The paragraphs below detail the contents of the three main records for the data collected : the Pension Record, the Military Service Record, and the Carded Medical Record. An analysis of linkage rates is also given.

Civil War pensions were available for veterans with disabilities as well as for deceased veterans' widows, minor children, dependent major children, and parents. Under the Act of July 14, 1862, the first pension legislation specific to the Civil War, the veterans were eligible only for disabilities (wounds or chronic illnesses) received during wartime. The Act of June 27, 1890 changed that requirement and expanded eligibility to include disabilities not directly related to wartime experience. As a result, the number of men on the pension rolls swelled.

A veteran's PEN file often includes information on his birth, residences and employment after discharge from the service, a summary of military and medical wartime experience, and family information, including a listing of spouses and children, whether living or dead. It also includes the veteran's or the surviving dependent's application and the corresponding record of the Pension Bureau's action. The file might also contain documents in support of the veteran's claim, including affidavits from comrades, neighbors, family members, and physicians. Because a veteran could, and often did, apply for a PEN under several acts or submit additional applications because of an increase in disability or a dissatisfaction with the Pension Bureau's decision, files usually contain more than one pension application and record of action; occasionally a PEN file includes more than 20 sets of such forms.

A dependent PEN generally includes data on the dependent's relationship to the veteran, the dependent's age and residence, and information concerning the veteran's death and burial. A widow's PEN usually includes her maiden name, a marriage record, the veteran's death certificate, and the names of children. Information taken from the dependent and widow files that is particularly important to the collection includes information regarding the veteran's economic situation and any money or property left to his heirs. For example, in order to receive a dependent PEN, a veteran's parents had to prove that their deceased son had contributed to the support of the family in a substantial way. In such a situation, one might find an employer's affidavit testifying that the young man worked as a carpenter before enlisting and gave every nickel he earned to his mother for food. Also, to prove their economic dependency, parents might submit a letter or letters the veteran had sent home during the war which mentioned sending his army pay home for the family.

Important material is often found in a variety of different types of documents within the PEN. One example is the veteran's religious affiliation. Researchers find this type of information in several places, including the veteran's own or his children's baptismal records, marriage certificates, and burial information. Nowhere in the official Pension Bureau forms is the veteran asked to state his religion, but while recording information from other documents in the PEN, researchers can provide clues to help analysts determine the veteran's religious affiliation. Another example is a veteran's residence. Rarely will any document in a PEN explicitly state that the veteran lived at Constantia, Oswego County, NY from July 1, 1862 to May 10, 1894, but there may be an envelope in the file that gives that address on February 28, 1865. Lacking a "residences" document, researchers must peruse all documents, including envelopes, for addresses and dates, then piece together the veteran's residence patterns from disparate sources with quality codes. In the residence example above, the researcher would assign a quality code "9" to the date found on the envelope indicating that on the particular date recorded the recruit lived in Constantia, NY.

Viewing the PEN as a whole document often allows the researcher to roughly reconstruct a veteran's life, or at least the part of his life spanning from his enlistment in the Army through his time within the pension system. This reconstruction comes together as the researcher records different places of residence, occupations, levels of labor force participation, health problems, family relations, and standards of living throughout the veteran's pensionable lifetime.

The National Archives holds the compiled military service records of the United States Regular Army of officers (1789-1916) and enlisted recruits (1789-1912) during both peacetime and wartime, as well as those of Confederate soldiers and of persons serving during wartime in volunteer units raised by states and mustered into federal service (1775-1903).

The MSR of both volunteer officers and enlisted men serving in wartime normally show the soldier's rank, military organization, and term of service. They also include age at enlistment, place of enlistment, and place of birth, but provide no information about family. The MSR for each recruit is an envelope consisting of cards with information about the recruit transcribed by War Department clerks. The clerks transcribed the information on the cards from muster rolls, descriptive books, returns (statistical reports submitted to the Adjutant General Office or the War Department by organizations such as hospitals or forts), hospital registers, prison records, and other records. Cards are arranged first by war, then by state, then by military unit, and finally alphabetically by the soldier's last name.

The transcription of a MSR into what is known today as a compiled MSR started soon after the Civil War when Fred C. Ainsworth assumed the duties of Adjutant General. His aim in having the military records transcribed was twofold: first, to preserve the information found on decaying original records, and second, to eliminate the serious backlog on pension applications and rulings by making claim checking easier. Initially, the cards contained the soldier's name, rank, company, regiment, and the page and volume number from which the information was obtained. This is all copied onto separate cards. Most MSR today also include information that was added later, including POW records, casualty information, hospital register information, records of desertions, furloughs, AWOLs, and MIAs, copies of enlistment papers, and copies of surgeons' certificates of discharge for disability.

As information from the MSR was entered into the collection screens, it was compared with the information already collected. When the MSR seriously conflicted with the PEN information, the researcher attempted to reconcile the previously entered pension data with the more straightforward MSR. Military information that came from the MSR was judged to be more accurate than conflicting information from the PEN, which may have been retrospective and self-reported.

back to top

Carded medical records were compiled at the same time as the MSR under the same circumstances and for the same reasons. Medical information from various sources was transcribed onto 3 1/4" x 8" cards which are known today as carded medical records. They consist of three main types; some soldiers have all three types, while many soldiers have no CMR at all. The first type of CMR is a hospital return which is a record of a patient's stay on given days. These records were taken mostly from regimental hospital records (a regimental hospital was a hospital set up by a regiment that moved with it and treated its members). For example, the card would be headed NY 5 RH and contain the phrase "Jan 1, 1863 The second type of CMR is a casualty card stating that the recruit was wounded in action. This card contains little information other than the name of soldier, the word "wounded," the name of the battle in which the recruit was wounded, and the date of engagement.

Finally, the most complete and useful card filed as a CMR is a hospital card. Hospital cards were printed by major hospitals and contain information filled in by clerks about individual soldiers. One of these cards might have a soldier's name, rank, service, and diagnosis, as well as the name and location of the hospital where the recruit was being treated, his date of admission, and the result of the treatment.

The boxes of carded medical records are arranged by regiment and then in roughly alphabetical order so that all men whose last name begins with the same letter are found in the same section. The CMR has the most identification problems, including misspelled or partial names, lack of company designation, and discrepancy in military rank.

Some sample selection bias may arise in the use of the data in this ICPSR submission due to linkage failures. Of the 28,536 men in the current sample, 66.5% were linked to pension records, 98.3% were linked to military service records, and 56.5% were linked to carded medical records. In the case of the military service records, the linkage failure rate was very low and due to random factors. With the carded medical records, the Pension Bureau made the records only for those recruits who had notable medical experiences while in the service. Linkage failure for carded medical records could therefore be predicted by factors which reduced a recruit's odds of illness or injury in service. These factors include short durations at risk due to early discharge, desertion, or death, and mild military experience, which is indicated by a recruit's company's battle and casualty history. Such company-specific effects may be explained by inadequate record keeping by the company or authorities subsequently compiling and maintaining the carded medical records. It was also possible that the records may have been simply lost or destroyed. The primary reason that individuals were not linked to pension records was that they died prior to 1890, the date when the pension eligibility laws were relaxed to provide pensions for almost all Union Army veterans.