CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS SYSTEM
In 1978, a middle-aged couple approached National Park Service Ranger Woody Harrell at Chickamauga National Battlefield Park wanting to know if their ancestors had seen action there in September of 1863. After manually looking through typewritten indexes, maps, and other reference materials housed in the Visitors' Center library, Harrell was able to confirm that they had. Spurred by the experience (and others like it), he began to dream of a day when information about who fought where would be readily available to park visitors across the country.
In 1987, almost a decade later, Harrell wrote an article outlining an ambitious plan that called for the conversion of War Between the States service records into a searchable database that would be made available by computer in national parks nationwide. In 1991, with the backing of the Department of the Interior's American Battlefield Protection Program, the National Park Service launched the Civil War Soldiers System (CWSS). Today, 20 years after Harrell first conceived of an online database accessible in every national battlefield park or historical site, Virginia Division UDC is helping make his dream a reality.
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Because of the enormity of the project, the National Park Service early on sought the assistance of volunteers. Among the many organizations that offered to help was the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Recognizing the value of the proposed undertaking, then-President General Mrs. Francis C. Palmer committed the UDC to the project in 1995. Virginia Division President Mrs. Haike M. Giragosian volunteered the assistance of Virginia Division in entering the names of Confederate servicemen from the Old Dominion, and Mrs. George Volchansky signed on as State coordinator. (State volunteer coordinators in most Confederate and border states are UDC members.)
The 5.5 million service records preserved on microfilm and housed in the National Archives were chosen as the primary source for data input because of their consistency, relative completeness and accuracy, and historical integrity. Working with data entry software devised and provided by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Virginia Division UDC members have almost completed the processing of 28 batches of service records, each containing 24 packets of 200 names. (Seventeen batches were processed by Maryland volunteers before the UDC became involved with the project, and 17 more were sent to volunteers in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Utah, who were eager to help even though their states did not contribute troops to the War.) Each name is entered and then entered again by a second volunteer for verification purposes. All Confederate soldiers from Virginia have been entered into the system. (UDC members from Texas and Tennessee have also completed entering service records from those states.) Nationwide, the project is nearing completion; the National Park Service began loading data onto its server in 1999. |
UDC volunteers used copies of muster cards like this one to input data for the CWSS project |
Past Virginia Division President Mrs. Haike M. Giragosian receives a new batch of names from Robert K. Sutton, superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park |
The basic information that will be provided about each soldier includes:
Other organizations that have cooperated with the National Park Service in the CWSS project include:
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