Researching Your Illinois Civil War Ancestor:
Part 1

Introduction

One of the most frequent requests I receive in my e-mail at work (I'm a reference librarian) comes from persons who want to learn more about their Civil War ancestors from Illinois. They have the soldier's name but often don't know the regiment he served with or the town/county he was from. “Where do I start?” they ask, or “How do I locate his military record?” I've put this page together to provide you with a guide to finding as much information as you possibly can about your Illinois Civil War ancestor.

Note: I'm going to give you the good news and the bad news upfront. The good news is that Illinois is one of the most genealogist-friendly states in the United States. Genealogical materials at both the state andcounty level are normally well-organized and relatively easy toaccess. The bad news is that, even in Illinois, no one library or institution has all the information that you'll want about your Civil War soldier ancestor. In fact, some of the best sources of information you'll want to access aren't even in the state of Illinois.

The First Step- What Regiment Was He In?

Your first step is to identify the soldier's regiment. An infantry regiment was a group of approximately 1,000 soldiers which was subdivided into ten companies of about 100 men each. Regiments were designated by number, i.e., 89th Illinois Infantry, while companies were identified by letter, i.e., Company E. An infantry regiment would have included companies A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and K (J was not used because the cursive I and J are easily confused because of their similar appearance). Regiments could be infantry (foot soldiers), artillery (cannoneers), or cavalry (horse soldiers). A company in an artillery regiment was referred to as a battery, while a company (or a group consisting of several cavalry companies) in a cavalry regiment was sometimes referred to as a troop.

If you know your Civil War ancestor's name, but nothing else about his military service (other than that he was a member of an Illinois regiment), there are several ways in which you can proceed. If you have access to the Internet, you can check a database of Civil War soldiers from Illinois which is available on the website of the Illinois State Archives. This database is searchable by name, by regiment, or by places of residence. Search returns providename, rank, regiment and company, and place where the man resided at the time of enlistment.

If you don't have access to the Internet, it will prove helpful to know that this online database was compiled using a nine-volume book set compiled by the Illinois Adjutant General's Office in 1901 which lists Illinois Civil War soldiers by regiment. Many libraries and archives have this book, or can get it (or photocopies from it) for you through interlibrary loan. Listings in this book set normally include name, rank, date of enlistment, date of muster, date of muster out or discharge, and notes (WIA, KIA, POW, etc.)

You can also check a relatively recent book set called Roster of Union Soldiers which was issued by Broadfoot Books. This book set, which was compiled using the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm indexes to compiled military service records (CMSRs) from the various states which furnished soldiers to the Union Army (see discussion of CMSRs later in this report), has alphabetical listings by state of all Civil War Union volunteer soldiers. Listings in this book set provide name, highest rank achieved, and regiment. If you don't find your ancestor's name immediately, check for alternate spellings, as spelling of names in 19th century America was at best a haphazard business, and it is possible that your Civil War soldier ancestor was illiterate (although rebel soldiers were more commonly illiterate than were Union soldiers).

The Second Step: What the Heck is a CMSR, and How Do I Get a Copy of One?

Once you know the regiment and company your ancestor served in, you may wish to request his compiled military service record (CMSR). CMSRs were compiled by federal government clerks around 1890 using federal government records and records loaned to the federal government by state Adjutant General offices. Federal law had recently approved pensions for volunteers in state regiments which had been mustered into federal service in the Union Army during the Civil War, and the federal Pension Office needed a fairly simple way to figure out who was eligible for such a pension.

The National Archives in Washington, D.C. holds many different types of Federal government records, including CMSRs for Union and rebel soldiers and pension files for Union soldiers. Paper copies of CMSRs can be ordered by mail using an NATF (National Archives Trust Fund) Form 86 for each CSMR ordered (copies of Civil War pension records can be ordered by mail using an NATF Form 85 for each pension record ordered- online orders are now also available). You can obtain the NATF Form 85 and Form 86 by providing your name and mailing address here: NARA. Be sure to specify the correct form number and the number of forms you need. You can also obtain the NATF Forms 85 and Form 86 by writing to: National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20408-0001. You can also call your local public library: many now carry NARA forms as a convenience for their patrons. As of January 2004, the fee for obtaining each CMSR is $17.50 US; the fee for pension files is $37.00 US.

If money is not a problem, you may wish to request a man's CMSR and his pension file. There will probably be information in one record which is not available in the other file. If you need to economize, your best bet may be to order the more expensive pension file, as it is likely to include both information about the man's spouse and children and his military service, while the CMSR will only have information about his military service.

Note: if a choice is offered between getting his complete pension file and getting a cheaper, less complete version of it, my advice is to get the complete file if you are certain the soldier is “yours.” The cheaper version includes a “representative” sampling of papers from the complete file. This “representative” sampling is made by a file clerk who may or may not be knowledgeable about either genealogy or the Civil War, may or may not be having a good day, and may or may not be tired and ready to go home after a long day at work.

One thing that can complicate matters is if your ancestor served in a state militia unit rather than a state volunteer regiment that was sworn into federal service. Service in a state militia unit that was never sworn into federal service would not qualify an ancestor for a post-war federal pension. As a result, there won't be any CMSRs at the National Archives for men who served only in state militia units. The good news, though, is that many men who intially served in state militia units also later served in state volunteer regiments that were federalized, and so would later qualify for federal pensions and have CMSRs at the National Archives (CMSRs, however, usually cover only service in a state volunteer regiment, and so will only cover militia service if the militia unit was temporarily sworn into federal government service during an emergency).

The Third Step: Descriptive Rosters and Other Regimental Records

Because photography was in its infancy and fingerprinting had not yet been discovered, military authorities at the time of the Civil War needed some way to identify individual soldiers. One way to do this was to compile a descriptive roster, which was usually done by the company clerk (a private who could read and write- often a man who had been a schoolteacher, bookkeeper, or store clerk before the war) at the time that the regiment was first assembled. The descriptive roster included written descriptions of the men who had enlisted in the regiment- hence the name descriptive roster. Descriptive rosters still exist for many Illinois Civil War regiments. They are held by the Illinois State Archives. Descriptive rosters can include full name, age, rank, company in the regiment, residence, height, weight, eye and hair color, complexion type, identifying marks or scars, occupation, and sometimes birthplace (can include state, county, and town of birth, although can be just state or country). The content from the descriptive rosters is now included in the database of Illinois Civil War soldiers on the Illinois State Archives web site.

Examination of the "Descriptive Inventory of the Illinois State Archives" (available as a pdf file on their web site) can also reveal some of the many other types of records the Archives may hold for a particular Illinois Civil War regiment, including morning reports, casualty reports, equipment returns, and so on. The Illinois State Archives web site includes a section on making requests for photocopies and other research assistance to Archives staff.

Text and photos © copyright 2004 by Thomas A.  Pearson. All rights reserved.  Last revised: 22 March 2006.