Soldiers and Sailors Database: Military Research for Genealogy

  The Soldiers and Sailors Database, a database by the National Park Service, is a great resource for finding men who served in the Confederate or Union armies during the American Civil War. There are also links to information on stories, people, places, collections, preservation, facts, and the Maryland campaign.  Many subtopics are listed under each main subject for a comprehensive list of American Civil War information. 

Online service records includes soldiers, sailors, regiments, cemeteries, battles, prisoners, medals of honors, and monuments. To search the online database, choose a topic of interest, for example soldiers, and type in the last and first name of the soldier. The results can be filtered by Union or Confederate army and state or battle union function, including infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, sharp shooters, musicians, and gunboats. After entering the surname and given name of the soldier, you will find information that includes the side (Confederate or Union), name of battle unit, company, rank in and out, and any alternate names. The record will also include the film number for reference, plague number, and notes if applicable. 

The Sailors’ database contain over 18,000 African American sailors that served in the Civil War.  Search results contain the name of the sailor, age, height, complexion, place of birth, muster, ship, rating, occupation, place, date, and term of enlistment.

The Regiments database contain the history of over 4,000 Union and Confederate regiments. Cemetery information can be found by searching the cemetery index.  The information found in the cemeteries database include the name of the person, location of the cemetery, side of battle (Confederate or Union), grave number, and image of the tombstone if available. Battles are also found in the database.  It includes 10,500 armed conflicts with the year, location, campaign, and the starting and ending date of the battle or conflict. Prisoners of War can be found by searching the Prisoners index.  Prisoners’ information include the name, location, and prisoner type.