The Better Soldiers and Sailors site provides a powerful way to search for your Civil War ancestors.

Beginner’s Search Screen

This Beginner’s Search screen provides a simple interface.  To search for a person, type or paste his full name into this field (e.g., “John A. Smith” or “Smith, John A.”).  It will search all of the databases of people for that name using default search options and return a list of matching names.

Advanced Search Screen

The Advanced Search screen provides many more options to fine-tune the search for people and to search other databases.

People tab

On this tab you can search for soldiers and sailors, as well as people in other databases.

The Search option at the top allows you to specify the database to search.

• All People – the default.  It includes all of the options below.
• Soldiers – the Soldiers database from the NPS “Soldiers and Sailors” system.
• Sailors – the Sailors database from the NPS “Soldiers and Sailors” system.  At present it includes only African-American sailors from the Union Navy.
• Prisoners – the Prisoners database from the NPS “Soldiers and Sailors” system.  At present it includes only Confederate troops held at Ft. McHenry (MD) and Union captives at Andersonville (GA) prison.
• Burials – the Civil War soldiers who are buried in more than 16,000 cemeteries around the country.
• Courts Martial – a databases of known Union and Confederate soldiers who faced a Court Martial, many of whom were not convicted.

The sources for these databases are itemized here and their statistical content is shown here.

NAME FIELDS

You can specify name values in Given Name, Middle Name, and Surname fields.  A person much match ALL of the name elements (with the options that you’ve chosen for each) in order to be included in the search results.

• Given Name
  

Note: if the other fields are empty, then you can enter/paste the full name in the Given Name field (e.g., “John A. Smith” or “Smith, John A.”) and it will parse the value into the three appropriate fields.

These matching strategies can be chosen:

• • Is Exactly – an exact match is required.
  • Starts With – will match any name that starts with the specified value.  For instance, if you type “JON”, then it will match Jon, Jonathan, Jonas, Jonah, etc.
  • Sounds Like – uses a phonetic matching system that is similar to (but generally better than) Soundex.  For instance, if you type “CANON”, then it will match Caenan, Keynon, Canon, Cannon, etc.
  • Ignore – will not consider any value that is typed in the field. It is easier than deleting the value in the field and is handy if you are experimenting with various searches using different search terms.
  • [x] or match abbreviation – if this box is checked, then it will match against the specified value OR its first-letter abbreviation.  For instance, if you type “ROBERT”, then it will match “Robert” or “R.”
    • Note: To match “Rob”, “Robbie”, etc., search for names that “Start With” “ROB”.
• Middle Name
  • The same search strategies are available as above except that “Sounds Like” is not available in this context.
  • [x] or match empty – will search for the Middle Name value that you type but will also match a person whose has no Middle Name value at all.
• Surname
  • a surname (or at least the first letter) is required.

Wild Cards can be used to replace one or more letters in a name and can be a powerful tool when you don’t know how the name might be spelled in the records. You can specify more than one wild card in the same name field.

• “?” (a question mark) will represent exactly one character.
  • “SM?TH” will match Smith or Smyth.
  • “SHA?FER” will match Shaefer or Shaffer.  It will not match Shafer.
• “*” (an asterisk) will represent zero, one, or more characters.
  • “SHA*FER” will match Shafer, Shaefer, Shaeffer, Shaffer, etc.
  • “MAN*AHAN” will match Manahan, Mannahan, etc.
  • “M?N*HAN” will match Manahan, Mannahan, Managhan, Mennehan, Monaghan, Mynihan, etc.

FILTER OPTIONS

In addition to the search terms based on the person’s name, you can filter the list based on these characteristics:

• Army
• State
• Function
• Unit Type
• Regiment Number

Note that filtering by any of those options except Army will automatically disqualify sailors because they do not have those other characteristics.

Reset will restore all of the fields and options to their default values.

Search Now will conduct the search.  (See “Search Results” below).

Regiments tab

On this tab you can search for a regiment, read about its history, and get a list of soldiers who served in it. The filter options include:

• Regiment Name – will limit the list of regiments to those with this value anywhere in its name.  You may specify any number of words or parts of words in any order.
• Regimental History – will limit the list of regiments to those with this value anywhere in its history.  You may specify any number of words or parts of words in any order.  So, for instance, you can type “Antietam Gettysburg” to see a list of regiments that participated in both of those battles.
• Army
• State
• Function
• Unit Type
• Regiment Number

Reset will restore all of the fields and options to their default values.

View History will display the Regimental History screen for the selected regiment.

The Regimental History screen will display the history of the regiment, including its organization date, command, service, muster out date, and losses.  The names of major battles are hyperlinked to web pages which give details about those battles (dates, number of forces, casualties, etc.).

The Regimental History screen also includes these buttons:

• Copy – will copy the contents of the regimental history to the clipboard from which it can then be pasted into an email, social media post, etc.
• List All Soldiers – will display a list of soldiers who served in that regiment (see “Search Results” below).
• Close – will close the window and return to the Regiments tab.

Ships tab

On this tab you can search for a ship and read about its history and get a list of sailors who served on it. The filter options include:

• Ship Name – will limit the list of ships to those with this value anywhere in its name.  You may specify any number of words or parts of words in any order.
• Ship History – will limit the list of ships to those with this value anywhere in its history.  You may specify any number of words or parts of words in any order.   So, for instance, you can type “Steamer” to see a list of ships of that type.
• Army

Reset will restore all of the fields and options to their default values.

View History will display a narrative history about the selected ship.

The Ship History screen will display the history of the ship, including its construction date, composition, ship class, etc.

The Ship History screen also includes these buttons:

• Copy – will copy the contents of the regimental history to the clipboard from which it can then be pasted into an email, social media post, etc.
• List All Sailors – will display a list of sailors who served on that ship (see “Search Results” below).
• Close – will close the window and return to the Ships tab.

Search Results

This screen will display the result of a search.  While it may look like a list of people, it is actually a list of names and that distinction is important.

People vs. Names

While a soldier may be known by multiple names, one of them is designated in the military service records as his “primary” name.  Such names will appear in the list with an asterisk (“*”) in the third column.  Differences in spelling, abbreviation, etc., may be reflected as “non-primary” names and will appear in the list without an asterisk.  While primary names may therefore be thought of as designating unique people, that may not always be the case.

• Different types of military records (e.g., enlistment, service, pension, and prison records, among others) may refer to a soldier using different spellings or abbreviations.  Even if those records spell his name in the same way, the government may not have recognized that they all refer to the same person.  As a result, the database may have more than one primary name which actually refer to the same soldier.
• Similarly, if  a soldier served in more than one regiment, there will likely be a service record for him in each of those regiments – and each of those service records will have a primary name.

The List of Names displays the data in these columns:

• The eyeball  icon – click on this icon to see the details about that soldier (see “Soldier Detail Screen” below).
• ID number – all names for the same “person” will reflect the same ID number.
• Asterisk – when present designates a primary name.
• Given, Middle, Surname, Suffix, Rank, Army, Company, , Type, and Unit/Regiment

The list can be filtered by these options:

• Army
• Data Types – the display of each type of data can be independently controlled with a check box.
• Show All Matching:
  • Primary Names – those with an asterisk in the third column.
    • Warning: If a soldier matches the search criteria by a non-primary name but not by his primary name, then using this option will cause him to disappear from the search results altogether.
  • Names – all names that match the search criteria.

The Search Results screen also has these options:

• Export – export up to 300 records from the search results to a .CSV (comma separated values) file which can then be imported into Microsoft Excel or most other spreadsheet/database programs for further analysis.
• Sort – control the sequence in which the search results are shown.
• Show 10 Records – control the number of records that is displayed on each page.
• First, Previous, Page Number, Next Last – page through a long list of records.

Soldier Detail Screen

This screen shows the details of the selected soldier record.  The Sailor Detail, Prisoner Detail, Burial Detail, Court Martial Detail screens act similarly although the fields that will be displayed will be determined by the type of record.

The Detail screen includes these buttons:

• Source – will display the source of the information on that detail screen.
  
• Copy – will copy the contents of the regimental history to the clipboard from which it can then be pasted into an email, social media post, etc.
• Find His Records (see below).
  
• Close – will close the window and return to the Results List.

Start Again – will return to the Advanced Search screen to modify the search terms or (with the Reset button) to start a new search.

Find His Records

This screen will provide advice about where to find the military records of the selected soldier/sailor.  The details of the screen will vary according to the specific subject of the screen (Confederate soldier, Union Sailor, etc.) and the types of records that are available (service records, pension records, etc.).

“What’s This?” links will provide an explanation of each record type.

Most Confederate Records and many Union records are available online on a free or subscription-based web site.  In those cases, this screen will provide a link to the appropriate resource(s).  Where appropriate, advice will also be provided about legal ways to access subscription-based sites for free.

In the case of records which are not known to be available online, a link will allow you to order copies of those records from GopherRecords.com.  Records that are ordered in this way are typically much less expensive and arrive much more quickly than when ordered directly from the National Archives.

HINT: If you use the embedded link on the “Find His Records” screen to place an order, all of the details about the soldier and record type(s) will be entered on the order form automatically. You can make changes as appropriate before confirming an order.

Please use the “Have a question?” link at the bottom of the “Find His Records” screen if you want to inquire about any of the details that you see there.