Finders Keepers, Volume 10, Number 3, August 1993 Page: 83
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Rescuing Texas History, 2013 and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Johnson County Genealogical Society.
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CONFEDERATE SERVICE RECORDS
by Joseph Kimmel
When the Confederate Government evacuated Richmond, Virginia, in April 1865, the
Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General, Samuel Cooper, took the centralized Military
Personnel Records of the Confederate Army to Charlotte, North Carolina. When the
Confederate Civil Authorities left Charlotte, after agreeing to an armistice between the
armies in North Carolina, President Jefferson David instructed Samuel 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.
These Military Personnel Records were taken to Washington along with other
Confederate Records captured by the Union Army and preserved in the War Department.
Between 1878 and 1901, the War Department employed a former Confederate General,
Marcus J. Wright, to locate missing Confederate Records and borrow them for copying. In
1903, Secretary of War, Elihu Root, persuaded the Governors of most of the southern states
to lend all Confederate Military Personnel Records still in their possession to the War
Department for copying.
The Compiled Military Service Record of a Confederate Solider is kept in a jacket
envelope filed with envelopes for other soldiers in the same unit. Because of the efforts
made over the many years to incorporate all available information into this system, it is, by
far, the most complete and accurate source of information about Confederate Soldiers. The
Compiled Military Service Record may provide the following information of genealogical
interest: Place of Enlistment, Place Served, Place of Discharge or Death and often, Age and
Physical Description.
Microfilm copies of all Indexes and some records are available at the National
Archives and the Genealogical Society of Utah. The Index will provide the Rank, Unit and
Name of Soldier and the pertinent file can be ordered from the National Archives. See
table below for microfilm numbers for Index and Compiled Military Service Records for
Confederate Army Volunteers.
STATE INDEX COMPILED MILITARY SERVICE
MICROFILM # RECORD MICROFILM #
ALABAMA M374 M311
ARIZONA TERR. M375 M318
ARKANSAS M326 M317
FLORIDA M225 M251
GEORGIA M226 M266
KENTUCKY M377 M319
LOUISANA M378 M320
MARYLAND M379 M321
MISSISSIPPI M232 M269
MISSOURI M380 M322
NORTH CAROLINA M230 M27083
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Johnson County Genealogical Society (Tex.). Finders Keepers, Volume 10, Number 3, August 1993, periodical, August 1993; Cleburne, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth355270/m1/24/?q=%22tex-fron%22: accessed June 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Johnson County Genealogical Society.