Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996
Subject: Comment: Civil War Soldier Registry From: Jane Beckman

I found this blurb out on the net. I believe we should make sure that the names of women known to have served in the Civil War make it into this index! It is unknown whether any sources other than the National Archives are being used, or whether historical scholarship such as determining aliases

and alternative identities, are involved at all? Some "men" are now known to have been actually women, and a few women, such as Anna Etheridge, and Cady Brownell, are well documented as actual members of their units-- but what of such known-but-hard-to-trace persons such as Bridget Divers/Danvers/Devers (a.k.a. Michigan Bridget), whose presence is well documented, but even whose name is subject to debate? Does anyone know more about this project?

Jane Beckman

Many have heard and have been reading about the Civil War Soldiers System (CWSS) - a joint project of the National Park Service, the Civil War Trust, the Genealogical Society of Utah, the National Archives, and The Federation of Genealogical Societies. The system will include a computerized database containing basic facts about soldiers who served on both sides during the Civil War. It is a project which is certain to be a real aide for park visitors and family history researchers. Initially, the CWSS will contain 5.5 million names of soldiers who fought in the Civil War, along with such information as whether the soldier was a Confederate or Union and the soldier s regiment and rank. Over time, the system will be expanded to provide additional information about individual soldiers; regimental histories; descriptions of more battles and skirmishes; more burial locations; and prisoner-of-war records.

The Names Index is the first, and current, phase of the project. In this phase, volunteers will enter soldier information to the database using software developed by the Genealogical Society of Utah and the basic soldier information taken from copies of the 5.5 million General Index cards at the National Archives.

Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996
From: DeAnne Blanton

The Civil War Soldier Registry will be an electronic version of the indexes to compiled military service records in the National Archives. Currently, the original indexes are for Union and Confederate soldiers, and they exist in textual form. With the work of a number of volunteers, the information found on the individual index cards is being entered into computers, and will ultimately form a searchable database of names.

Please note that initially, the names of those in the Union and Confederate Navies will not be included, nor will the names of those who served in state militias or national guard units. Likewise, nurses will not be initially
included. The reason is simple. Indexes of names only exist for the Union and Confederate Armies.

Some women will indeed be part of the Registry, because there are index cards for them. The kicker, however, is that the cards bear only the male alias, which is the name under which some women served, and which is the name that their service records are under. (For example, to find the service record of Jennie Hodgers, you would have to know that her alias was Albert Cashier. There is an index card for Cashier, but not for Hodgers.) So, as with using the original records, if you want to find a woman soldier on the registry, you will have to know the name under which she served. Heaven help you if she used a name like John Smith.

As an aside, a number of men also enlisted in the armies under assumed names. Their index cards likewise reflect the alias, and not the name that their parents gave them.

DeAnne Blanton
National Archives

Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996
From: Trudy Last

Ditto. Who is Michigan Bridget?

Trudy Last

Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996
From: Jane Beckman

Michigan Bridget (or Biddy) Danvers/Divers/Devers (and possibly some I haven't run into) shows up in various accounts, and *might* not all be the same woman, although one could make a case either way. General evidence seems to link her to the Michigan Cavalry, possibly several divisions, over the course of the war. However, this flamboyant Irishwoman shows up in many roles: fighting at her husband's side, rallying troops, retrieving the body of a fallen officer from the field, working as a nurse at White House, serving as Postmistress, and having a reputation by the end of the Civil War for having the ear of Sheridan. Accounts of the time say that her unit was transferred to the frontier, to deal with the Indian Wars, in 1865, and it is there she vanishes from the records.

Jane Beckman

Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996
From: Trudy Last

Is there any way that an index might be made available of known female soldiers' female names? If the people working on this project are not able to do it, might someone else? Or is there a problem that individual names of these women are, for the most part, scattered?

Trudy Last.

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