These various online resources might be helpful to you as you complete your pension file project. Also, look at the pension file guide I have posted under “Class Handouts.”
Measuring Worth–This website, built by economists, helps us calculate the value of the U.S. dollar today in comparison to the past. Make sure you read down the page to see which kind of measure is best suited to your needs.
Civil War Pensions–This brief (though slightly flawed) article explains how the pension process worked.
Useful Tips for Reading Handwritten Documents:–This is a website out of Australia, but it provides a lot of really useful advice about the particulars of reading handwritten documents from the nineteenth century.
Here are some relevant online primary sources and databases:
Index to Kansas Adjutant General Report, 1861-1865–This includes some enlistment information for the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry (later the 79th USCI) and the 2nd Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry (later the 83rd USCI).
Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863–1865–This was compiled from handwritten enlistment records, providing some basic details about Missouri black recruits. Here’s an example of the handwritten record.
Missouri Soldier Records–This database includes records for Missouri regiments from the War of 1812 through World War I.
Official Records of the War of the Rebellion–This site is searchable and includes official military reports and orders pertaining to the various military campaigns of the Civil War. In class, and in many publications, you will hear this called “the O-R.”
Here are a few specific secondary source articles (available online):
United States Colored Troops in Missouri–this is a brief article (comprising part of a lesson plan) about black regiments recruited in Missouri.
“The First Kansas Colored: Massacre at Poison Springs”–this is a short, academic article by Mike Fisher, published in Kansas History.
“The 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers”–This is a short encyclopedia article on this unit.
These secondary source monographs and anthologies in Torreyson Library are also excellent reference sources:
Bailey, Ann J., and Daniel E. Sutherland. Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. (E496 .C58 2000)
Castel, Albert. Civil War Kansas: Reaping the Whirlwind. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. (E508 .C3 1997)
Christ, Mark K. Civil War Arkansas, 1863: The Battle for a State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. (E470.4 .C47 2010)
Cornish, Dudley Taylor. The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966. (E540.N3 C77 1966)
Dobak, William A. Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 2011. (Federal Documents D 114.2:SW 7) <– also available online as a PDF
Earle, Jonathan and Diane Mutti Burke. Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. (F685 .B65 2013)
Gerteis, Louis. The Civil War in Missouri: A Military History. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2012. (E470.4 .G47 2012)
Glatthaar, Joseph T. Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. (E540.N3 G53 1990)
Monaghan, Jay. Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-1865. Boston: Little and Brown, 1955. (E470.45 .M652)
Shaffer, Donald R. After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. (E540.N3 S53 2004)
HIST4330: Civil War and Reconstruction 