A BIT OF COMMUNITY

Check out the following member inputs for comments and requests for information, Feedback's, Items of Interest and Plea's for HELP...

From KRoth in VA

I recently acquired a copy of the book "7th Virginia Infantry", by David RIGGS, part of the series of books on Civil War units. If you or anyone else needs a lookup, feel free to contact me. KRoth in VA@aol.com

{{{{{Ken}}}}} We appreciate the offer to the "Faithful" to do look-ups... 

From Jab0615

I have the Virginia 31st Infantry by John Ashcraft I will do look-ups.

Jim 
Jab0615@aol.com

{{{{{Ken & Jim}}}}} We appreciate the offer to the "Faithful" to do look-ups..!!!!!


From: "Kevin Frye" <frye@gnat.net>

Hi All,
I had someone send me this link and thought some of you could use it.

There is a 800 page book that was written by the Army in 1910 that is on-line. It has stories told by soldiers but better yet, it has photos and portraits of every soldier that served in the 155th PA Infantry. Reading the book, I saw that many of the soldiers  came from Beaver County.
Instructions:

http://bigfoot.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh/index.html

1. Click Full Text.
2. Click Browse Books.
3. Scroll down to U.

I hope that you will freely share this information so people can link up with their ancestor's picture. It took me years to stumble across it and am pleased to share this valuable find.

I took a look at it... and was very suprised to find that the photos are so wonderfully done.

Kevin Frye
Please visit my homepage at
http://www.angelfire.com/ga2/Andersonvilleprison/index.html

I, do Volunteer research at Andersonville Civil War Prison in Andersonville Georgia. Any research I do is absolutely at NO cost and I am willing to do what I can.

My sources are the following....... 

There are 2 online databases to do lookups.....One by name...one by Company and Regiment. I also have a copy of the Dorence Atwater Death list which has the names and grave numbers of some 13000 graves with only 460 marked as " UNKNOWN " 

This along with a CD I have which contains 34,000 names of the 45,000 who were imprisoned there which helps me find prisoner records because of misspellings of the names or alternate names. I visit the prison site every couple of weeks and have access to the onsite databases as well as the physical files. If there is anything I can do in helping your research at Andersonville, please just ask. 

Kevin

{{{{{Kevin}}}}} Thank you for the information! I hope everyone doesn't flock to your door at once!


From: CDeripaska
Jim, ole wiz of music, i'm desperately trying to remember the words to a song I heard my mother sing years ago. I used to sing it out on the front porch in the swing at night and made my daddy cry. The only part I remember is..." I'm writing this down in a trench, Mom. Don't scold if isn't too neat. You know as you did, when I was a kid, and came home with mud on my feet. ....... Then the old woman's hands began to tremble, as she fought against tears in her eyes. But she wept unashamed, for there was no name. and she knew that her darlin had died" Maybe not the exact words but I still remember the tune. i wish I knew it's origin, Any clue? Thanks Carolyn

{{{{{Carolyn}}}}}} Heh heh The ole wiz of music struck out on this one. It really strikes me as World War I, maybe World War II time frame. OK Gang! Help me out here. 

* * * * * * * * * * 
{{{{{{Jimmy}}}}} I went huntin' and I found it!!
{{{{{{Carolyn}}}}} Here's your song!!

SOLDIER'S LAST LETTER
Recorded by Ernest Tubb also by George Jones 
Written by Sgt. Redd Stewart and Ernest Tubb

When the postman delivered a letter
It filled her dear heart full of joy
But she didn't know til she read the inside
It was the last one from her darling boy.

Dear Mom, was the way that it started
I miss you so much, it went on
Mom, I didn't know, that I loved you so 
But I'll prove it when this war is won.

I'm writing this down in a trench, Mom
Don't scold if it isn't so neat
For you know as you did, when I was a kid
And I'd come home with mud on my feet.

Well, the captain just gave us our orders
And Mom, we will carry them through.
I'll finish this letter the first chance I get
But for now I'll just say I love you.

Then the mother's old hands began to tremble
And she fought against tears in her eyes
For they came unashamed for there was no name 
And she knew that her darling had died.

That night as she knealt by her bedside
She prayed Lord above hear my plea
And protect all the sons that are fighting tonight
And dear God keep America free.

NOTE: after posting this last week I got the following from Carolyn:
Thank you so much for my song !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How in the world did you find it? My mother taught me this song and I used to sing it over and over. Thanks so much, thank God, I remember the tune!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

{{{{Carolyn}}}} 
I went to my very favorite search engine < www.google.com > and typed in "I'm writing this down in a trench, Mom" and it gave me a list of websites too choose from. I'm so glad you're enjoying it.

From: NPeter2089
Information passed on in response to a question regarding sources of Confederate records............. Have you tried contacting the State Archives in Little Rock, AR? They would have been the archiving source for Confederate Pensions. Confederate Service Records are maintained at the National Archives. Ancestry.com published a book entitled "The Source" and have it for 'online review' by it's members. Under the section Military Records.....Confederate Service records (pgs. 294-296), it states:  

"When Richmond was evacuated by the Confederate government in April 1865, the centralized military personnel records of the Confederate Army were taken to Charlotte, North Carolina, by the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General, Samuel Cooper. When the Confederate civil authorities left Charlotte after agreeing to an armistice between the armies in North Carolina, President Jefferson Davis instructed Cooper to turn the records over, if necessary, to "the enemy, as essential to the history of the struggle." When General Joseph E. Johnston learned, after the armistice, that the records were at Charlotte, he turned them over to the Union Commander in North Carolina, saying, "As they will furnish valuable materials for history, I am anxious for their preservation, and doubt not that you are too." 

The Confederate records surrendered or captured at the end of the war and taken to  Washington, D.C., have been augmented by other records collected or copied in later years. In 1903, the War Department began to compile a service record for each soldier by copying the entries pertaining to him in these records. The result is an immense file of "compiled military service records" from which inquiries about Confederate soldiers are answered. Because of the efforts made over many years to incorporate all available information into this file, it is by far the most complete and accurate source of information about Confederate soldiers. 

This file is accessed through the massive consolidated index to Confederate soldiers (NARA microfilm publication M1290), contained on 535 rolls of microfilm. If no record can be located by using this index, there is another set of Confederate records: those which were never identified as pertaining to a specific soldier or were not used in compiling the service records when the government ceased that operation. 

The compiled military service record of a Confederate soldier consist of one or more card abstracts and usually one or more original documents. Each card abstract entry comes from such original records as Confederate muster rolls, returns, descriptive rolls, and Union prison and parole records. If the original record of a soldier's service was complete, the card abstracts may serve to trace his service from beginning to end, but they normally do little more than account for where he was at a given time. The complied military service record may provide the following information of genealogical interest: age, place of enlistment, places served, place of discharge or death, and often physical description. 

The original Confederate records from which the cards were made are among the holdings of the National Archives. Microfilm copies of all indexes and some records are available at the National Archives and at the Family History Library (see table 9-4). The index will provide rank, unit, and name of the soldier, and the pertinent file can then be ordered from the National Archives. 

The National Archives also compiled histories of Confederate military units and vessels (M861). They are arranged alphabetically by state and then by unit. Because prisoner exchanges late in the Civil War were not working, approximately 28,000 Confederate soldiers, sailors, and citizens died in the North. While federal legislation from 1867-1873 provided for the reburial of Union soldiers in national cemeteries and  for durable headstones, this early legislation made no specific provision for Confederate dead. Their graves were sometimes given thin headstones with a grave number and the soldier's name. Many of the non-union graves, however, were marked with wooden headboards that disintegrated, although the names were often preserved in cemetery burial registers. 

Finally, in 1912, a typescript register of Confederate soldiers and sailors buried in federal cemeteries was compiled in accordance with a 1906 statute, to provide for marking the graves of Confederate soldiers and sailors who died in Union prisons. This register (M918) was generally arranged alphabetically by name of prison camp, other location where the death occurred, or occasionally by cemetery name. The individual burial lists are also arranged alphabetically by the name of the deceased and generally include rank, company, regiment, date of death, and number and location of grave. Some cemeteries did not bury the dead in numbered graves. Some regimental and company designations or death dates are not entered in the register. The registers also include few entries for private Confederate citizens. Some are unknown. Other entries are for bodies "removed," "sent home," and "taken home by  friends." 

State Confederate Records
The War Department Collection of Confederate Records is not complete, even though great efforts were made to assemble all official information. A soldier may have served in a state militia unit that was never mustered into the service of the Confederate government. Records of service in such units, if extant, may be in the state archive or in the custody of the state adjutant general. Since the federal government of the United States did not pay benefits to Confederates, pensions and other state benefits are recorded only in state records. 

The Family History Library has the single largest collection of microfilmed state Confederate records. The call numbers for ordering the microfilms through family history centers are most easily located in the Military Records Register, Vol. II: Civil War. If the center does not have a copy have the librarian request a copy from the main library in Salt Lake City. 

Two additional categories of records require special mention: military academy records and Reconstruction court records. Many Confederate officers received their early training in Southern military academies. Others had attended West Point and had to choose which side to support. Consult Bvt. Major-General George W. Cullum, Biographical Register, Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, 3rd ed., 9 vols." 

{{{{Nadine}}}}}} Great information; some we have published and some we have not... THANKS

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