Re: Help on Muster Rolls
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In reply to:
Re: Help on Muster Rolls
Frederick Perkins 1/10/09
You definitely have a copy of the Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) of Wade F. Sanford, aka W.F. Sanford, Private, covering service in the 2nd Infantry Regiment, Georgia State Troops, October 1861 - April 1862; the 57th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, December 1863 - April 1865; and paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina as the Consolidated 1st Georgia Infantry.
But that CMSR has only 4 cards, the reference card plus information abstracted from 3 muster rolls. Aside from the pension application I can't imagine what the other 9 can be unless it is the Compliled Service Record for Military Units. Those are usually not abstracts but copies of the original reports made in the field. Most are difficult to read.
Following is a bit of history of the CMSR taken in part from the National Archives publication "Military Service Records:"
In April 1865, during the final days of the Civil War, as the Confederate Government left Richmond, Virginia, it archives of records were either shipped south, burned, or abandoned. Some of these records were found or captured by Union forces and sent to the War Department in Washington where a bureau was established for their safekeeping and publication.
In 1903 the Secretary of War persuaded the Governers of most Southern States to lend the War Department the military personnel records in their possession for copying.
These captured and copied records which consisted of Muster-in Rolls, Muster Rolls, Rosters, Registers, Field and Staff Muster Rolls, Requisitions, Letters, Receipts, Pay Rolls, Bounty Rolls, Hospital Rolls and Registers, Inspection Reports, Casualty Lists, Invoices, and Regimental Returns to name a few, plus Union Prison and Parole Descriptive Rolls or lists, Hospital Registers, and death lists of captured Confederates.
These were abstracted by War Department personnel between 1903 and 1927 to compile the military service records. These abstracts were placed on individual cards from each of the sources mentioned above and the cards were placed in a folder for each soldier along with an Index or Reference card. This is the first card of the service record and has reference numbers for the location of the original source records.
The originals are available at the National Archives in Washington, DC. however tne Archives contend that the abstracts accurately reflect the contents of the originals.
Incidentally, not all the records in the CMSR were abstracted. Some original records, usually dealing with a death, are actually a part of the CMSR and there will be some cards other than those abstracted from Company Muster Rolls that will have a different format from my example.
The folders were arranged by units and alphabeticaly by soldier. Later, the folders were turned over to the National Archives and eventually microfilmed. Most states have copies of the microfilm for their state organizations.
The "Copyist" is the War Department employee who abstracted the information. Different copyist may have been responsible for a particular type records thus one may see different copyists on the cards for any individual. For example I have a service record that has 17 cards made by 9 different copyists.
You are correct to assume that the copyists are the people that abstracted information from the original. It must be remembered that many Confederate records were lost and there may be gaps in the service records.
The WPA was not started until 1935, well after these abstracts were made and were not involved in their production (the WPA did index the 1880, 1900, and 1910 Federal Population censuses on cards. These were later microfilmed).
In case you haven't seen these web pages of the 57th Georgia:http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Village/9340/57thgainf.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Village/9340/57thgainf.html. The print is small on this web page so you might want to copy/paste to a word processor program with a larger font.
Another regimental history can be found at http://www.nwinfo.net/~jagriffin/57th.htmhttp://www.nwinfo.net/~jagriffin/57th.htm.
The National Archives cautions that unless the CMSR specifically states a soldier was at the places mentioned in the Regimental histories, it should not be assumed that he was. With this in mind, I hope the pension application will help fill in the blanks.
More Replies:
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Re: Help on Muster Rolls
Frederick Perkins 1/14/09