Someone recently asked me if I worked for the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in Raleigh. Umm, no. Since I live not far from Grandfather Mountain, the commute would be, well, interesting. The interested party was curious as to why I posted press releases on my blog if I did not work for the state. While there may be times that I may disagree with what the state does, I still think they do a great job at educating, promoting, and preserving North Carolina’s Civil War history.
All that being said, I have another plug for the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. They recently created a new database on their North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial web page, a page dedicated to Civil War Monuments in North Carolina. The page is not just for Confederate Monuments, but for any monument related to the War in North Carolina. Let me encourage you to check out the site (http://ncmonuments.ncdcr.gov/) and if you see anything that is not listed, to contact Tom Vincent at tom.vincent@ncdcr.gov I have information on several monuments and photographs of many that I am sending to Tom.
The other new piece of information on the War on the North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial web page is an essay by Josh Howard on a project entitled “North Carolina Civil War Death Study.” Using the Troop Rosters published by the State (17 volumes so far), along with the Compiled Service Records, period newspapers, and other resources, there is an attempt going on to get a more realistic number of North Carolina soldiers who died during the War. The estimate always passed around is 40,275. According to the article and research by the State, the number will likely be between 33,000 and 35,000. As cited in the article, we will never know just how many Tar Heels lost their lives during the conflict, largely due to the fact that existing records are so poor. I have mentioned this in the past while researching the 58th North Carolina Troops. There are hundreds of men who simply disappear from the records, just in the 58th. This article is well worth your time. I do wish that there was a way to contact the folks in charge of this program, as some of us probably have info on home guard fatalities that might be of interest. You can check it out here.
So there you have it, a couple of new items to keep you occupied for a few hours.
I am interested in the project into North Carolina Deaths during the war. Two of my research projects are on North Carolina troop casualties in the Maryland and Gettysburg Campaigns. One area where I find a drastic undercount is in the wounded, often a soldier is listed as captured but when the service record is examined they are said to be captured at on in a hospital. From there they are usually sent to a US Hospital, as opposed to other points where most POWs were sent. This points to a strong case to be made that these men were wounded. I feel this is an area of study that certainly deserves more focus and I am glad to see more attention coming to it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the note Eric. I have often thought that that if the 40,275 number is correct, then it must be low. When I was doing research for the book on the battle of Hanover Court House, I found several examples of men listed as wounded or killed (in newspapers) who do not appear on the roster for their respective regiments. Hanover was a small affair compared to events that would soon transpire. Were these men who had just joined and had not been properly mustered, or had the paperwork not caught up to the War Department, or, are they simply misprints? We’ll probably never know.
ReplyDeletehttp://cwmonuments.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteHi
I have photographs of some momuments in NC at the address above and have sent them into the NC archives. Its nice to see NC creating a project similiar to what the state of Maine has done.