MS-CW-L Archives

From: "Huffman" <>
Subject: [MS-CW] General MS Confederate Research Suggestions
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 21:52:07 -0500

Elaine and others:

Use H. Grady Howell’s “For Dixie Land, I’ll Take My Stand,” the best-ever
index to MS
Confederate Patriots (3 volumes, 3600 pages, 149,000 names, & published in
1999 &
2000, plus a 300-page volume of MS Confederate Patriot Portraits), to find
your MS
Confederate ancestors, or post to the MS Civil War Bulletin Board (see
below).

Information on counties of company formation may be found at the MS
Division, Sons of
Confederate Veterans, website. (See link below.) Please be aware that many
soldiers
traveled to neighboring or even more distant counties (and states!) to join
companies
forming when these individual soldiers decided to enlist. Companies weren’t
always
forming in the neighborhood when a man made up his mind to join the
patriotic struggle to
repel the foreign invaders. Accordingly, your ancestor may have joined the
war effort far
away from his home; check all possibilities before concluding he did not
serve simply
because all the candidates joined companies from other counties (or states).

Please note that Mr. Howell himself says that perhaps 20% of all Confederate
Veterans’
service was either never documented or the documentation for their service
has been lost
over time. Accordingly, sources secondary to Compiled Service Records (see
below)
should be consulted when looking for Confederate service for an ancestor.
These
secondary sources include county Confederate service rolls, private letters
& diaries,
church records, newspaper accounts, United Confederate Veteran Camp records,
etc.

Information on individual soldiers is found in each soldier’s Compiled
Service Record
(CSR). Additionally, if a soldier served in more than one unit, he would
have a CSR for
each unit. I would suggest that you order this soldier’s/these soldiers’
CSR(s) from the
MS Dept. of Archives & History (faster and about the same price as ordering
through the
National Archives; slower but much cheaper than ordering through Broadfoot).
The
MDAH is on-line at http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/. I do not have information
on
individual soldiers, unless they are from the 43rd MS Infantry.

Additionally, MS’s larger universities have copies of MS Confederate CSR’s
on microfilm.
You can view these and usually make copies for yourself pretty cheaply.
Call the main
campus library ahead of time to make sure of availability. (I live an hour
from Hattiesburg
and often use the MS Confederate CSR’s at USM’s Cook Library. Great staff!)

The Mississippi Civil War Bulletin Board at
www.misscivilwar.org/wwwboard/general/
continues to be the very best site on the web for posting queries about your
Mississippi
Confederate ancestors and their units. This site is routinely monitored by
about a dozen of
the most knowledgeable Mississippi Confederate historians in the nation.
Post your
queries and see if you can learn more about your proud Mississippi
Confederate “Heritage
of Honor”!

Confederate Pension Applications for Southern Patriots living in MS at the
time of their
filing for same are also available from the MDAH. Betty Wiltshire has a
fine,
three-volume index to these MS applications, but it is not available for use
on-line.
However, Ms. Wiltshire imforms me that it is available for purchase on-line
at
www.pioneersoutheast.com, along with many other books authored by her and
others.
The Pension Applications sell for $25 each book, Vols. A-G, H-O, and P-Z.
"Mississippi Confederate Grave Registrations," which I think is also by the
renowned Ms.
Betty Wiltshire (but I'm not sure) lists most registered Confederate
burials after about
1905 in the state and might include a listing your ancestor(s). Note that
the book is only
an index and that you would then have to either consult or ask the MDAH to
consult the
original Confederate Graves Registrations to provide you with specific info
regarding the
actual burial site of the deceased (location of cemetery, etc.).The MDAH is
on-line at
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/ Please note that the original Confederate
Grave
Registration forms contain only scant information, mainly describing the
location of the
cemetery in which the veteran was buried.
Brief, capsule histories of nearly every MS Confederate unit can be found on
the MS
Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, website at www.mississippiscv.org.
Click on
“History of MS Units,” then scroll down to the unit of choice. If you visit
the MS
Division, SCV, site, please leave a note for Webmaster William Lee letting
him know how
much you appreciate all his hard, volunteer work in putting this fine site
together!
Thanks!

Greg Moorer’s “Mississippi Civil War Information” site at
www.misscivilwar.org remains
one of the best all-round sites for information on Mississippi Civil War
information. Greg
is the sponsor of the fabled Mississippi Civil War Bulletin Board mentioned
above and a
tireless worker for Mississippi’s Confederate Heritage of Honor. Thank you,
Greg!

The Civil War Units Researchers’ page at
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/unit4.html
contains links to researchers willing to share information about various
Confederate units,
from Mississippi as well as other Confederate States. Check this and
associated pages out
if you’re interested in a particular Confederate regiment. If you have a
lot of info to share
about a particular regiment, contact the webmaster and offer yourself as a
point of contact
for others interested in the same unit! Share the honor of having
Confederate ancestors!

The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion (i.e., the War of Northern
Aggression)
remain the single most important source for primary information on Civil War
units,
personalities, and actions. Andy Ramsay noted on the Mississippi WWW Civil
War Board
that the OR has been digitized by Cornell University and is online and
searchable at
http://www.cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa/_browse.html. The lins for both
the Army and
Navy OR are about halfway down this page. You can search for any term or
phrase.
When read online, it is read as images (pictures) of the original
publication.

The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia (www.moc.org), has the
following MS Confederate flags in its collection: Stanford’s Battery (MS
Light Artillery),
7th MS Infantry, 11th MS Infantry, 16th MS Infantry, 19th MS Infantry, 24th
MS
Infantry, 29th MS Infantry, 34th MS Infantry, 41st MS Infantry, and one
unidentified MS
Infantry flag that belonged to a regiment in Gen. Sears’ Brigade and was
captured at
Richland Creek after the Battle of Nashville. MDAH can sometimes tell you
about the
existence of other MS Confederate flags in various other states’, museums’,
and private
collectors’ hands.

For information concerning obtaining a free, Government headstone/marker to
commemorate the valor of your noble Confederate Patriot sires, please go to
the
Department of Veterans Affairs marker program webpage at
www.cem.va.gov/hm.htm.
Please help mark every Confederate grave you can for the benefit of future
generations, so
that every person who visits a Southern cemetery will see at least one
reminder of the
valor and patriotism of our ancestors -- and maybe become interested in
researching their
own roots, hopefully eventually discovering their own noble Southron
Patriots!

Gentlemen: Please considering joining the SCV. Information about
membership in the
SCV may be found on our national website at www.scv.org. Prospective
members may
also call 1-800-MYSOUTH.

Ladies: Please encourage your female relations to join one of two
outstanding
Confederate Heritage organizations for women. The United Daughters of the
Confederacy (UDC) is the oldest Confederate Heritage organization for ladies
only.
Information about the UDC may be found at www.hqudc.org.

A newer Confederate Heritage organization for ladies, children, and even men
without
Confederate ancestors (but who are interested in helping to preserve our
Confederate
Heritage of Honor!) is the Order of the Confederate Rose, which functions
both
independently and as a support to the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Information about
the Order of the Confederate Rose may be obtained at
www.confederate-rose.org/. The
MS Society, OCR, is on-line at www.geocities.com/mississippiscv/ms_ocr.htm.

If you have any photos of your ancestor(s) or other MS Confederates in
uniform, please
contact H. Grady Howell, Jr., 103 Trace Harbor Road, Madison, MS 39110, and
send him
a copy of your picture(s). Grady is collecting MS Confederate portraits for
a second
volume of MS Patriots in uniform. (The first volume was also the fourth
volume of his
great MS Confederate Patriot index, “For Dixie Land, I’ll Take My Stand.”)
Be sure to
send him a copy of your MS Confederate(s) in order to insure the survival of
these
precious images! Many libraries and archives purchase Grady’s books, so
your ancestor’s
photo will, in this manner, be transmitted unto future generations of
descendants! Also,
you will be thanked by many other descendants or researchers who may not
know you and
may not know you have such pictures! Grady’s first volume of Confederate
Patriot
portraits was phenomenal! It is a real treat to see a book of nothing but
proud
Mississippians ready to sacrifice their all to repel the foreign invasion of
their homeland!

Please send Grady a short note along with your picture(s), telling him what
you know
about the soldier(s), their full names (if known), their units, wounds,
etc., so that he can
provide a suitable caption in the book.

Grady also welcomes portraits of unidentified MS Confederates in uniform.
Again,
include as much info as possible about these unknowns when you write him.
(Info such as
where you acquired the photo, whom it might possibly be, etc.,)

On the off chance that you had ancestors in the 43rd MS Infantry, please see
our small
website at www.43rdms.homestead.com -- then contact me immediately! Thanks!

I hope all of the above information has been of both use and interest to
you! -- Jim H.

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