Purpose of Records

 

Though there is much useful information on a variety of subjects in the data collected from the MSR, CMR, and Pension records, it must be remembered that these records were created for a specific and limited function, namely for the procurement of a monthly pension for Civil War veterans.  Although at first glance the MSR and CMR seem to be strictly military related, they were compiled from decaying original records to aid the clerks of the pension office in speeding up and verifying the claims of the pension applicants. To gain a better perspective of how these records were compiled please read this narrative, written by a CPE researcher, which explains the process in more detail.

 

Because the records were originally compiled to fit a specific purpose (the procurement of a government pension), the information collected is not complete.  For instance, many of the pensions have information on the claimant’s wife and children, but pension money was only available for children under 16 years of age.  So, if a soldier had a child older than 16, that child’s information may not be included in the pension.  Another example is battles a claimant participated in.  This information will usually only show up if the claimant was actually wounded in a battle.  So, a claimant may have only one battle listed (because he was wounded there), but may have served in every major battle on the eastern front.  This caution even applies to the Surgeons’ Certificates.  These medical examinations were made to verify a claim of disability, not to give a comprehensive health evaluation.  For information about using specific variables, see the pages for those specific variables.

 

Pension law and changes in the pension laws over time also greatly affect the data.  For instance, only after the 1907 age law was passed do we have exact birth dates.  Also, only in dependant pensions (widow, child, or dependant parent) do we get death certificates.  Before 1890, pensions were granted only if the claimant was wounded or diseased as a direct result of his service in the Union Army.  For further information on changes in pension law, click here.

 

Availability of Records

 

Though our linkage rates to records are reasonably high, there are some records we simply do not have access to.  Sometimes, the records just do not exist; in the chaos of battle some of the immediate records were lost, some field hospitals did not keep records, books fell off the wagon while retreating and were not retrieved under fire, etc.  Note that the MSR are the most complete records we have and incredible in their accuracy.  There is a 98 percent link rate to the MSR. 

 

Sometimes, the records exist, but are not easily accessible.  Pension Records for soldiers who applied for, but were denied a pension exist, but of these, only a small fraction are able to be located at the National Archives.  It is possible that they may have been destroyed.  The record no longer needed to be preserved because the purpose for which it was created had been served.

 

Pension Records that were still active in the late 1920s were sent to the Veterans’ Administration when the Department of Interior gave the oversight of the pension system to the VA.  Most of these records are still in the custody of the VA.  Limited access is granted to the public through a convoluted and opaque process which we have yet to navigate.  Negotiations are ongoing for the Archives to re-acquire these records.

 

Quirks of Collection

 

When we started the process of collection of these data, we had limited understanding of the records, the system, and what information would ultimately be useful to investigators.  Certain decisions were made on how the collection screens should look and what information was to be collected and what was to be left out.  Budget concerns played a major role in these decisions.  The most glaring example of this was the decision to omit information on surviving widows other than name, birth and death date and marriage information.  Any information on how much pension benefit the widow received, her health status, her family information, etc. was, therefore, left out of the sample.  Fortunately, for the most part, our collection is comprehensive and can still be very useful for researchers.

 

Because Windows software was not available when we began the data collection process, we created our own DOS-based collection screens.  This necessarily limited the space we could allow inputters to use.  The programmer did include Remarks spaces and extra space on the Affidavit screen in case the limits were reached.  (See collection screens.) For the most part, there is sufficient space available to enter the information needed, but occasionally, there is not enough space.  For instance, the software allows for information on 15 children to be entered.  If a claimant had more than 15 children, the inputter put the additional children in the Remarks variables, where available.