Tracing your Civil War ancestors
I am fortunate to have several Civil War veterans in my lineage, including my great-great-grandfathers William Sisson of Dover, Ohio, who fought in the 51st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and John Fauley of Fultonham, Ohio, who fought in the 5th U.S. Regulars. My great-uncles, the Chambers boys, fought in the 7th West Virginia on East Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg and participated in the famed charge on the Sunken Road at Antietam.
Another great-uncle, Aaron Barnhill, was in the 141st Ohio, a National Guard regiment that served for 100 days in the summer of 1864 when the U.S. War Department enrolled tens of thousands of men for temporary duty for an all-out push to win the war. These "Hundred Days Men" in the 141st served on garrison duty at Charleston, West Virginia, allowing the release of veteran troops to man the front lines.
If you know the name(s) of your Civil War ancestor(s), you might want to start your research by running a query on the National Park Service's excellent Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System, which can help you identify possible matches from the rosters of most military units. For example, query the name "Aaron Barnhill," and my great-uncle will appear (he's the only soldier by that name in the entire Union army). Likely, the name you enter will come back with multiple entries. If the search comes back void, try a variant spelling (record keeping was not exact).
The actual service records for your ancestor (if available) can be obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration in St. Louis, Missouri. They have an on-line form you can print, fill out, and send in with your request. Records are fairly complete for Union soldiers, less complete as one might expect for former Confederates.
In some states, regiments and other units were covered extensively by volumes of books issued in the years after the war. Here in Pennsylvania, try looking up the name on-line in the Pennsylvania Civil War cardfile database. Service records of various regiments can also be searched. Also, the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg might contain information of interest.
Try running Internet scans for your ancestor's name - every now and then, you might run into a reference or mention in some Civil War website, especially if the soldier was an officer.
