The Official Records

One of the most fascinating sources of reference for Civil War research is the OR - that's the short form for "The War of Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies." This is a huge set of books, so don't plan on running out and buying a copy, even if you could find a set for sale.

But if you want to place your hands on a direct link to history and focus your eyes on the words actually written by participants in the War Between the States, go to any well-stocked library and ask to be directed to the Official Records. If you're not familiar with them, you are in for a big surprise. And if you're a dyed-in-the-wool history buff, you also are in store for a treat.

The Official Records came about from a highly unlikely source of support. Except for other lawmakers who gave token assent, few persons in Washington gave even passing notice to a bill drafted by Sen. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts. With most of their attention focused on battlefields during the WBTS, none of Wilson's colleagues objected to a joint resolution that called for "the collection and subsequent publication of military reports and correspondence." Wilson himself did not realize that the brief bill he had framed would lead to the most massive publication project in U.S. history.

Wilson, known by Massachusetts voters as "the Natick cobbler," was sent by the legislature to the Senate in 1855. He had formally been known as Jeremiah Jones Colbath of New Hampshire. After moving to Massachusetts, Colbath made shoes and read any books he could find. Inspired by something he read, and without bothering with legal technicalities, he changed his name to Henry Wilson and entered politics as a Whig.

When Wilson, or Colbath, went to Washington as a freshman senator, he developed a reputation for his staunch opposition to slavery. He made a passionate speech for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law and proposed the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia. Neither proposal was enacted, but they gained attention for their author, who was now a Republican. Soon the New Hampshire native was rewarded by appointment to the prestigious Committee on Military Affairs, of which he served as chairman throughout the Civil War.

Wilson's 1864 measure concerning the collection and publication of military records had no impact until after the war. In the month after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Gen. Henry W. Halleck visited occupied Richmond to gather Confederate documents. Although huge quantities had been burned, Halleck found enough to fill 90 boxes, which he took to Washington to add to War Department records, piled at random in a four-story warehouse.

Within seven months of the surrender, thousands of reports, letters, dispatches, and telegrams had been sorted and arranged for publication. When this first large section of what became "The War of Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies" (OR) was ready for the printer, there was no money available to publish it. In the next 10 years, clerks processed more military documents and Congress delayed on the money. By the time an initial appropriation for publications was made, a staff under the direction of Col. E.D. Townsend had processed enough material to fill tens of thousands of printed pages.

On March 4, 1873, Wilson was sworn into office as Ulysses S. Grant's vice president. He used his influence to speed up the lagging project he had started 12 years earlier. With the leadership of the gigantic project turned over to Capt. Robert N. Scott, 47 volumes were type-set by the end of 1877.

Assembling the OR was a massive job as clerks deciphered hundreds of styles of handwriting, ranging from formal reports written from fancy headquarters in splendid copperplate to crudely scrawled battlefield memoranda. Detailed indexes were written by hand for the 47 volumes. In 1880 Congress authorized an edition of 10,000 copies of each existing book. These came off the press five years before the Linotype machine first saw commercial use in New York.

The U.S. Government Printing Office produced 127 large black-bound volumes containing practically all military material from 1861 to 1865 that was then known to exist. Five volumes covered the Atlanta campaign. Vicksburg and Gettysburg each filled three volumes. A skirmish of October 2, 1862 near Columbia, Missouri, filled half a page. In 1901, this project - considered to be finished at the time - climaxed with a 1,248-page general index that was accompanied by an official atlas of the Civil War.

To some who had worked full time for years on the massive project, it must have seemed that the record was as complete as it could be when serial 130 came off the press in 1901. Around 1890, however, U.S. Navy officials complained that naval activity had been ignored in the compilation of the massive record of the war. In response, Congress authorized publication of "The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion" (NOR) on July 31, 1894. The final NOR volume came off the press in 1917. By that time, researchers had uncovered significant caches of Confederate material not known when the OR was completed. Authorization to publish a second series under NOR came when Josephus Daniels (of North Carolina) was serving as secretary of the navy.

Together, the OR and the NOR constitute by far the largest project the U.S. Government Printing Office had undertaken up to that point. Part of the amazement that every user finds when doing a search for information about a given person or place, is that relevant passages often reveal gems of information that were not sought specifically. END

Source: "The Amazing Civil War" by Webb Garrison. ISBN 1-56731-304-3.



Bill Ward lives in Salisbury and is a historian, writer, and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Contact him at wardwriters@bellsouth.net