies were accompanied by thousands of “body servants” and “laborers” (i.e., slaves).
Note that, in most cases, the embedded links in this article will not merely take you to the named web site but directly to the search form for the database being discussed.
But how would you determine whether your ancestor fell into one of these categories?
Or perhaps you know that your ancestor served in the war but you hope to find out some details of his service?
Following are some of the more popular and productive sources for records of Civil War service:
national archives records retrieval
Website: https://gopherrecords.com/