What is the purpose of CivilWarTrack.com? When you want to research a battle in the Civil War, there are a multitude of websites you can access, but none of the sites can give you the information you may be researching for. With CivilWarTrack.com, you can access a multitude of information. Along with facts about the battle, officers involved, and forces engaged. I also have links to sites which I will discuss later.

 

            Union and Confederate Official Records

 

            There are 128 volumes of Official Records. Part I of each volume contains the records of the units involved in the campaign and battles. The battles could have only a few records or like Gettysburg, have 589 records. 423 are Union records, while 166 are Confederate records. For the Union, most battles include both major officer reports and unit reports. Unfortunately as the war drifted toward the end, 1864 and 1865, the Confederate records are confined to mostly major officer reports, so we don’t know what the units did in the battles.

            For the Siege of Petersburg, the Richmond Campaign is broken up into two volumes, XL and XLII. There is a total of 699 Official Records, but for a single battle, such as the Battle of Globe Tavern, there are only 62 Union records and only 5 Confederate records out of the 375 records in Volume XLII. I read through all the records to find those that pertain to the battle I’m researching.

 

            National Park Service

 

            The National Park Service has information on most of the battles and units involved. If the park service has a good page on the battle, I will provide a link.  They have articles about the battles which I have included. I have not included the sites about the units involved in the battles as they may include more than one battle.

 

            Battlefield Trust

 

            Battlefield Trust is an organization that was started to save Civil War battlefields. Since its formation in 1989 as the Civil War Trust, it became the Battlefield Trust in 2018, it as saved over 50,000 acres of battlefield land on 150 battlefields. It has since added Revolutionary and War of 1812 battlefields to their agenda. With Battlefields.org, I have created links to articles, facts, and maps.

 

            Order of Battle

 

            When it comes to the Order of Battle, there are several websites and books that list an Order of Battle for both sides. To verify that a unit participated in the battle, I use the units website on Wikipedia, Civil War in the East, Research Online and Siege of Petersburg (beyondthecrater.com). I verify the unit participated in the battle and who the commander(s) were in the battle. If I can’t find a commander, I type ------, in case I ever get notice of the commander.  

 

            Newspapers

 

            Up until this date, 25 September 2024, I was only using Harper’s Weekly, Journal of Civilization and The New York Times. However, I have recently searched the internet and found more newspapers that I can access and add to the website. I will be adding the articles in the coming months.

 

            Library of Congress

 

            The Library of Congress is a treasure trove of information for anyone doing research. I use pictures, paintings and maps from their collection.

 

            Maps

 

            I have access to The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War. I copy the maps and insert them into the battle sections.

 

            You Tube

 

            There are numerous You Tube videos of the battles, but I choose those that are the most informative about the battle.

 

            HistoryNet.com

 

            HistoryNet.com is a collection of historical articles. If I find one relevant to a battle, I will have a link to the article.

 

            Officers of the Civil War

 

            There is a large collection of biographies of the Union and Confederate major generals and leaders. Although there are hundreds of brigadier generals, I have purposely concentrated on the major and lieutenant generals. I don’t do an article but use bullet statements to highlight the general’s life. There is a section listing when they achieved rank, and a picture. I use Wikipedia to create the bullet statements, plus my own library of biographies.

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