The database consists of information drawn from the Letters of Inquiry files in the records of the Washington Hospital Directory of the United States Sanitary Commission. The database fields are described below. Please note that the inquiry files are unlike muster or other official records, in that the staff worked with information provided by families that was unofficial, and often incomplete or incorrect. The inquiries were docketed and filed according to that information. Information was entered into the database as it appears in the records. As a result, researchers should not expect to find one consistent term, spelling or abbreviation for names or military units.

Name: The soldier or person sought.

The Hospital Directory staff often glued together inquiries for more than one soldier to make their investigations more efficient. The database identifies over 500 attached files. These names are noted as "filed with" a different name.

Alternate Name: Variant spellings, variant names, and corrections. Both the "Name" and "Alternate Name" fields contain nicknames, aliases, and "real" names.

Reasons for variant names include errors in transcription, misunderstanding a name given verbally, and language difficulties. German and Irish names were frequently anglicized or written phonetically. Handwriting presented its own difficulties: "L" and "S" were and are difficult to distinguish from each other, as are "I" and "J." "O" and "Mc" were often transcribed as middle initials O and M. This is particularly true for forms filled out by Philadelphia office as interpreted by the Washington office. Responses returned by officers and surgeons often contained radically different spellings or names, which may or may not refer to the person inquired for.

Year: The year in which the application was processed. Files may contain documents from late months in preceding years and early months in following years.

Bear in mind that there may be several inquiries for a soldier over the course of the war, with a change in name spelling, unit, branch or service. For example, readers looking for Richard Tiner, 2 Ohio Cavalry, will find two files, one for 1863, and one for 1864. The application numbers are different.

Families continued to ask about soldiers lost since the beginning of the war, so don't discount a file if the year follows a soldier's death. The year of an inquiry may not correspond to what is now known of a soldier's life based on present day access to Civil War records.

Rank/Job: Where the company letter and rank was given without variation or correction, it was indexed. If not, it was omitted. Illegible company letters were also omitted. Although the Hospital Directory form did not provide for rank, it is often noted. (Most were privates.) Occupational titles for civilians or government employees (such as nurse, teamster, etc.) are noted.

Unit. The easiest way to see how units were indexed is to look over the alphabetical tables of soldier surnames in the database. For regimental structure (the most common identification), the ordinal number is followed by state abbreviation or 'US' for volunteer or national service, branch of service (Cavalry, State Militia, Reserves, Sharp Shooters, Colored Troops, Navy, Marine Corps, Invalid Corps, Veteran Reserve Corps, etc.) and company.

Additional Information contains information which does not fit the general regimental structure (a unit's popular name, or the name of a gunboat, for example), or which is offered in addition to it which will help the researcher identify a soldier.

Alternate Information includes corrections supplied during the course of the investigation or variant information found in the letter of inquiry. "Alternate information" is not necessarily correct information.

A Few Examples

Regiment/branch: 20 ME Infantry; 2 US Cavalry; 14 NY State Militia
Additional information: Heiress [a gunboat]; Berdan's Shooters; Excelsior Brigade
Alternate information: Aries, 2 US Artillery; 14 NY Infantry

No attempt has been made to further identify or correct any information provided. Because unit information provided by inquirers was frequently inaccurate, and unit designations changed over time, in most cases information, especially abbreviations, are entered as provided, and little modification has taken place for the sake of consistency. Sharp Shooters may be entered as SS, S, Sharpshooters or Shooters. Duryea's Zouaves may be entered as Duryee's Zouaves. Look for Gun Boat as well as Gunboat. The gunboat Aries was also described as the 'steamer' Aries.

No attempt has been made to identify border state regiments as Union or Confederate. Some regiments from Southern States may in fact be Union regiments. Some Virginia regiments were later designated as West Virginia regiments.

A search for a soldier could seldom be undertaken unless his regiment and company were provided, but as stated, sometimes the information was incorrect, or a clerk made an error in transcribing information from letters to forms. Typical confusions:

• The ordinal number was correct, but the branch of service was not.
• A member of a Pennsylvania regiment may have belonged to a Pennsylvania Reserve regiment.
• New York State Militia regiment numbers were often confused with New York State Volunteer regiment numbers.
• Volunteer regiments were often confused with US regular units.
• New York and New Jersey regiments were confused due to handwriting.
• Soldiers were sometimes detached from their unit for other duties, or transferred to other branches of service.
• Soldiers who endured long convalescence might be designated only as members of the Invalid Corps or Veteran Reserves Corps.
• When enlistments ran out, some units dissolved or re-organized. Units were consolidated with others due to heavy losses. Soldiers in such units might be administratively discharged or transferred while sick, or even while missing in action.

Occasionally inquiries were placed for persons with no unit identification. Any details that would aid the researcher, such as family names or location, have been entered in Additional Information.

Persons of Color, Confederates and Women

Persons of Color: The letters of inquiry contain a number of inquiries for "colored" soldiers or other persons. They were identified by the term "(Colored)" written after their name, and/or by their membership in Colored units such as the US Colored Infantry, US Colored Troops, or regiments such as the 29th Connecticut Vols. (Note that US Colored Troops and Colored Infantry will also be found under US CT and US CI in the Unit field, or as USCT in the Additional or Alternate Information fields.) In other words, search for: colored, US CT, USCT, and US CI (there are no examples of USCI in the database).

Because the contemporary use of the term applied to African Americans, Native Americans and other persons of color, the original term has been retained in quotation marks. The term "Colored" has been indexed as Additional Information, serving to identify individuals identified as "Colored," in the records, but who were not soldiers, or whose units might not indicate a connection by race. In this way an attempt has been made to provide access to all files of persons of color identified as such in the records.

Confederates: In cases where the form identifies a person as a Confederate soldier (the word "Rebel" or "CSA" follows their name on the form and/or docket), regimental information is provided if available and "CSA" is noted in "Additional information." Some Southern civilians are identified by the word "Rebel" after their name, and that is noted in "Additional Information."

Inquiries for Confederates were usually placed by Northern friends or relatives, or relayed through USSC offices in occupied areas.

Women: Six females have been noted in the files, only one of whom has "nurse" listed as an occupation. Their records are entered under the following names:

Ballard, Mary

George, Malvina

Howard, Mary Alliss (a child sought by her brother)

Jennifer, Samuel (alternate name Jenifer, Samuel): an inquiry for his wife Sarah, a slave, is filed under his name as docketed; her name "Sarah" is entered in "Additional Information."

Miller, Abby E.

Monroe, Sarah E.

Problems sometimes arose from clerical errors by USSC or Army hospital staff. A USSC clerk transcribed Henry Welker's name as Esther Welker ("my son Either Living or Dead"). Augusta Andre was actually Auguste Andre.