Biographical Sketches--Unless otherwise noted, the biographical sketches are based on public information contained in the soldiers’ military service and pension records. The type of information available is necessarily constricted, and the amount for each soldier varies depending on the completeness of his files. While service records exist for most soldiers, pension records exist only for those who chose to apply (pensions were initially need-based rather than entitlements).

For Union soldiers, the service records are part of Record Group (RG) 94, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, housed at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Pension records are part of NARA, RG 15, Records of the Veterans Administration. For Confederate soldiers, the service records are part of NARA, RG 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records. Pension records for Confederate soldiers are administered by the state in which the soldier resided, and complete citation is given in the soldier’s table where applicable. In limited cases, Census Records were also consulted; these are part of NARA, RG 29, Records of the Census Bureau.

The information on ethnicity and religion was gleaned from birth, marriage, and burial information provided either in the soldier’s military service and pension records, Census records, or in cemetery records. Occasionally, an educated guess (indicated by a question mark) has been made based on the soldier’s family name or other pertinent information.
 

Regimental Histories--A table is provided for each soldier listing the principal engagements of his regiment during the soldier’s term of active service. The regimental histories were constructed from the following published sources:

In addition, the following Civil War reference works have been used as cited in the annotations: Walt Whitman’s Works--The citations for Whitman’s work refers to: The Collected Writings of Walt Whitman. Gay Wilson Allen and Sculley Bradley, editors. New York, New York University Press, 1965-1984. Specific titles cited include: Occasional reference is also made to those notebooks from the Library of Congress (LOC), Thomas Harned-Walt Whitman Collection which have been posted on LOC’s website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wwhome.html. These references indicate the LOC notebook number and page reference.