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This page has been produced to assist researchers in locating materials on both the Union and Confederate Naval forces. It is quite brief in nature and will include directions to as many resources as possible. Descriptions of each resource will also be included. Many Civil War research guides tend to concentrate on the Army and ignore Naval research facilities. This page is an effort to correct that deficiency.

The vast amount of documentation available for the Union Navy makes research in this area relatively easy. Besides the major repositories, there are numerous minor resources which should not be neglected in one's quest for information. There are also numerous published resources which should be consulted.

To commence the search for details of the service of an ancestor in the Union Navy, an application should be made for the military and, if available, pension papers of the veteran from the National Archives, in Washington, D.C.

Pension papers almost always include more details of the veteran, inclusive of birth and death information, so, if a pension was applied for by the veteran, it would be worthwhile to obtain copies of these, and exclude the military papers. A single set of copies of either the military or pension papers can be obtained from the Archives at U.S. $10. Applications should be made on NATF Form 80, copies of which can be obtained from the Archives. The basic information required when filling out these forms, for a correct identification of the veteran, are full name, branch of service, state from which served, war in which the veteran served and whether it was in the Union or Confederate service. If the veteran's name was a very common one, it would assist the Archives staff if the application included further details of his service, such as vessel or vessels served aboard, and other relevant particulars.

The National Archives collections include a great many other documents, as well as photographs, which should be perused in the search for information on one's ancestor. The following are just a few samples of some of the items they hold:

Deck Logs of Union Vessels - The deck logs can be very informative where the enlisted sailor is concerned, as everyday occurrences aboard the vessel were usually recorded by the officer of the deck. Breaches of discipline, casualties in battle and during normal routine, transfers of personnel and other such matters were usually recorded with the names of those involved being mentioned. Deck logs of almost every vessel of the Union Navy are held at the National Archives, and copies are available on paper, which can be reproduced on microfilm, as requested, for a reasonable cost. There is a guide issued by the Archives listing the deck logs held, by name of vessel, and then by date. This softcover publication, Special List 44, is titled List of Logbooks of U.S. Navy Ships, Stations, and Miscellaneous Units, 1801-1947.

Muster Rolls - These rolls were completed at regularly intervals for each vessel, and included much data on the enlisted sailors aboard that particular vessel. They included the name of the sailor and his rating, date and place of enlistment, place of birth, and age at enlistment, as well as previous occupation. The remarks column also included the dates of major occurrences such as casualties, desertions and transfers to other vessels. A similar source held at the Archives are the Rendezvous Reports, which contain almost the same amount of information.

Statistics of the Volunteer Officers - During the war, the number of officers appointed from civilian life increased several times over, and most of these were taken on in temporary appointments. Much of the paperwork generated from this recruitment drive can be found at the National Archives, and the Statistics are one such set. The Navy Department required the Commanding Officer of each vessel, Navy Yard and Station to furnish the statistics of the volunteer officers to be sent in to the Department. The information included therein was name, rank, date of appointment, state where born and state of which a citizen, and the date of birth.

Records of General Courts-Martial and Courts of Inquiry of the Navy Department - These are available as microfilm publications, M273, and the Civil War cases can be found on rolls 97 through 149. Each case includes the transcripts of the trial, with the names of the accused and many witnesses giving evidence included in the proceedings. There is a name index which will help identify the case number and the roll on which the transcripts can be found.

The examples named above are some of the copies which this author has obtained from the National Archives during research on the Naval aspect of the Civil War. There are many more such documents, photographs and other items available from the Archives which can assist in research in this area of the war. A number of guides have been issued by the National Archives, which can assist in pointing a researcher in the right direction when attempting to locate materials from this particular source. Three of these are:

Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives - Chapter 6, Naval and Marine Service Records, gives a good run down of the materials held on that particular subject, with an indication of the Record Group numbers and other such identifying particulars of each record.

Military Service Records: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications - This publication lists the items of military interest which can be purchased from the Archives on microfilm. The naval records on microfilm are identified under the subheading Records Relating to Service in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps (Record Groups 24, 125 and 127).

The Union: A Guide to Federal Archives Relating to the Civil War, by Kenneth W. Munden and Henry Putney Beers - A detailed record of the Civil War items available at the Archives, as well as some of those available at other repositories in the United States. Chapter 10 includes items from the Department of the Navy.

It is the opinion of this author that research on a Civil War Naval ancestor should always commence at the National Archives, as the results will definitely yield a treasure of immense proportions. The address for all correspondence or queries is:

Another facility located in the nation's capital is the Library of Congress, which also holds a large amount of manuscripts, photographs and other such items relating to the Civil War. The Library also maintains the Civil War Naval manuscripts of the Naval Historical Foundation collection, and these are described in a publication issued in 1986 titled simply Civil War Manuscripts. The entries in this guide are arranged alphabetically by collection title, mainly the names of the servicemen, political figure or other similar personality. They sometimes include the individual's dates of birth and death, and title, rank or other form of identification, with a descriptive guide to the collection and the number of items in the collection. An example of an entry from this guide is shown below:

Contains letters from 1st Lt. William Cartter, U.S. Marine Corps, to his mother, July 1861-Feb. 1865, concerning the Battle of 1st Manassas and his service aboard the U.S.S. Minnesota at Hampton Roads, Va., Pensacola, Fla., and off the coast of North Carolina. Includes Cartter's eyewitness account of the battle between the Monitor and Merrimac and information concerning the transportation of prisoners of war from North Carolina to New York. Also contains a few letters of 2d Lt. David Kellogg Cartter, Jr. (d. 1862), 2d Ohio Cavalry, concerning the impact of the war in Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas, and problems with western Indians.

A more comprehensive guide can be found in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections which is a compilation set of volumes issued by the Library. The National Union Catalog includes guides to manuscripts held at various repositories in the United States, and is an annual project. Each volume lists manuscript collections at the participating repository by name and year span of the collection, followed by a National Union Catalog reference number and then the number of items, where the collection is held, description of the author and papers, followed by the name of the donor. An example of an entry from the 1981 copy of the National Union Catalog is shown below:

Naval officer and paymaster. Personal and official correspondence, journal entitled Service in a Ferry-Boat Gun Boat; a Joint Army and Navy Work, and material relating to U.S. Steamer Pequot.

The Library has also issued a catalog of the Civil War Photographs in the Matthew Brady collection, which can be purchased at a very reasonable cost. For any inquiries regarding their collection, please address all correspondence to:

The Center, which is located at the Washington Navy Yard holds a reasonable amount of documents and other items relating to the Civil War. There are a number of branches which can assist a researcher trying to locate material relating to a Civil War ancestor. The Photographic Section and the Curator Branch hold a vast amount of photographs relating to that period of American history and the Early History Branch holds some research material dating from the Civil War period. Although the majority of the holdings of the Operational Archives date from the Second World War, they also have a collection of personal papers and a historical reference file with biographical information of 19th century naval officers. The address of the Center is:

Besides the major repositories mentioned above, there are countless other sources for research on a Naval ancestor, both in the United States and overseas. Contact should be made with the various State Archives, Historical Societies, Historical Libraries and other repositories where manuscript collections, documents, photographs and other research material are to be found. Some University Libraries also hold manuscript collections which can assist in research.

Many of these repositories issue guides to their collections, which are of immense help in locating materials that they hold. Two examples of these guides are:

Descriptive Bibliography of Civil War Manuscripts in Illinois, issued in 1966 by the Illinois State Historical Society, describe collections of manuscripts by name, unit or vessel, number of items and a brief synopsis of the collection, with an identification of the repository in that State where it is held.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission issued, in 1976, a volume titled Guide to the Manuscript Groups in the Pennsylvania State Archives, which identifies collections by a reference number, followed by the names of the collection, date span of that collection, size in cubic feet, and a description of the items.

Addresses for these sources can easily be found in guides available at your local library, or in telephone directories. Details of many of these resources can now be accessed via the Internet, as well. Also at various libraries can be found State Rosters, issued after the war by many States, and which in the majority of cases contain the names of Naval and Marine Corps personnel. Some of these rosters have very basic information, but some include much service details, and even, on occasion, dates of birth or death.

The Internet is another source which should not be overlooked. The growing number of sites of a genealogical nature are a vast storehouse of information which sometimes include the military service of an ancestor. As well, many cemetery transcripts are being placed online, and these are a major bonus for the researcher. This author's own US Civil War Navies site is one which includes details of a biographical nature, casualty lists and burial sites of Naval personnel in the war, and it is occasionally being updated.

A number of important publications also include details relating to Naval personnel and vessels, and should be consulted when available. These include:

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, in 31 volumes. This set includes a large number of names of personnel mentioned in despatches, logs, casualty lists and other naval documents relating to the war. The last volume, which is the General Index, should be searched when attempting to locate an ancestor's name. The companion volume The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, in 128 volumes, although not directly related to the Naval war, should also be consulted, as there are, on the rare occasion, names of personnel who served in the Navy during the war.

The single volume compilation titled List of Officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900, edited by Edward W. Callahan, although claiming to be a complete register of the officers of the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps, regular and volunteer, has been found to be deficient on occasion. However, the volume is useful as it contains the basic service records of the officers in those branches of the service.

For the brief service record of the vessel or vessels your Naval ancestor served on, the ultimate set is the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, in eight volumes. The vessel names are arranged alphabetically and include details of where constructed, commanders, cruise details and other relevant information. There are also appendices containing much interesting facts relating to the United States Navy. These volumes can be found at certain libraries, or can be purchased individually from the:

A compact single volume of similar information, although much more brief in data, is Paul H. Silverstone's Warships of the Civil War Navies, available from the Naval Institute Press in Annapolis, Maryland. This author has found that although quite handy as a reference work, this volume has excluded at least one Naval vessel that was in service during the Civil War.

After the war, many towns and counties tended to publish local histories of their sons (and in some cases, daughters) who had gone away to the war, some never to return. These histories can also be a source of data on the individual soldier and sailor. An example is the publication issued by a Massachusetts community in 1876 titled The Town of Hingham in the Late Civil War, with Sketches of its Soldiers and Sailors, prepared by Fearing Burr and George Lincoln and published by order of the Town. Chapter 17 of this particular volume includes a dedication to the Naval personnel who served from the town, giving such information as the date and place of birth, rank held in the Navy and service details.

One source of information, that is often neglected, due to the tedious research that is involved in locating material from there, are the many newspapers, both major and minor that were published during the war years. Surprisingly, these can yield some genealogical data at times, not only on the major figures of the war, but also on the common soldier and sailor. This author has found through years of perusing old newspapers on microfilm, a number of obituaries of sailors, as well as little snippets of trivia on individuals in Naval service. One source of information that is currently being uploaded on to the Internet, are the lists of deaths of personnel aboard vessels of the Navy Department during the last two and a half years of the war. These lists, obtained from the Washington, D.C., Daily National Intelligencer, included the name and rank (or title, as they included contrabands and other personnel), cause and date of death and the locality of his/her death. They were published weekly in that newspaper from the beginning of 1863 to the first few months of 1865, and although quite informative, can include some errors in spelling of a persons name. Some New York war era newspapers also included a small section devoted to reporting Naval activities, and at times, there can be found lists of officers who served on the different vessels. There were also lists of appointments, promotions and transfers of Naval personnel published in some newspapers.

Many of the personnel who served in the Union Navy during the war were born overseas, and some would eventually return home to their native land to settle. Even some American born service personnel would make their way to a foreign land, some to die there, far from home, and some to settle in their adopted country, through intermarriage or family connections.

Quite a number of these foreign residents collected the pension from the U.S. government for their service during the war, and as such, there is a vast amount of documentation available for them, not only at the National Archives (see above), but also through other sources, including those abroad. A perfect example of this are the various despatches sent from U.S. Consuls in foreign lands relating to the war veterans living in foreign lands and who continued collecting the pension right up to their deaths. These despatches are to be found on microfilm, for the various cities where U.S. Consuls were located in the latter part of the 19th and also the early 20th Century. Many of these despatches relating to Civil War pensioners included biographical details.

There are other overseas resources which should also be checked such as death certificates, obituaries in foreign newspapers and post-war employment data.

Although very brief in nature, this guide to Union Naval research is prepared to assist those attempting to commence a cursory search for information on their ancestor. It is hoped that the details included here will assist in locating other facilities not mentioned above. The Internet has also made such research a whole lot easier, and with the wave of a mouse and a click or two, one can find such details almost instantaneously.

Go to the Confederate Navy guide. (This is currently under construction and will be added at a later stage.)

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