Southern Military Records

Today, I just wanted to do a quick post to cover a couple basics of Southern United States military records. Now, when the subject of southern military records is raised, I am almost positive that the first thing that pops into your head is the Civil War and the Confederacy, am I right? This is certainly true for most, because in our minds the definition of “the South” is interconnected with the Confederacy, which makes sense because in essence, the Confederacy fought to preserve southern culture. It’s important to remember though, that not every southerner fought for the C.S.A., or was even in favor of secession. In fact, every southern state except for South Carolina raised at least one battalion of men to fight for the Union, even South Carolina had men run off to fight in Union regiments from other states.¹

Now, whatever side an ancestor fought for, when it comes time for locating southern military records, there are a few places I go first:

1. “U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865” database on Ancestry.com. This is a good database to start with when you know a soldier’s name and need more information on the Regiment. Once you find your soldier, there is often a link to the “U.S., American Civil War Regiments, 1861-1866” database which can give some pretty detailed information about the different units.
2. The National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database. This database is fairly comprehensive, and includes sections on soldiers, sailors, regiments, battles, and more. This is a great place to find out information about an individual soldier’s regiment and battle history as well.
3. Once I’ve found out which branch of service and unit my ancestor fought with, I then head to Fold.com and browse the Civil War Records. I don’t know what it is about the search engine on Fold3, but I’ve had a lot more success browsing and narrowing down the categories than just searching for an ancestor’s name.

By following the steps listed above I was able to find the Confederate Service Record for my ancestor, John C. Kennerly, who fought with the 2nd Louisiana Infantry. I was surprised to see that it was 49 pages long; not very many soldiers have that many records available online. This record details his years in the Civil War- illness and hospitalization in Williamsburg, various promotions, all the way through being wounded at Gettysburg, and then going AWOL (absent without leave) the next year.²

John C. Kennerly Service Record
Highlighted text: "Wounded at Gettysburg Penn. & absent with leave"

Military records unfortunately don’t have a lot of genealogical information in them, but they can be helpful for finding pension records, which often do have more genealogical information. However, since my ancestor went AWOL I knew there wasn’t a chance that there’d be a pension for him. I did learn though that he fought in and was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, and this fact served as a great reminder to me. It reminded me that although researching dates and finding sources is important, it is arguably more important to learn about our ancestors lives, their sacrifices, and their examples to us.

~AC

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1 Richard Nelson Current, Lincoln's Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), pg. 5, accessed October 21, 2016, books.google.com.^↩
2 Confederate States of America, "Civil War Service Records," digital image, Fold3 (www.fold3.com : accessed 26 March 2016), John C Kennerly Co. E 2nd Louisiana Infantry.^↩