The Alabama in the Civil War Message Board from September of 2000 thru July of 2001 was a "hosted script" on a website hosted by "Server.com" and utilized their "DiscApp" message board software. The "Server.com" service allowed a maximum of 2000 messages to be stored on their webservers for each message board they sponsored. We far exceeded this maximum in a very short time, so I took action to save these valuable postings. In January of 2001, I began to archive the older messages before they were deleted by "Server.com". I am making these old messages available here in separate three-month archives.

You will notice some differences in reviewing these messages versus the normal ALCWMB website. First of all, you will not be able to respond to a posting and have it appear on the archives. Hopefully, the messages will have an included email address which you can use to contact the author of a posting, directly. Second, the "old" ALCWMB was limited to the display of twenty-five (25) messages and their corresponding "threads" per page. These archives have no such limitation and will display all of the messages for the date range they cover. Third, you can search the archives by the name of the message sender,date or an email address. This capability was not possible on the "old" ALCWMB website. Fourth, the querying method utilized by "Freefind.com" is somewhat different from the syntax used on the main board. I recommend you click here Search Tips to familiarize yourself with the most effective way to "phrase" your queries. Finally, the Search Engine on this page and the three month archive pages, do NOT search the current message board. If you wish to search the current messages you must return to the ALCWMB main page.

You can search the entire archive with this search engine:

Search Tips:

By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query. If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the search results indicating this has been done.

In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behavior.

1. phrase search
   The search engine supports three types of phrase search.
   • To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase
     Example: "free search engine"
     
   • To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use square brackets [around the words]
     Example: [free search engine]
     
   • To match a far (within several words) phrase, use braces { around the words }
     Example: {free search engine}
     
2. + and - qualifiers
   If you prepend a word with + that word is required to be on the page.
   If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be on the page.
   Example: +always -never
3. * wildcard
   If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match.
   Example: gift*
4. ? wildcard
   If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position.
   Example: b?g
5. boolean search
   You can use the following boolean operators in your search: AND, OR, NOT. These operators MUST be in capital letters.
   Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)

I hope you find this archive of value. Please feel free to send me your questions and comments.

With best regards,

Jim Martin