On that fire. The storage of the massive number of records for just the US Army were lost. Of course there was a back up. Copies, duplicates, whatevers just to make sure the records were protected but somehow they never thought it through. The 'backup's' were also filed in that same building in St Louis at the same time as the fire. What a country !!!!
It is just pure luck that so many records from the Civil War were saved. Especially those from the Confederacy. Trouble is, they were not all complete. Some were misleading because a person may have been listed by a first and last name on one and then later their initials and surname. They were not always filed together. That is a common problem in our searches. Also, some records show something, such as a soldier absent at roll call, but they don't show he returned after roll call.
Pam