Government Records
Included are regimental rosters and lists; correspondence and official communications; recruiting reports; monthly, quarterly, and annual returns of individual units; hospital reports and letters mainly documenting state soldiers in non-Minnesota hospitals; lists of recruits credited to each town and county; quartermaster general daybooks; allotment rolls; Minnesota soldiers' interment records; U. S. Army Corps records; and lists of draftees and substitutes.
The records are arranged in the following sections.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the
Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics
should
Original of the List of Drafted Men and Substitutes (+ Reserve 15; 1 volume) is closed to general use.
Accession number: None
Catalog ID number: 001736294
Relates primarily to troop assignments reports and to individual soldiers both in the Civil and U.S.-Dakota wars.
Date spans of the folders overlap and the letters are not in chronological or alphabetical order within each.
Reports and correspondence, mainly regarding personnel assignments and changes, particularly returns of killed/wounded/missing, resignations, promotions, transfers, desertions, discharges, and troop assignments. Some include reports of engagements (battles) by regimental officers.
Arranged by regiment.
List of 48 veterans or their widows, recording names, giving town, county, and state of residence; prepared after the war, possibly in connection with the 1890 veterans' census.
Includes an 1890 published roster of the 2nd Battery.
Includes letters and lists regarding the formation of militia companies during the war and subsequent claims for pensions, miscellaneous muster rolls of militia companies and Minnesota Infantry Volunteers companies; a muster-in roll of under cooks of African descent in Company E, 3rd Minnesota Infantry; and affidavits of service (forms and related correspondence) by members of the Renville Rangers (1885).
Primarily a register of regimental and company line and staff officers and supporting personnel: regimental colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, adjutants, quartermasters, and surgeons; and company captains, first lieutenants, and second lieutenants. Each entry gives name, rank and date, post office address, and remarks (promoted, discharged, died, etc.).
Pages 200-202 contain an unidentified list with the same type of data, dated July 24, 1884 and March 11, 1885; pages 226-318 are an alphabetically-tabbed section with lists of men, giving name, rank, regiment/company, post office address and, in the remarks column, a date, generally in the years 1884-1886. Entries within each letter of the alphabet are chronological. The nature and purpose of this list, also, is unknown.
Entries are by regiment and cover the 1st-11th Infantry Volunteers, 1st Infantry Battalion, 1st Regiment Heavy Artillery, 1st and 2nd Companies of Sharpshooters, 1st Mounted Rangers, Brackett's and Hatches Battalions of Cavalry, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, and 1st-3rd Batteries Light Artillery.
Each entry gives a sequential number (within that company), name, where born (county or state, sometimes city), age, occupation, residence (town, county, state), date of muster, and personal description (eye color, hair color, complexion, height). There are also columns for remarks and surgeons remarks. The volumes are labeled Muster Roll on the spines, but are not actual muster rolls.
Entries are by regiment and company, and in no discernible order there under.
Each entry gives name, age, height, complexion, eye color, hair color, where born (town or county and state or country), occupation, when and where enlisted, by whom, and term. A remarks column occasionally contains an annotation, usually regarding promotion, discharge, desertion, or death. The volume is indexed.
At the front of the volume is a List of Commissioner Officers, giving each officer's name, rank, date of appointment, and an occasional note on resignation or other appointment.
Entries are by company, and there under are usually, but not always, in rough alphabetical order by surname.
Created by adjutant general office clerk C. J. Humanson, information recorded may include name, rank, age, nativity, date and place enrolled and mustered, residence, and remarks (usually on service transfer or termination).
Organized by name of military unit.
Reports, filed by recruiting or mustering officers, detailing old and new military organizations whose manpower strengths were increased during the period and the counties and towns from which the recruits originated. The numbers were counted against the assigned enrollment quotas.
The various consolidated reports of credits of men enlisted in the State of Minnesota were all submitted by John T. Averill (Chief Mustering Officer and Superintendent, Volunteer Recruiting Service) and contain names of individual soldiers. They are listed alphabetically noting regiment assigned and town credited.
Submitted by J. R. Paxton, Nashville, Tennessee, August 31, 1864; statistical data only.
Submitted Averill; compilations note enlistments by congressional district. Statistical data only.
Submitted by Averill; statistical data only.
Notes number of soldiers enlisted and detached and the number refused enlistment with the reasons for refusal: St. Paul (September 5, 1864) and Rochester (January 10, 20, 31, February 28, March 10, 20, 31, April 10, 20, 1865). Statistical data only.
May, June, and July are blank; statistical data only.
Statistical data only.
Organized by name of military unit.
Contains the following adjutant general office [AGO] returns: Monthly Brigades Returns (Nos. 30, 32, 34); Morning Report (Nos. 31, 33, 37); Monthly Regiment Return (No. 38); Monthly Company Return (No. 40); Quarterly Enlistments (No. 45); Deceased Soldiers Quarterly Return (No. 47); Annual Regimental Return (No. 48); and Volunteer Enlistment (Nos. 74, 76).
Regimental manpower numbers, in 10-day intervals.
Lists name and rank and indicates major actions in which each participated.
Includes July 1861 (Companies A, B, D, F, H, I, K), August 1861, and July, August (all), October-December 1861, January, February 1862 (Company H).
Variously titled.
June 1863 (AGO No. 38), July 1863 (AGO Nos. 30, 32, 34), February 1864 (AGO Nos. 68, 69), April 1864 (Alterations, hand drawn), March-July 1865 (AGO No. 38).
Lists deaths and discharges by company.
Lists 242 names detailing when, where, and cause.
Lists 20 names and cause of discharge.
Sent to Second Lieutenant Gould Chessman; sample of those sent to members of the regiment.
Booklet containing the minutes of the reunion and a complete roster of the regiment.
Regarding inaccuracy of state's published roster of the Fourth Minnesota.
The August 22nd report documents the formation of Companies B and F with 195 men; Companies D, G, I-1, and I are added in the August 30th report for an aggregate of 368 men. The September 5th report lists a full regiment of ten companies and one thousand men; along with the ten commanding officers.
Includes February 10, 1862 formation.
The June and December 1862 returns each contain a September 1, 1889 editorial comment by Corporal J. B. Chaney.
Lists month ending troop strengths for January-July 1864.
The majority are written or submitted by Minnesota state military agents, who worked for the state and with the United States and Western Sanitary Commissions, to provide supplies and aid to sick and wounded Minnesota soldiers.
To Governor Alexander Ramsey suggesting dollar amounts for his expenses and a fee for his monthly services (July 3), to Governor Henry A. Swift lobbying for dollars per month for his services (August 10), to Adjutant General Malmros regarding hospital list collection (September 4), and to Governor Swift recommending names be placed on grave markers at Gettysburg rather than numbers (as proposed by several states) (September 11).
Concerning Corson’s accountability.
Acknowledging receipt of Malmros' November 20 letter requesting final report from his agency (November 28), regarding hospital list collection (December 9), and an account of the offices he discharged in meeting his duties (December 9).
Includes Douglas, Judiciary Square, Lincoln, and Stanton hospitals.
Accompanied by December 3, 1864 letter of transmission to Governor Miller.
Includes soldiers transferred to the hospital boat, R. C. Wood, and sent to Keokuk, Iowa, March 1st.
Transmitting a letter from Reverend T. McClary, Chattanooga (May 8, 1865), that encloses lists of Minnesota soldiers in hospital in Chattanooga (May 1), Minnesota volunteers sick in hospital in Chattanooga (May 4), and Minnesota soldiers who died in Chattanooga hospitals (March 3); names of Minnesota soldiers in hospitals at Murfreesboro (April 15, 1865); names of soldiers in hospitals at Nashville admitted since January 1, 1865 (prepared by O. Plummer), and list of Minnesota soldiers in hospitals at Nashville (May 3, 1865).
Accompanied by October 2, 1862 letter of transmission from Post Surgeon A. W. Daniels to Governor Ramsey.
Reporting on visiting sick and wounded Minnesota soldiers in every hospital he could find from Keokuk to Memphis.
All from St. Paul.
From West Newton.
Detailing his duties as commissioner to visit and provide for hospitalized Minnesota soldiers.
Forwarding a report of sick and wounded soldiers from the State of Minnesota in Memphis hospitals (the report is not present).
Details visiting sick and wounded Minnesota soldiers in Memphis hospitals.
Enclosing a report of admission and changes of Minnesota troops in the hospitals of Memphis (report not present) and offering to send further reports.
Acknowledging receipt of fifty-dollar bank draft.
Offering to act as Minnesota State Military Agent in Memphis.
General information on soldiers in Memphis hospitals.
Lists, by month and hospital, giving soldiers' names, regiment, company, date admitted, date returned to duty, and remarks (transferred, furloughed, died, deserted).
The latter half of the volume contains a variety of accounts of unknown provenance, pertaining to the sale and distribution of textbooks, circa 1868-1870.
Includes a
States that all Minnesota soldiers are out of the hospitals and enclosed the final report of Minnesota soldiers in Memphis hospitals, July 1, 1865.
Concerning McCarthy’s purchase of a volume held by Marlatt containing names of Minnesota soldiers hospitalized in Memphis during 1863 and 1864. Current location of the volume is unknown.
With note from Reverend Crary.
Enclosing a report of the condition of the sick and wounded at Keokuk, Iowa (report not present).
Describes visiting Minnesota soldiers in St. Louis hospitals.
Describes visiting Minnesota soldiers in St. Louis hospitals.
Report on sick and wounded who arrived the day before at Jefferson Barracks from Nashville on the D. A. January.
Enclosing November report on Minnesota sick and wounded and list of soldiers transferred to Keokuk, Iowa (neither report nor list is present) and sick and wounded who arrived the night before at Jefferson Barracks from Nashville on the D. A. January.
Enclosing list of sick and wounded Minnesota soldiers landed at Jefferson Barracks, U. S. General Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri, on hospital steamer, D. A. January, direct from Nashville, Tennessee, I. A. Rice, U.S.V. Surgeon in charge, December 5, 1864.
Enclosing list of sick and wounded Minnesota soldiers landed at Jefferson Barracks, U. S. General Hospital, by hospital steamer, R. C. Wood, T. F. Aspell, Surgeon, U. S. Volunteers, in charge, direct from Louisville, Kentucky, St. Louis, March 5, 1865.
Regarding transport of Minnesota and Wisconsin patients from St. Louis to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, on board the steamer, Gerry Hopkins.
Regarding arrival of Minnesota soldiers from Louisville, Kentucky, on board the steamer, Gerry Hopkins, and from New Orleans, on board the D. A. January; also on conditions at hospitals in Baton Rouge and Vicksburg.
Regarding transport of Minnesota soldiers from the U. S. Marine Hospital, St. Louis, to Fort Snelling.
Entries give name, time and date of service (various dates, August-October 1864), and total number of days of service.
For two men mustered out from Satterlee U.S.A. General Hospital, Philadelphia: Samuel B. Smith, 8th Minnesota Infantry, Company G (May 24) and John Clark, 1st Minnesota Infantry, Company A (June 14). A note on the front of Clark's roll references 20 men being mustered out on this date, citing various military units, mostly from states other than Minnesota.
Entries are by county, there under by city or township. There are some stray entries in the back of each volume.
List recruit's name, company, and regiment, and sometimes include a date (presumably of enlistment) and a term of service.
Entries are by county, there under by city or township. There are some stray entries in the back of each volume.
A record of supplies issued.
Includes 1st-5th Regiments; Company A, 2nd Regiment U. S. Sharpshooters; 1st-3rd Companies, Minnesota Light Cavalry; 2nd Battery; and 2nd Company, U. S. Sharpshooters.
Assignment-of-pay lists, for those soldiers who elected to send home a portion of their pay. Each entry gives name, rank, pay per month, amount to be reserved, assignee name and address, and a series of check marks, apparently denoting each payment sent.
Handwritten lists; include name, military unit, date of death, and cemetery grave number.
Each list is in rough alphabetical order by surname; one list for each of the following cemeteries: Mississippi River National Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee), Nashville National Cemetery (Tennessee), Andersonville National Cemetery (Georgia), Chattanooga National Cemetery (Tennessee), Marietta and Atlanta National Cemetery (Georgia), Cave Hill National Cemetery (Kentucky), Fort Ridgely (Minnesota), Fort Snelling (Minnesota), Mound City (Illinois), Jefferson Barracks (Missouri), and Fort Ripley (Minnesota).
Compiled and signed by survivors of the unit (Joseph Gilley, James Price, and Humphrey J. Roberts). Filed with the Adjutant General’s Office on February 21, 1925, in compliance with Minnesota Laws 1925, Chapter 109, legalizing muster rolls and rosters of companies of the Minnesota Militia.
Indexed; lists of officers by state militia unit (regiment, brigade, division). The entries give name, residence (city and county), date of appointment, office and rank (which are generally the same), and occasional remarks.
A ledger of arms, ammunition, tools, and supplies issued; there is a separate page for each company or regimental officer. All appear to be for local and county militia.
Handwritten list apparently compiled by the U.S. War Department, Adjutant General’s Office.
Arranged first by regiment, then alphabetically within each unit.
List of draftees from Minnesota or into Minnesota military units, and of substitutes for draftees. Each entry gives name; when drafted; town, county, and district credited; and regiment assigned to. If the individual was a substitute, the word (Sub) follows his name.
The entries cover the Minnesota infantry regiments (almost exclusively 1st-5th), the 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery, the 3rd Minnesota Battery, and the U. S. Colored Troops. The pages of the original are in very poor condition, and the bottom portions of the lists for the 5th Infantry, 1st Heavy Artillery, and U. S. Colored Troops have been lost.
Handwritten list of names submitted by township assessors in the county.