Regular Army Enlistment Papers is a collection of documents detailing a soldier’s entry into the U.S. “Regular Army” between about 1798 and 1912.

The Regular Army is the country’s standing army and is made up of professional soldiers, i.e., not volunteers. It exists during times of conflict as well as at peacetime.

The name of a Regular Army regiment includes the words “United States” (or “U.S.”) and not the name of a state.

So the “12th U.S. Infantry” is an element of the Regular Army while the “12th New York Infantry” is a volunteer regiment.

Service records exist for volunteer regiments but not for members of the Regular Army. So in the case of a soldier in a Regular Army regiment, the “Regular Army Enlistment Papers” may be the only record of the his enlistment.  

Documents in this collection typically include the date and place of the soldier’s enlistment, his age at enlistment, place of birth, occupation before the war, physical description, regimental assignment, and certifications of the examining surgeon and recruiting officer.  If he was a minor when he enlisted, the enlistment papers may also include a record of a parent’s permission to enlist.

Many of these same data types may be found in the “Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798–1914″ on Ancestry.com ($) and FamilySearch.org (free). 

If the soldier enlisted more than one time, then there should be multiple files for him in this collection.

Note, however, that this collection is incomplete.  The records of some Regular Army soldiers did not survive.

The collection is also not indexed so, unlike most record types, we cannot tell you in advance whether there are any records for your soldier in this collection.  That is, we won’t know whether they exist until we do a manual search of the collection.  By that time, of course, we have done the work.  For that reason, the fee will apply even if we do not find anything for your soldier.