My Trails into the Past

This past week, I have been watching recorded presentations from the Texas State Genealogical Society’s conference. Craig Scott gave a presentation about  Fold3 , and since that site is not easy to use, I always watch a webinar on it, as I will learn of a new database or a new way to locate items there. This presentation did not disappoint me. He showed examples from the “Confederate Citizens File.” I found it by clicking the browse feature, selecting Civil War, Confederate, and then typing “citizen” in the keyword search. There are three categories: Business, Citizen, and None. Each have thousands of records. I did locate Jesse Loveless. It is one record, where he sold on 6 Dec 1863, 30 bushels of corn at $2 per bushel and 1900 pounds of hay at $2.35 per hundred, for a total of $102.75. The quartermaster, Captain T.C. Burch signed the receipt. It was received near Rome on 6 December 1863. It looks like Jesse Loveless signed it, but there is also a cross after his name. [1] S...

Last two posts have been about finding first Andreas Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR), and then finding the Record of Service for the Regiment and Company where he served. Both records were found on Fold3. You can read about the CMSR here and the Record of Service here . Some of the widow’s pensions for those soldiers who died during the war can be found at Fold3 . Again, using Browse will get you to the record in the most efficient way. Start by selection Civil War (Union). Then select Civil War “Widows’ Pensions.” You will now have a choice of states. We will select Missouri because Andreas served with the 4th Missouri Infantry. Now select Infantry. Now you select with regiment and we’ll select Regiment 4, Company F. We now see three soldiers and the first one is Pfotenhauer, Andrew. This is likely an Americanized version of Andreas’ first name. A widows’ pension begins with the widow making an application. The Act of Congress, approved 14 July 1862, allowed for pension...

Soldier Amos Gorrell (1837-1928) enlisted at Frankfort, Ohio in Company A of the 18th Ohio Infantry on 1 August 1861, and was mustered out on 9 November 1864. He was twenty-four years old and stood five feet, eight and a half inches tall. He had brown hair and eyes and a fair complexion. [1] Amos was my husband’s great-grandfather. He kept a diary throughout his life and there are at least two that survive from the war years. The first covers the time period between 29 July 1861 and 19 June 1862. The second issue we have dates from August 1864 until his discharge. Unfortunately, the surviving diaries do not discuss much about battles. Perhaps no diaries were ever kept during those months or he might have lost them. I previously wrote about the two diaries in these posts: Part I and Part II . For this week’s post about conflict, I thought I would discuss his involvement in the battle at Chickamauga where he was wounded on 20 September 1863 and was in a hospital at Nashville, ...

In my last post about Andreas Pfotenhauer, I found his Civil War Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) on Fold3 . You can view it here . These records gave some information about his service such as location, illness, and finally death. In this post, I’ll add to the knowledge about Andreas’ service by accessing the information about his regiment and his individual unit. These records can often be found with the CMSR in the same location on Fold3 . To locate these cards, I start by using the Browse feature. Next, select which conflict/war and I select Civil War (Union). Under publications, I search for the “Civil War Service Records (CMSR)” for the state I know my soldier served with. Andreas served in Missouri with the 4 th Missouri Infantry. The 4 th Infantry has two categories and normally I’d look for Andreas in the Ps, but for the unit information, I will choose the first category, A-J. Record of Event Cards The Unit tab will have many compiled cards. These cards were co...

Memorial Day is about soldiers who died while serving their country. My children have no direct ancestors who died while serving in the military. However, their second great-grandfather, Amos Gorrell’s wife, Catherine’s first husband lost his life while serving in the Civil War. Lemuel J. Sayre was born perhaps 21 December 1835 in Middle Island, Tyler County, Virginia (later West Virginia) and died 9 May 1862 in a hospital of typhoid fever in Hamburg, Hardin County, Tennessee. [1] United States War Dept.,1866 -  Battle map of Island  No.  Ten in the Mississippi River  during the American Civil War He enlisted at age 26 in Company B of the Ohio 63 rd Infantry Regiment on 9 October 1861 and served the four months as a private. [2] The unit was mustered in at Marietta, Ohio by Frank T. Gilmore, 1 st Lieutenant, 63d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Battles he may have participated in were at New Madrid, Missouri between March 3-13, 1862, and Island No. 10, Tennessee on April ...