Hi Dennis:

Thank you so much for the source of M L Sim's statement about the Blacks of the 3rd Tn Co D who died at Camp Chase.
Our library has the book and I checked it out. The chapter in the book concerning the dedication of the cemetery helps put the context of Sims' statement together and make it more relevant to what I am trying to compile.

As I was selecting the Camp Chase book off my library shelf I spotted a book which I also checked out. Forts Henry and Donelson: Key to the Confederate Heartland by Benjamin Franklin Cooling, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville 1987. This book has an in-depth coverage of the battle and particularly the surrender. Of interest was what the author says about the confusion and disorganization about the surrender. I also have been reading That Devil Forrest which has some good information on what Forrest's companies were doing the few days prior and particularly the day before the Ft Donelson surrender. I have several men in the 3rd Tn Cav Co D who, through their compiled service records there is nothing beyond their Oct 1861 muster. If they don't show up in the prison records or if they did not join the 23rd Texas Regiment which was formed back in Texas after the men were released from the POW camps, I don't know if they were killed, escaped or what. Maybe through the various sources using I may be able to make some sort of determination.

Sounds as if you get sidetracked as do I. I am a genealogist with an historical interest background. My main focus is African Americans serving with Texas Confederate units. I try to identify why they are in the military unit and if I can identify the person biographically with whom they are attached, such as slave owner, or what ever. I also try to give some military history information about the unit itself and any battles in which they may have been involved.

I am from Texas so, anything Texas is of interest. With the 3rd TN Co D I find them to be an enigma in the fact that they are a Texas company serving in a Tennessee Regiment and there is little compiled on the company other than sporadic references here and there. I had to go to the compiled service records to create a list of the men. As best I can tell the roster is not on Fold 3 and neither the Texas nor Tennessee Archives has the muster list used in the compiled service records. I have now written the National Archives to try to get a copy of the actual muster of Oct 13 1861 which is where they joined Forrest's 3rd Tn Regiment near Memphis.

The list of members I created is compiled from the compiled service records and I want to compare what I compiled to the actual muster roll. I hope I have all the men but working with only the compiled service records I question if I was able to identify each of the men. There were 4 rolls of microfilm for the whole regiment and I was only looking only for the "Old" Company D and there was a "New" Company D organized when the first was surrendered at Fort Donelson. Due to the number of men in the regiment and two totally different Company D's plus I was often looking at the microfilm during lunch hours, often in a hurry. I want to know if I missed any.

I appreciate your offer to look for the roster at the National Archives. Unless it is on microflm I doubt it would be at a regional archives. It, however, should be at the National Archives in DC. Hopefully, I can locate it without a lot of problem.

Mic