 Welcome to the National Archives and Records Administration's genealogy series. I'm Andrea Matney, the program's coordinator and pleased to bring you the next session. These lectures demonstrate how to use federal records and other resources for genealogical research for beginning to experience family historians. Our presenters include experts from the National Archives nationwide. During the premiere broadcast, we invite you to join the conversation. Please participate by using YouTube's chat and Twitter. This is number five out of six sessions broadcast over two months. This was our May schedule, and please know that the recorded sessions are still available on YouTube. And here is our June schedule. Like our previous sessions, the video will remain available as a recording for later viewing. As you can see from this slide, chat is available as the video plays. We invite you to participate. First, log into YouTube and then type your questions about today's topic. Keep your eye on the chat during the broadcast because the speaker will answer your questions there. You don't have to wait until the end. Please keep your questions to today's topic and then type them in at any time. Under the video box, you can access the live captioning, handouts, and evaluation. Click on the word show more to see their links. Now on to our session. Civil War Union noncombatant personnel, teamsters, laundresses, nurses, subtlers, and more with Claire Kluskens. Claire is going to share how to find records related to civilians connected with the Union Army during the American Civil War. Claire Kluskens is the genealogy and census subject matter expert at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. She spearheaded the completion of more than 330 National Archives microfilm publications and now works on digital and description projects for the National Archives catalog and the National Archives website. She lectures frequently and has published extensively in national, state, and local genealogical publications. Claire has been a National Archives staff member since 1992. I am now turning the broadcast over to Claire. Good day, everyone. In today's presentation, we're going to look at the Civil War from a different perspective than usual. We usually think about thousands of men fighting battles under the direction of famous generals. Yet those battles could not have been waged without the support of thousands of civilian employees of the Office of the Quartermaster General. Civilian contractors who sold supplies to the government and others. This is a lecture on an advanced research topic but I will focus on records that are online or records for which there are alphabetical indexes that will help you get started and help you think about the archival research process. What I talk about today are just a sampling of the records. If you went into our online catalog, catalog.archives.gov, you would find many record series, files, or items that include the word teamster, laundress, nurse, subtler, and so forth. For this lecture, I chose the low-hanging fruit, records that are online or that serve as indexes to other records. Please note also that the records about civilians are fragmentary and incomplete. They are not comprehensive at all. The records that I will be talking about are in the National Archives building in downtown Washington, D.C., which is easy to get to on the metro rail system. As always, be sure to check our website before making the trip to any archival facility or museum to determine whether the facility is open or closed to researchers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, weather problems, or other events. We'll first talk about teamsters and wagonmasters. Wagonmasters were in charge of a wagon train. Teamsters were in charge of individual wagons. As you can see from this photo of the first wagon train entering Petersburg, Virginia, wagons were the primary means by which supplies were moved around. There are more than 25 wagons in this photo. Here, the Union Army is bringing food and other supplies to the civilian population of Petersburg, Virginia in April 1865 after its surrender. For teamsters and wagonmasters, the place to start is an article that I have online on the National Archives website. The URL is in the handout, and I recommend the handout as a study guide to further research. You start here for two reasons. First, there is a long list of wagonmasters. This list is not complete. There is no complete list anywhere. This list was compiled long after the Civil War by someone with a typewriter who started going through some records. But there is no way to know which records they looked at or which ones they did not look at. If you find someone on this list, that's a great start. It gives you three important pieces of information, his commanding officer, the duty station, and a year. With that information, you get to move forward. What do you do now? In the article online, I give you a fairly long list of related records series that potentially contain additional information. But where do you start? Well, of course, I give you some guidance. And it tells you in the research tips that of all those series in Record Group 92, records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, that series 238, Reports of Persons and Articles Hired, 1818 to 1905, is the mother load of documentation for civilian quartermaster employees. It is the natural starting point for further research after first consulting the related index series 228, which is the reporting officer index to that series. That's the Wagon Master's commanding officer. So if you find a Wagon Master on the list, the reporting officer index will tell you the report number you need in series 238, the reports of persons and articles hired. Moving along, let us look at a small digitized series. One single volume called the list of Wagon Master's, Teamsters, Laborers and other employees, August 1861 to October 1862, that has employees in Northern Virginia. On this slide, you see an image from our online catalog that shows the cover of the volume and the first dozen images. This is a close-up of one of the images that is online. Here is a page of Teamsters. It gives you the man's name, occupation, such as 4M for four mules, driver of a wagon with four mules, or 4H for four horses. His date of entry into service, which is usually also the date his pay starts from, after which there may be further indications of pay, discharge, transfer and so forth. There isn't a whole lot of information, but this is typical of what you might find. Moving on to the reports of clerks, wagon masters and printers employed at various posts. This series is nationwide in scope. It contains reports from quarter masters that list their employees on September 30, 1865, just a few months after the end of the Civil War. There are reports from 389 quarter masters and they are all digitized and online. It also includes a list of printers who had been paid to print forms or advertisements between October 1863 and September 1865. If I click on the search within the series button there in the lower right, it shows me the first 20 reporting quarter masters. And to show you an example of what you will find online, I clicked on the link to Captain George E. Alden in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The catalog shows that his reports consist of four images. Two of those images will be from his cover letter, front and back, and the other two from the list itself, front and back. The list includes five clerks whose names were W.C. Buffington, John E. Little, Leicester King, Llewellyn Alden and H.E. Alden. I assume the last two are his sons. It indicates their rate of pay, $100 to $125 per year, the state in which they were born, the state from which they were appointed, and that they were employed there in Pittsburgh. As another example, this is the report from Captain Ashmead in Philadelphia. At the left is his cover letter. At the right is his list with 15 names of men born in Pennsylvania and Ireland. These results are not surprising for Philadelphia. Out in western states, you will find civilian employees who were born all over the United States as well as from many European countries. Our online catalog includes an index to court martial case files. While most persons subject to military discipline by court martial were soldiers, there are also wagon masters, teamsters, subtlers, and so forth. You can search this by name or rank or occupation. To search, hit the search within the series button. And that will bring up the first 20 file units or items. And then, then to do an actual search in the upper left that blank bar, type in the word or name that you want to search and click on the magnifying glass symbol to the right. By type in Teamster, my search resulted in 196 results. And you can certainly read through all of them. But for the Civil War period, you see at the bottom left of my screen that I circle 1860 to 1869, which indicates there are 136 teamsters included for those years. You can click on the 1860 to 69 and narrow the number of results you see. So I narrowed my results and I chose one man at random. Here we have on this slide the information for William Taylor, a teamster. In the middle, the information indicates that this file unit documents the time period 1863. That's obviously during the Civil War. At the bottom of my slide and indicates the agency assigned identifier, in this case, NN-279. That is the court martial case file number. For our staff to locate this file in the court martial case files, you need to tell us the person's name, William Taylor. The date, August 1863, and case file number NN-279. I don't show it on this screen, but further down the page is the National Archives contact information so that you can email or write to the correct part of the National Archives. Moving on now to nurses, cooks, laundresses, and matrons. Some unknown numbers of women follow the armies around, usually wives of officers. The photo here shows a woman and her children, and presumably her husband, there in the camp of the 31st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. The important thing to understand is that women performed all these roles, nurse, cook, laundress, matron, kind of interchangeably. So don't be fixated on the title the woman has. One woman may be described as having different job titles or roles at different times, but it was still the same person. A matron was in charge of some ward or portion of a hospital, but she was also probably doing nursing, laundry, and cooking as well. The different places that they worked, hospitals, forts, posts, and camps of the traveling army, have an impact on the kinds of records that were created, or if any records were created at all. Let's talk about this woman here on the screen for a moment. Her name is not known and there is no way to know she did laundry for anybody besides her husband and children, but we will pretend for a moment. The officers of the 31st Infantry Regiment might elect or authorize her to do laundry for the men of that regiment, but she will not be, not be an employee of the federal government. Any agreement to do laundry, any payment she receives is a private matter between her and the men involved. So, typically, there would be no record in this situation. Where do you start looking? One of the easiest things to do online, particularly for nurses, is to check the Civil War and Later Pension Index to see if she applied for a pension. The two microphone indexes for Civil War and Later Pensions, which we refer to as T288 and T289 respectively, are online on ancestry.com, fold3.com, and elsewhere. These can be searched by name. On Fold 3, you can search by name or rank, and you can find nurses after you scroll through all the men whose surname was nurse. On the screen are two examples of index cards. The application and certificate numbers shown on these cards, along with the person's name, rank, and unit, are what our staff needs to locate the pension file. When we are open, researchers are welcome to look at pension files in our research rooms. Copies can also be requested online or by mail. See our website for more information. Some Civil War pension files are digitized and available online in our catalog or on fold3.com. One of the volumes we've digitized is the list of female nurses, cooks, and laundresses employed in Army hospitals during the Civil War, shown here. Let's take a look inside this volume. The time span is approximately 1861 to 1865, but there are no specific dates indicated. The information is arranged by city, then by hospital if the city had more than one hospital, and then roughly alphabetically by name. There are no other details. Given the neatness and general consistency of the handwriting, it appears that the Office of the Surgeon General compiled this sometime after the Civil War, but it is not known what other records they looked at in order to compile this list. We've also digitized this list of male and female nurses circa 1860 to circa 1890, which is kind of mysterious since we don't know what it was compiled from or what it relates to. And the 1860 to 1890 timeframe is an estimate. The names in this volume are arranged in rough alphabetical order by the first letter of the last name. Beside the last name, there is a four digit number that is unidentified. Perhaps that mystery will be solved someday. We have digitized the carded service records of female hospital attendants, matrons, and nurses, 1861 to 1865. These are records that were compiled in the late 1800s by the Adjutant General's Office from original muster roles to make it easier for that office to locate information. When you hit the search within the series button there on the lower right, you will see that the images are arranged online in alphabetical groupings by surname, such as Aaron through Abstein, Cecilia through Acres, Adair through Adams, and so forth. On this slide are two examples of these carded records for Elizabeth Abbott of the U.S. Army General Hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina. She became employed as a matron on October 17, 1865, according to the card on the left, and was discharged from her employment on December 8, 1865, according to the card on the right. Not yet digitized are duty station records of hospital attendants, matrons, and nurses, 1861 to 1865. This series also includes laundresses and cooks. I looked up Catherine Duffy in this index. There is one card for a Catherine Duffy as matron and one card for Catherine as a laundress. This may very well be the same person. Please note that the records do not give any identifying information, such as age, address, birthplace, or anything else. The information in the original muster rules and registers referred to in these duty station cards were then more fully transcribed in the carded service records discussed on this slide. These are also not digitized, but they are in rough alphabetical order by surname, so the search is not hard. There are seven cards for a Catherine Duffy, spelled different ways, who was employed at two different U.S. Army hospitals in Baltimore during 1862 and 1863. It's important to remember that names may be spelled different ways, but referred to the same person. The name may not be spelled the way you expect, so it is important to be creative and flexible. We also have an index to reports and correspondence regarding contracts for male and female nurses, 1861 to 1865, that is not online. It is useful because it serves as a finding aid to four other records series listed in your handout. There are additional records that are not online. There is an index to papers relating to female nurses in the Civil War. On this slide, there is an index card for Annie Rice that indicates she requested an appointment on December 1, 1864, and apparently worked at the Jarvis U.S. Army General Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. In record group 217, records of the accounting officers of the Treasury Department, there are records of disallowed claims of laundresses. There are 180 files arranged alphabetically by name of the laundress. All the laundresses' names are in our online catalog. Most of these laundresses served at ports and posts in the western United States in the 1870s and 1880s, but there are some who claim to have worked during the Civil War. On this slide, I show you the online information for laundress Elizabeth Ashman, later known as Elizabeth White, who claims she performed laundry services at the regimental hospital of the first U.S. Colored Troops Infantry Regiment in 1863. As mentioned at the beginning of our discussion of laundresses, laundry services were a private matter between the soldier and the laundress. If the soldier owed money to the laundress, she had to inform his commanding officer so that the debt was recorded on the military payroll. Then she would be paid what she was owed. If that debt was not recorded on the payroll, then there was no evidence to support later claim for payment. That was the reason the claims of these 180 women were disallowed. There was no evidence on the payroll records. Suttlers were businessmen. They operated traveling stores with the permission of the U.S. Army. They followed the Army around and sold the soldier's supplies that the Army didn't give them. When the Army went into winter quarters, they built structures that were a little more sturdy, such as this half tent, half log cabin, that's Suttler A. Folt had at Brandy Station, Virginia in February 1864. Regimental officers elected a Suttler, but that Suttler was still a private individual, a businessman, not a federal employee. There are five starting points for research. There are many publications that can be found online on various websites, including regimental histories, county histories, and other books. These sometimes mention Suttlers. Record group 92, records of the quarter master general at the National Archives has various records, and we will look at some of those in a moment. In record group 94, records of the adjutant general's office, there is microphone publication M1064, letters received by the commission branch of the adjutant general's office, 1863 to 1870, which has been digitized. In record group 153, records of the adjutant general, Army, the court martial case files include Suttlers, and we discussed earlier in this presentation how to use the online index. In record group 217, records of the accounting officers of the treasury, there are disallowed Suttler claims files, and the names of those Suttlers are all in our online catalog. I'm making a point about mentioning all of these record groups here because it is important to understand how archival research works. The National Archives preserves and provides access to the permanently valuable records of the United States federal government. Each federal agency has a record group number and name. Within each record group, the records are arranged in the way the federal agency kept its records. A person, such as a Suttler, might interact with multiple federal agencies that each kept its own records. Thus, archival research is like a jigsaw puzzle. One record may provide a piece of information that may help you connect to another record. Looking at each one of these five starting points in turn, I mentioned that many older publications are online in various websites and searchable. One of the interesting things about Suttlers is that many of them had their own currency, metal tokens and cardboard script. And there are at least two books on that subject that can be found in libraries. Record group 92, records of the quartermaster general, we digitized the name index to press copies of letters sent granting permits to Suttlers. This volume has more than 400 names. It indicates the regiment to which the Suttler was attached and the name of the vessel upon which the goods were shipped, if that was known. It also gives you the page number in the related series of press copies of letters. These are Suttlers operating on the east coast in a war zone. They needed a permit so that the military and naval officers knew they had authorization to transport goods and where those goods were going. Related press copies of letters sent granting permits to Suttlers are all digitized. They were filled in the blank forms with a copy kept on a brittle onion skin paper. That means the form language is absent, but there is one hard copy at the beginning of the series shown here that has the complete language. And this is what the onion skin copy looks like. The words are the word specific to that Suttler and all the form language is absent. Not yet digitized are some 850 bills, invoices, Suttlers papers and other records that list goods for which Suttlers wanted permission to transport and sell. It also includes some records of election as Suttler and other records that are arranged by the page numbers in the index previously mentioned. Microfilm publication 1064, letters received by the commission branch of the Attinent General's Office, which has been digitized includes letters, reports, papers relating to military service of officers, appointments and other matters relating to post traders and so forth. And 1064 can be searched by name or any other word. And so I found a Suttler and on this slide it shows you the notification from that series that Joseph Raver has been selected Suttler by the commissioned officers of the 111th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment. In record group 217 the records of the accounting officers of the Treasury, there are claims by over 400 Suttlers for monies owed them by men who primarily died or deserted. So when you search within this series you can search by name or state these those are the two most effective ways to start. Some of the file unit descriptions indicate the names of soldiers who owed money to the Suttler, for example the disallowed claim of Suttler J.G. Aldridge of Dubuque, Iowa shown here indicates that he sold money on credit to members of the 3rd Iowa Infantry Regiment. And names Thomas Alexander, A. Stanfield, W. Rowe, W. C. Stevenson, George W. Eesirk, Sam Jeffers, Simory Armstrong, John Ecker, William S. Hamlin, Patrick Larkin, William and Arnold Henry Martin and Hiram Starr, men of that regiment who owed him money. Aldridge's file would indicate the amounts owed by these men and usually what they purchased. So finally we'll look at a few examples of other civilians who interacted with the federal government during the Civil War. The United States Christian Commission was a private organization that furnished supplies, medical services and religious literature to Union troops during the Civil War. There are some records in Record Group 94, the records of the Adjutant General's Office, shown here is the cover of the volume of record of religious activities from August 1864 to May 1865 in the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee. This slide shows one of the pages. On the far left is the minister or preacher and then his daily schedule of locations, such as hospitals, barracks, prisons or schools, or even specific regiments such as the 5th Michigan Battery mentioned for Reverend H. N. Bissell on Monday of this particular week. The provost marshals were in charge of the Civil War drafts that occurred as well as locating and capturing deserters from military service. From this volume from Connecticut we learn on page 27, then on October 30, 1863, there was arrested and brought to this office today, one Elam Church, reported to be a deserter from company G, first Connecticut artillery. This young man enlisted at Olive Street, Rendezvous in New Haven in March 1862. On the 2nd of April 1862, he was brought before Judge Park of the Superior Court on writ of Haby's Corpus and proof being furnished that he was under 16 years of age and enlisted without his father's consent, which he needed. He was discharged from the U.S. Service. Proof of these facts were given me by his father and the young man was released from further custody. What a wonderful gem that is, and if you were interested in Elam Church or his father, you would be delighted to find that and would probably find it nowhere else. The Civil War required a lot of horses for cavalry units or wagons, but they were out and need to be replaced by younger horses. Although they weren't suitable for military use, those horses would probably be just fine for the quieter and relatively less strenuous life on a family farm. In February 1864, the Office of the Quartermaster General held auctions for surplus horses in Frederick Maryland and Reading, Pennsylvania. There were 485 horses sold individually. There is a description of the color of the horse, its age, which was not based on chronological age, but on how worn out it was. The purchase price, the name of the purchaser, and the amount paid, which normally matches the auction price. The auctioner's clerk or government clerk spelled names creatively, so if you are looking for a name on this list, it is not likely to be spelled the way you expect. The digitized a little volume that apparently belonged to James D. Brown, who is General Thomas' chief of scouts. It's sort of like an address book or a list of people he knew. This is an example of one page that shows key railroad personnel on the left and names of three scouts, a guide and a ship captain on the right. And finally, one of the most unusual records is this report of prostitutes in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Chambers examined the women weekly to make sure they were healthy and free of obvious disease. The report has two lists, dated August 22 and August 29, 1863, that indicate the women's name, address, and result of examination. So far as I am aware, this is the only such list that we have. I close with this example to show that when you start digging into archival records, it is certainly possible to find unusual and unexpected items. Archival research is called research for a reason. It can be difficult to establish and follow a paper trail. It requires creative thinking, thinking outside the box to take one jigsaw puzzle piece and then figure out where and what the next puzzle piece might be. Thanks for your attention and I hope this was interesting and helpful to you. So thank you, Claire. Although we are wrapping up the video portion of the broadcast, we will continue to take your questions about today's topic in the chat for another 10 minutes. Please stay if you are watching during the premiere broadcast after June 8, submit questions to inquire at narah.gov. As a reminder, the presentation's video recording and handout will remain available on this YouTube page. We value your opinion, so please take a minute to complete a short evaluation. Find the link under Show More. Please note that this event is part of the Know Your Records program. Before ending, we want to share our gratitude for today's behind-the-scenes staff. Our second chat moderator is Amber Forester. Our audio visual staff include Jamie Atkinson, Brian Sipperly, Julie Reed, Jason Winston and Alexis Van Dyke. And the captioning writer is Melissa Moore. Thank you all and on behalf of the National Archives, thank you for joining us. Please stay if you have questions, submit them in the chat.