Titles: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion (OR) & Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (ORN)
Notes: Free
Cornell University has created an online search of one of the great historical sources from the American Civil War. The 159 Volume series is primarily made up of correspondences and rosters from the war, and it includes a comprehensive index. If you had a noteworthy soldier or sailor in the civil war, they may be mentioned by name. Even if not, this is a great way to track down information about the activities of different units, ships, and battles of the war.
The site has several search options, including a basic search for individual words, a boolean search that lets you use AND and OR operators, and a proximity search, which lets you for two terms within a number of words. The site also keeps a handy history of your recent searches.
Typing in a name will bring up a list of every entry in the volumes. It can be time consuming to click through each to see if it is relevant. A handy first step is to look at the indexes of the Army and Navy records to narrow down which records may be relevant to your search.
The index for the entire OR (the army records) is usually the last entry - you are looking for Series 4 - Volume 4.
From the results details, it is good to go to the view of the actual page, which is easier to browse. From this index, you can work your way back through the links that may be of interest to you.
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