How do I track down an ancestor who fought in the Civil war?

[flyingfysh]

One of my mom's ancestors had been thought by the entire family to have been in the Confederate army. But her uncle found the ancestor's discharge papers, and he was in the Union army! While searching the net, I found a mention that he had been in the cavalry, but haven't been able to repeat the search.

How would I search old military records like this?

[kdmorris]

1. Do you have an ancestry.com subscription?

They generally have most of the union civil war indexed (esp is he received a pension). If not, give me the state, name of the person, app year of birth and any other information and I'll run the search for you.

[applegrove]

2. Go the the free latter Day Saints genealogy website and search for census. They sometimes

list a person's occupation in the census.

[Sherman A1]

3. Try the Soldiers & Sailors System of the National Park Service

http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/

It is a good starting place. Then you can move to state records or unit histories as they exist.

I have a couple of family members that fought in the Civil War, some South some North. I have found some in the correct units here and others I have found some leads (due to similarity of names it's tougher).

Good Luck!

[Rosie1223]

4. Look for state records here:

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1&region=UNITED_STATES

Good Luck!

[TuxedoKat]

5. If you are near DC

You can visit the National Archives and request to look at his actual file. I used to live and work in DC years ago and often during my lunchtime would go over there and peruse the census, etc. One day I decided to see if an ancestor was in the Civil War and sure enough he was! I saw his file, it had his muster in paperwork, regiment info, correspondence about his veterans' benefits from him and his wife, hospitalization info, etc. Very interesting. Maybe this info is all computerized now, I don't know. WAIT -- here you go:

http://www.archives.gov/research/military/civil-war/civil-war-genealogy-resources/

Good luck!

[csziggy]

6. I've got a Fold3.com membership - I can look up National Archives stuff for you

Though their Confederate files seem more complete than their Union ones.

Tell me the name, location, age, etc. and I can look it up, download the files and email them to you. Use the DU mail to send me private info.