Missouri Military Records

United States U.S. Military  Missouri  Military Records

Introduction
Many military records are found at the Family History Library, the National Archives, and other federal and state archives. United States Military Records provides more information on the federal military records and search strategies.

Forts
Civil War Forts:


 * Cape Girardeau- Acutally contained 4 forts (A, B, C and D),
 * Curtis, aka Hovey,
 * Davidson,
 * Dette,
 * Hamer,
 * Insley,
 * New Madrid,
 * Thompson,
 * Wyman

Other Forts:


 * Fort Bellefontaine-- 1805- 1826  First United States fort west of Mississippi river.
 * Fort Carondolet
 * Fort Celeste -- 1789-
 * Fort Orleans-- 1723-1728/9
 * Fort Osage --1808-1827; originally named Fort Clark
 * Jefferson Barracks-- St. Louis Public Library owns the portion of the NARA microfilm set, Returns From U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916, that includes Jefferson Barracks. Textual records of this fort, 1827-1909, including registers, reports, and correspondence, are in the National Archives and are described in Records of United States Army, Continental Commands, 1821-1920, under the section entitled Records of Posts, 1820-1940 (Record Group 393.7).

For Missouri the following sources are also very helpful. Most are available at:

Office of the Adjutant General 1717 Industrial Drive Jefferson City, MO 65101

Copies of many of the records are also available at the Family History Library and the St. Louis Public Library.

Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
An alphabetical list of soldiers, their birth dates, death dates, and military service is Alice Kinyoun Houts, Revolutionary Soldiers Buried in Missouri (Family History Library ) (Worldcat).

St. Louis Public Library owns NARA's microfilm set, General Index to Compiled Service Records of Revolutionary War Soldiers.

The 1835 Pension Roll

On June 5, 1834, the U.S. Senate required the Secretary of War to submit a statement showing the names of pensioners who were on the pension rolls or had previously been on the pension rolls. For more information on the 1835 Pension Roll see Revolutionary War Pension Records. The 1835 Pension Roll for Missouri is available online:


 * Report from the Secretary of War... Vol. III (Google Books)
 * The Pension Roll of 1835, Vol. IV (Ancestry) ($)

War of 1812 (1812-1815)
St. Louis Public Library owns NARA's microfilm set, Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served During the War of 1812.

Bounty land in Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri was issued to soldiers who served in the War of 1812. Copies of the bounty land warrants are on 14 films at the Family History Library. The names of Missouri patentees are indexed in "War of 1812, military bounty land warrants, 1815-1858" (NARA M848) (Worldcat). The records provide the name of the soldier and his rank, unit, date of warrant, and the date the land was located.

The St. Louis Public Library website provides a bibliography, Bounty and Public Land Claims, 1788-1855: a Selected Bibliography of Items in the Collection of St. Louis Public Library.

The Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI is a database from the Missouri State Archives that provides information from service cards created by the Missouri Adjutant General's Office. The service cards include more than 576,00 Missouri soldiers who served in conflicts from the War of 1812 to World War I. The Missouri State Archives has a brief description of Missouri troops in the War of 1812.

Mexican War (1846-1848)
The Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI is a database from the Missouri State Archives that provides information from service cards created by the Missouri Adjutant General's Office. The service cards include more than 576,00 Missouri soldiers who served in conflicts from the War of 1812 to World War I. The Missouri State Archives has a brief description of Missouri troops in the War with Mexico.

Civil War (1861-1865)
See Missouri in the Civil War for information about Missouri Civil War records, web sites, etc. with links to articles about the Missouri regiments involved in the Civil War.

The regimental pages often include lists of the companies with links to the counties where the companies started. Men in the companies often lived in the counties where the companies were raised. Knowing a county can help when researching more about the soldiers and their families.

The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System allows name searching for soldiers. The result set gives the regiments for the soldiers. Then you can check the Wiki regiment pages to determine counties. Often knowing the counties that had men in a regiment will help you determine if a soldier was your ancestor.

FamilySearch Historical Records Online Databases:


 * Missouri, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldier
 * Missouri, Confederate Pension Applications and Soldiers' Home Admission Applications
 * Missouri, Civil War Service Records of Union Soldiers

Wiki articles describing these online records are found at:


 * Missouri, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Missouri, Confederate Pension Applications and Soldiers' Home Admission Applications (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Missouri, Civil War Service Records of Union Soldiers (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Indian Wars (1780s-1890s)
The Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI is a database from the Missouri State Archives that provides information from service cards created by the Missouri Adjutant General's Office. The service cards include more than 576,00 Missouri soldiers who served in conflicts from the War of 1812 to World War I. The Missouri State Archives gives a brief description of each of the wars. The database includes the following conflicts:


 * Black Hawk War, 1832
 * Heatherly War, 1836
 * Seminole War, 1837
 * Osage War, 1837

Spanish-American War (1898)
In addition to the federal records, the Missouri Adjutant General's office has muster rolls and an index to volunteers (Family History Library ). St. Louis Public Library owns the NARA microfilm set, General Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served During the War with Spain and the Philippine Insurrection. SLPL also provides on its website a bibliography of items the Library owns about the Spanish-American War, including rosters, general histories, and regimental and battle histories.

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/spanisham/1898.htm

The Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI is a database from the Missouri State Archives that provides information from service cards created by the Missouri Adjutant General's Office. The service cards include more than 576,00 Missouri soldiers who served in conflicts from the War of 1812 to World War I. The Missouri State Archives has a brief description of Missouri troops in the Spanish-American War.

World War I (1917-1918)
The Missouri Adjutant General's office has service files and bonus application papers. The latter often contain family information.

World War I draft registration cards for men age 18 to 45 may list address, birth date, birthplace, race, nationality, citizenship, and next of kin. Not all registrants served in the war. For registration cards for Missouri see:


 * United States. Selective Service System. Missouri, World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. National Archives Microfilm Publications, M1509. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1987-1988. (On Family History Library films beginning with —.)
 * St. Louis Public Library owns the portion of the above-named microfilm set that contains records for men from St. Louis City and County.

To find an individual's draft card, it helps to know his name and residence at the time of registration. The cards are arranged alphabetically by county, within the county by draft board, and then alphabetically by surname within each draft board.

Most counties had only one board; large cities had several. A map showing the boundaries of individual draft boards is available for most large cities. Finding an ancestor's street address in a city directory will help you in using the draft board map. There is an alphabetical list of cities that are on the map. For a copy of this map see:


 * United States. Selective Service System. List of World War One Draft Board Maps. Washington, DC: National Archives. (Family History Library .)

The Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI is a database from the Missouri State Archives that provides information from service cards created by the Missouri Adjutant General's Office. The service cards include more than 576,00 Missouri soldiers who served in conflicts from the War of 1812 to World War I. The Missouri State Archives has a brief description of Missouri troops in World War I.

Additional Records
Divided State: Missouri Military Organizations in the Civil War is an index on the St. Louis Public Library website of books and periodical articles about Missouri military organizations, Union and Confederate. There is also an article on the website about Missouri Union Militia Organizations.Further information about Missouri Civil War soldiers, regiments, and battles can be discovered in The Civil War In Missouri: a Selected, Annotated Bibliography (available on the website of St. Louis Public Library).

The book "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, V.III" by Frederick H. Dyer, lists on pages 1301-1343 many of the Union units, both federal and local milita, which served in the Civil War. With some units, lists of soldiers and brief unit histories are given. This book is available on FHL US/CAN Fiche   Portions are also available [p://home.usmo.com/~momollus/MOVOLFED.HTM#HG. online].

The Missouri State Archives has state records of volunteers and state militia (Family History Library -98), including descriptive muster rolls and enlistment and discharge rolls.

A special 1890 census of Union veterans is at the National Archives and on Family History Library. A published index to this census is available.

The Family History Library has 214 microfilms of records in various collections created by the Missouri Adjutant General's office for service in the War of 1812, Black Hawk War, Seminole War, Mormon War, Heatherly War, Iowa War, Mexican War, and Civil War. The records include burial information, state militia rolls, and county enrollments.

Web Sites

 * Missouri Digital Heritage
 * Missouri State Archives
 * St. Louis Public Library
 * Access Genealogy