Hayes Lowe
Federal vs. State records
Thu Jan 25 09:01:57 2001


While this is true, it is not the whole story.

The Union Army captured a very large volume of Confederate records. Only NARA has these.

The Federal Government, several years after the war, requested that the States loan them whatever Confederate records that they had. Most, or all, complied.

The above two sources were used to compile the microfilmed regimental records, and records of non-regimental men. This is the source Broadfoot's used. If a man is found in Broadfoot's, it came from this source. (I'm unsure if Broadfoot's used the non-regimental microfilm, or not.)

BUT, there was much left out of the microfilm. This is why Broadfoot's only got about 75-80% of the men (at best) who were in the Civil War on the Confederate side.

Why has it left out? Apparently some of the material was either later found or donated. Some of this can be found in the microfilm rolls for "Unfiled Slips and Papers of Confederate Soldiers". DON'T OVERLOOK THIS SOURCE! It is organized alphabetically by last name. I have found a tremendous amount of information on one of my ancestors in it.

Secondly, the States have had much information donated to them after this period of time, which helps to explain why you can sometimes find much more information at a State archives than is in the microfilm.

On the other hand, much of the information that apparently was in the hands of the States at one time, is gone. Who knows to where.






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