Footnote’s “Civ War” Collection
Feb 20th, 2008 by sharbrough
Footnote has service records, pension files, newspapers, and government correspondence from the War Between The States. There are even photographs. If you know your civil war ancestor, you are likely to find something about them here.
At the Footnote offices, in the same shorthand the lets us refer to the War for Independence as the “Rev War,” we call the War Between the States the “Civ War.” Most people call it the “Civil War” as if there was only one, ever; and as if no one would ever confuse it with all of the garden variety civil wars that there are and were and will be.
From the outset, Footnote wanted to present a rich Civil War collection. Two of the first five titles that we published were the Civil War Pension Index and the Southern Claims. There is also a significant amount of Civil War material in a third of those first five titles: the Pennsylvania Archives. We find a high level of interest in this period. Sometimes people at the office ask me why interest in the civil war is so high.
I don’t know.
When I was in the first grade, back in the 1950’s, I remember that we used to run around in the classroom every morning, between the time that the bus got us to school and the time that the class started. One day, it was discovered that one of the boys was a Yankee, and the rest of us chased him all around the desks, repeating southern slogans and I can’t remember what else.
That merriment was interrupted by the angry entrance of the Hall Monitor. This historian, probably all of ten years old, told us we were being silly because the war had been over for a hundred years. It made sense to me, and I haven’t chased around calling Yankees names since. But when you grow up in the south, you find that the war is only as over as you want it to be.
The answer that seems to generate the most head-nodding and murmuring is, “That was the war that made us one country, instead of many states.” Put another way, that would be like saying that it was the military victory of the federal government over the sovereign states. Clearly, there was a weak central government before this time, and a strong central government after.
NARA staffers have referred to the Civ War as “the war that never ends,” but they are talking about how people remain interested in it. I won’t use this space to develop any new theories of why americans think the civil war is important, or interesting. Suffice it to say that I know people who can recite the order of battle for both sides. People all over the South still name children after confederate generals.
Americans are a paradox, a people who want peace and isolation on the one hand, and fight frequent wars on the other. History shows us that we don’t understand ourselves very well yet, among other things. And you can find evidence of this in the “Civ War” Collection at Footnote.
Inclusion in this collection is primarily based on the time period of the records in a title, but in some cases the title could overlap several other time periods in american history. Here are a few notes about the collection, going in alphabetical order.
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The Confederate Service are for the most part on line now, what about the Union records? Are there plans to load them also, or am I missing something? I would love to see the 2ND NC Mounted Union Infantry Reg up.
I’m under a strict prohibition about discussing unpublished titles in any detail. Please accept this vague response: we think we have the best collection of civil war records on the web, and we intend to continue to add to it so that it stays the best.