Treasures of the Collection: Official War Records - Part I

Treasures of the Collection: Official War Records- PART I

 In 1864, about a year before the end of the Civil War, the United States government began to collect records with a view to publishing an official record of the war when it was over.  After the war’s conclusion in 1865, the collection of Confederate records began.  Compilation and publication of the records began shortly thereafter.

There were some delays in making the material available to the American people, but in 1877 Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Scott took over the task and developed the basic organizational plan that was eventually used for publishing the 130 volume set which is officially titled The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies but is known to most people researching the Civil War as the Official Records of the Civil War (or OR for short).  The set was published between 1880 and 1901.

It was originally published in 4 series as follows:
Set 1 Military Operations
Set 2 Prisoners
Set 3 Union Authorities
Set 4 Confederate Authorities

This large set is a unique compilation of material and has been consulted by nearly everyone who has written a history of the Civil War.   It can be found at W45.5:10 in the basement government documents section.

After the initial publication, indexes for each volume were added along with an Atlas of maps relating to the war’s battlegrounds.  The Atlases were published between the years 1891-95 and contain drawings of the various battle locations.  These are found at W 45.7 in the oversize are of government documents. 

There is also another set for the navy, the Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. This is found in under the number N16.6 in Hewes government documents section.

Monmouth College became a repository for federal documents in 1860 and thus received each of the volumes contained in our collection shortly after originally published.  The OR can be very hard to use and Hewes reference section contains a guide to using the OR .  However, it can be most easily searched in its electronic version. But there is something unique about being able to look at records that are over 100 years old.  So if you want to look at the documents as originally published go to call number W45.5:10 in the government documents section and take down a volume.  Most of them have been rebound, but the contents are original. 

The Civil War is not the only American conflict that was memorialized after the fact by a set of official government publications. The next article will discuss some of the other official war publications found in Hewes Library.