Glory, Glory, Hallelujah: Civil War Soldier Index

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Glory, Glory, Hallelujah

Genealogists are singing the praises of volunteers for the National Park Service’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System Web site with information from millions of soldier records.

By Diane Haddad

Genealogists are singing the praises of volunteers for the National Park Service’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System Web site (CWSS), who’ve completed the Name Index Project to post information from 6.3 million soldier records. After the final million names — belonging to soldiers from Pennsylvania and Virginia — were added to CWSS last September, a ceremony at Ford’s Theatre marked the milestone.

Next up for indexing are naval personnel records, but the CWSS site reports it’ll take awhile: “Given that the records sources for the Navy are not as well organized as the Army records — nor are they microfilmed — the target date for this is still to be determined.”CWSS already catalogs about 18,000 African-American sailors, thanks to Department of Defense funding and work by Howard University.

The soldier data comes from the General Index Cards in the National Archives and Records Administration’s Compiled Military Service Records. CWSS also has Civil War information such as regimental histories and links to descriptions of nearly 400 battles.

From the February 2005 Family Tree Magazine

Military