Notes For Use
Regarding Third Cavalry Spreadsheet Data
2. SOON TO COME. Records sorted by Company Letter are here:. (Note: some soldiers were identified as unassigned or without a company name. They will be at the bottom.)
3. SOON TO COME. Records sorted by enlistment date are located here.
4. SOON TO COME. Records sorted by enlistment location are located here. STOP! If all you want to do is to confirm that your ancestor service in the 3rd Regiment of the Missouri Cavalry, first go to the Archives site shown in 1 below. This Spreadsheet, for the most part, does not represent new information. It is a collection of the Secretary of State's archive records for the Third Missouri Cavalry, information from the appendix of A History of the Third Missouri Cavalry, by A.W.M. Petty, and residence information from the Illinois Secretary of State's records of Illinois Soldiers serving in Missouri units, as well as user contributions from people like you. In some instances this combination of information may help you unravel the mysteries of your ancestors. For example, my relative joined Company G of the 3rd Cavalry. He died in service to his county. I know little about him and there are few obvious connections with other soldiers from the area of his residence. After the war, his widow fell off the grid. He is in the Secretary of State's archives, but nearly all his compatriots in Company G enlisted in St. Louis. It didn't make any sense to me. Moreover, my search is complicated by the fact that the Archives have to be reviewed one record at a time (there is a list view, but the detailed information has to be viewed one record at a time). I wanted all the records on one sheet and I wanted to sort them different ways so I could see, for example, all his colleagues in the same Company, all his compatriots that enlisted at the same enlistment site, all his colleagues that enlisted at or near the same time, and of course an alphabetical listing. The only way I could do this was to look at each record, for each soldier. I eventually started putting it in a spreadsheet. In the course of doing this, I decided that my research might be helpful to other researchers similarly situated, so I created some columns on the spreadsheet for user contributions. To begin, I have some observations about the sources. 1. The Regimental Archives can be found at the Missouri State Archives, Soldiers' Records: War of 1812-World War I: http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers/ This site includes a cover web page for each soldier and in most cases a link to the Archive record. The "record" appears to be a scan of a card for each soldier. It is referred to as a "Service Card". In most instances the card is a typed record, but I don't know when it was prepared. I have been told by a representative of the Secretary of State's office that this card contains information from the Descriptive Roll, which is information on each soldier, the Muster Roll, which was an enormous sheet of paper that the Regiment carried with them for all the soldiers in the unit, and pay rolls. These Service Cards may have been prepared at or near the time of the Civil War, or maybe many years later. I just don't know. Apparently, some of the original records for the Service Cards exist and are on Microfilm and are available for purchase from the Archives. Also, I don't know how many sets of these records were made. I believe that there is another set of these records at the National Archives. All of these records, including the Service Cards were given to the Missouri Archives by the Missouri Adjutant General in around 1987. Any notations you see on the cards were made prior to the time the cards were sent to the Archives. The Archives makes no changes to the card. Before you rely too much on my records, be sure to go the Archive site and double check the information. I'm certainly capable of making mistakes. And if you're really confused it might be worth your time to order a microfilm set from the Archives. These records should include the Service Cards as well as the Muster Rolls and any Descriptive Rolls and Pay Rolls. Similar information about the Regiment is also available at the National Park Services' Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System located here: http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/regiments.cfm I've not compared these two sources in details to tell what differences there are. One difference, however, is in the number of records. The park service site has 2,049 records. The State archive site has 1,790 records. Go figure. 2. The history of the regiment can be found in the book, A History of the Third Missouri Cavalry, by A.W.M. Petty. This book is also online at the Missouri Archives and can be found here: http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/lsocivilwar&CISOPTR=17780&REC=11 It can also be found here: http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?sid=774c6861ee78533f499734af95154a99;g=;c=civilwar;idno=civr000067 My browser has trouble with the page size controls in the first site (actually they don't appear). I use Firefox for it. You may have better luck with a different brower if your first choice doesn't work or with the second site. I don't know where Mr. Petty got his information. I assume some of it came from the same records that are in the archives, but some of the information is clearly different. Perhaps there were transcription errors when the Service Cards were prepared, perhaps Mr. Petty made transcription errors, or perhaps his information is just different. He says in the introduction of his book that he is publishing his "journal or diary". Certainly his information is sometimes unique. 3. Database of Illinois Civil War Veterans of Missouri Units. This record purports to give the city or county of residence of Illinois soldiers that served in Missouri units. Since the Missouri Secretary of State's records only give the enlistment location, this information from Illinois is helpful. http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/missouri.html The Illinois Secretary of State's office web page indicates the following concerning these records: "In December 1863 the Missouri Adjutant General compiled rosters of Illinois men, extracting the names from his unit rolls. He then sent them to the Illinois Adjutant General. The rosters are a part of the Archives' record series, Company Muster Rolls." From this you can assume that at one time, the Missouri Adjutant General's records contained residence information, since Illinois got their information from Missouri. Whether this residence information still exists is unknown at this time. 4. I have included a category for other Companies. Clearly some soldiers were transfered to other Companies. However, the Service Card remarks are sometimes unclear as to Company transfers. For example it might say "Tr to Co K then to Co. A of the 11th Cav." Clearly Company A is in the 11th Cavalry. But is Company K in the 11th Cavalry or the 3rd Cavalry? I have included a notation for Company K, but I'm unclear whether this person was ever in this Company of the 3rd Cavalry. There is hand written company information on some of the cards that is inconsistent with the transfer remarks on the service cards. I used the remarks on the cards, rather than the handwritten notes, however, in some instances there is a separate web cover page with no Service Card attached that includes a Company letter consistent with the hand written information on the cards. In those instances, I used the web cover sheet information. Incidentally, in those situations where there were two cover sheets, but only one Service Card, I only listed the soldier once, rather than twice. Rather that have two listings I simply included the other company on a single entry. I have no reason to think there were two people by the same name, since there isn't a second Service Record. 5. The official Archives sometimes have multiple spellings and therefore would have alternate Web cover pages on the Archive's Database (although sometimes the alternative spellings are shown on the Service Card, and that's it). That's fine (and necessary) when you're doing a search in the Archives database because you have to have exact spellings, but my records are all in front of you in one spreadsheet, so I listed both spellings on the same entry, particular where everything else matches up, like company name, promotion dates, etc. An example would be Willcox and Wilcox. In a few instances the duplicate names are vastly different, so I would create a separate entry with a cross reference. Normally, that is not the case and I just provided alternative spellings. As I moved to the Third Cavalry book and the Illinois Secretary of State's records, I found even more alternative spellings. So I listed any new alternative spellings in the Soldier's name category (in the same entry), and in the pertinent other column of the record. For example, in Missouri's records, there is a records for William Bayles. In Illinois, there is a record for William Baylis. I have no reason to assume these are two different people, so I listed them on a combine entry and just show the alternative spellings, and in the column for the Illinois records, I specify the alternative spelling. However, you can be sure that the first name listed in the Soldier's name column comes from the Archives. The names in parenthesis come from alternative spellings some within the Archives, or the Third Cavalry book, or the Illinois Archives. There are, however a few instances where the names listed in the Third Cavalry book or the Illinois Archives didn't match up with any existing names. I listed those soldiers followed by a * to indicate that this soldier's name does not appear in the Archives. I considered having different entries for each alternative spelling, but there would have been twice as many entries if had done it that way. 6. The soldiers with dates of death in red died in combat. There are others that died during their time of service of disease. If can't tell if the death is combat related, their listing is not in red. It is certainly telling though that MANY, MANY more soldiers died of disease rather than combat. 7. It is clear to me that the enlistment location is not necessarily where the soldier resided. At the outset I would note that to the extent that the enlistment site is somewhat suggestive of the general area of residence, there appears to be a significant portion of the enlistees coming from both west central Illinois (quite a few from Quincy) and northeastern Missouri (including Hannibal). There are also quite a few from La Grange. I don't know what to make of that as La Grange is a small town. I imagine that several enlistees traveled there to enlist. The same can probably said for Palmyra. While it is the county seat for Marion County, Missouri, and was probably larger than La Grange at the time, it was also the home base for the Regiment. There were also quite a few from St. Louis, many of which ended up in Company G. I'm not sure how that came to pass. Also, there are several enlistees that were transfers from Freemont's Rangers. I wonder what caused this to happen. Later, quite a few enlisted in Rolla where the Regiment was based for a time. I suppose they may have lived in that area, but if you look at the records, several seem to be coming as transfers from other Cavalries. Likewise, in later times, several people enlisted in Little Rock while the Regiment was based there. Finally, there are a few enlistees from St. Joseph, MO and Lafayette Co., Wisconsin. These two places are at least a couple hundred miles from any other enlistees. There are not many from these two sites, but more than you can count on your hand. It will be interesting to see where these folks actually came from and why. One possibly explanation for St. Joseph is the railroad. Early in the conflict the military was charged with defending the Hannibal to St. Joseph railroad. That still would not explain why there are no enlistments for the 200 miles between Palmyra and St. Joseph (excepting a few in Shelbyville and Macon). 8. I don't know enough about the military in this time period to know what happened when the soldier left the military. If the 3rd Cavalry soldier stuck around until the end, most seem to have mustered out in either Little Rock or New Orleans. If the military didn't pay to transport the soldier back home, it's possible they stayed there. Check the Archives for this muster out location information, as I didn't include it on my page. 9. I wanted some way to have the commissioned officers of each company together, so there is a "." after their company letter. That's not in the records, only in my sheets for sorting purposes. So the commissioned officer are alphabetized separately from all the other soldiers and are at the bottom of the company list. If you're interested in the ranks of officers and are confused by all the 1st and 2nd references, you might find this site helpful: http://nutmeg.easternct.edu/~pocock/ranks.htm Note, however, that some of these companies went through several commanding officers. The first few pages of Petty's book talks about that. I assume the rank shown is rank when enlisted, but be sure to check out the remarks for both the Archives and the 3rd cavalry book. There were a bunch of promotions. 10. Likewise, several people enlisted in Jo Davies County, IL. There were alternate spellings, but to keep them all together during a sort, I used one spelling. I may use a "find and replace" when I figure out the correct spelling. 11. There are a few soldiers who enlisted at Monticello. Sometimes it's shown as IL, sometimes MO. Monticello, MO is the county seat of Lewis County, MO. It's near La Grange, MO where several of the 3rd's soldiers enlisted. In the Illnois records, several are shown as having a residence in Monticello, IL. That's near the Champaign/Urbana area, which was was also an enlistment site, so I imagine there were some soldiers who enlisted from Monticello, IL. The archives and Illinois records don't always agree, so be sensitive to that. Another example is Liberty, MO and Liberty, IL. 12. People of the same last name often enlisted on the same dates and stayed in the same companies. I would assume they were of the same family or somehow related. In some cases, some of the information may be missing, so you might start by looking at soldiers with the same last name. 13. One other factoid that may interest only me is the time between enlistment and muster. In some cases it's the same day, in others a week or so, neither of which surprises me. In some cases, it months, or over a year. I don't know if these are typos, or this is accurate. 14. Finally, the one thing I can say for certain, is that there are a LOT of mistakes in these documents. There are sometimes as many as 4 different spellings of the soldier's name, errors in the enlistment locations as in Missouri or Illinois, inconsistencies in the company information. One of the reasons I put this information together in the format I chose was to compare the different records. Back to Third Cavalry Home page.
Page last updated May 11, 2009