How to Get Free Civil War Enlistment Records
The Civil War. The War Between the States. The War of Northern Aggression. The North against the South. Yankees vs Confederates.
Call it what you will, this was one large, bloody conflict, with a huge proportion of American men directly involved in the fighting. If you have ancestors who lived in the US in the mid-19th century, then the odds are pretty good that you can find information about them, online, in a variety of Civil War databases. There are not only enlistment records, but military service records, injuries and deaths, POWs, lists of slaves and free blacks involved in the fighting, burials and cemetery records, pay and pension records, and much more.
Nor are the records simply for the men-folk in your family tree. There are records covering women during the Civil War era as well, especially records of pensions paid to Civil War Widows or other surviving family members.
Best of all, most of the resources are online and free. Here's how to search military and civil records to find your Civil War family history.
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Instructions
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**Visit the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System**
This is the motherlode of Civil War service records for soldiers and sailors from both the North and South, with more than 6 million names on file.
Maintained by the good folks at the National Park Service, CWSS pulls records from a variety of information sources, chiefly muster rolls. The information provide typically includes the soldier's name, rank, which side he fought for, role (infantry, cavalry, etc), and his regiment and company.
Additional information on regimental histories, cemeteries, and battles is available at the CWSS site. See the Resources Section for a direct link to CWSS.
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**Search Prisoner of War Records**
The National Park Service also maintains a search site for Civil War prisoners. While not as comprehensive as a soldier's search, this is still a valuable addition to available online records, and can be searched by prisoner name. Interestingly, the database classifies prisoners as either prisoners of war, or 'political prisoners'.
And while we're at it, NPS also maintains a very good website on the Civil War itself. Links to both the Prisoner records and the Civil War site are included in the Resources Section.
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**Check Individual State Records**
States have historically maintained a surprising number of military enlistment and service records. More and more or the state archive materials are finding there way online.
For instance, New Jersey's State Archives provide online access to Stryker's Record of Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Civil War (over 82,000 records) along with Civil War Treasury Vouchers, with more than 100,000 records of payments to soldiers or next of kin.
West Virginia State Archives include a list of Civil War medals awarded by the government (many of which are yet unclaimed...look to see if your family is entitled to one!), and they also include militia enlistment and service records.
There are other Civil War look-ups in state archives in Illinois, Florida, New York, Kansas, Alabama, Texas and a host of other states. See the Resources Section for a link to the available materials.
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**Examine Slavery and Anti-Slavery Records**
Slavery was a central factor in the Civil War, not only as a dominant issue between the North and the South, but in the use of slaves and freed blacks as both soldiers, and as labor to supply the armies.
The Resources Section includes links to several important resources on for information on individual slaves, including the Civil War era 'Colored Troops' records, and the antebellum Alabama voting registration records.
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**Keep Searching**
There are an assortment of other Civil War records scattered across the internet. Some, like the War of Rebellion reports are comprehensive records of military engagements. Similarly, the Civil War Naval Records provide great detail on individual actions in this oft-overlooked aspect of the Civil War.
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