Today’s post comes from Stephanie Greenhut, Education Technology Specialist, in the Education and Public Programs division. We’re going to ring in the new year here at the National Archives with a special celebration to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Visitors to the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, can [...]

Friday marks the annual observance of Veterans Day, a day on which we honor the millions of brave men and women who have served in the Armed Forces.  This Tag It Tuesday, in tribute to our military veterans, we’re asking you to tag records in the Online Public Access (OPA) that relate to veterans and the military.   [...]

As a way to tie together all the Confederate prisoner of war records that we’ve discussed over the last several weeks, I thought you might want to know about a specific record the War Department compiled in the early 20th century to document all of the Confederate POWs who died in Federal custody during the [...]

Continuing the discussion of Confederate records, another major portion of material in Record Group 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records, includes records about Confederate prisoners of war.  Of particular note, these are actually records created by Union military prisons, compiled or maintained by the Office of the Commissary General of Prisoners in the U.S. War [...]

Confederate records that survived the Civil War cover a variety of aspects and functions of both the Confederate government and its armed forces.  One of the major components of the War Department Collection of Confederate Records includes records of various military hospitals that were established in several Southern states during the war.  Administered by the Confederate [...]

Since we are about to embark on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War–various activities commemorating events leading up to the war have already taken place around the country since January–it seems useful to highlight some of the major records we have available at the National Archives.  Let’s start with an overview of Confederate records.  [...]

Ever wonder what exciting new projects the many employees at NARA are working on? The “What are You Working On?” blog feature aims to introduce a variety of NARA employees and highlight some of the exciting projects we are working on around the agency. Check for this blog series on Wednesdays! This week, we introduce [...]

Way back in October, we announced that the National Archives was uploading several sets of our Mathew Brady photos onto Flickr.  These original sets were not in any particular order, and were just a selection of the thousands of photographs that Mathew Brady took that now live at the National Archives.  Also in that original [...]

The following is a guest blog from Diane Dimkoff, director of the Customer Services Division. Most Union Army soldiers, their widows, or minor children applied for a pension. In rare cases, a dependent father or mother applied for a pension. The pension application file will often contain a statement of service prepared by the Adjutant [...]