Help Understanding CMSR for Independent Unit

[dfostermem]

I am trying to use CMSRs to validate lists I've found on Internet of members of Henderson's Scouts. When I pull up CMSRs associated with this unit, I'm coming up with a lot of names that were not on the Internet lists I have found. I'm afraid that I'm making some errors in my approach based on lack of knowledge about CMSRs in general.

What I'm doing is searching Fold3 using "Exchanged Battalion, CSA, O-Z AND Forrest's Scouts, CSA". The result contains several units associated with Forrest's Scouts. I then have been documenting those associated with Henderson's Scouts.

My main question is how accurate is CMSRs based solely on surrender in May 1865 with regard to the units they served in? If soldiers basically were included with a unit that they didn't serve with, does anyone have recommendations for sorting them out?

Since this unit served without pay, many of the soldiers have no pay records. Basically just the record of their surrender. Others have pay records where they received payment for forage. Does the lack of any pay record raise a flag that the soldier probably didn't serve with unit or was it common for soldiers to serve and have no pay record with these independent units?

Any insights/recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[lupaglupa]

Reading the Janney book was really helpful for me in understanding those parole records and how loose then were. A lot of people have ancestors with duplicate paroles or none at all and when you see how it was handled you understand why.

 

[dfostermem]

The other area that was of value to me was she covered the various levels of parole. In the Sam Henderson papers I received there are multiple documents associated with parole. I need to spend time looking at them more closely but I believe two are associated with him being on the parole muster at Citronelle but not being present and him turning himself in (I think it might have been Columbia). But then there are quite a few others in the file. I need to spend time and lay them out with what she wrote about but off the top of my head, his additional papers reflect that he was wealthy which required additional steps to recover his property. I think there may be even approvals from higher levels. When I looked at it the first time, I was confused about what it was all about but when I read the section yesterday in the book it started to make sense. That is the first I had seen about various levels in the parole process based on role played in Confederacy, wealth, coming from North and fighting for South, in military prison, foreign involvement, etc.

I've just skimmed the book looking for particular answers but I need to really read it. Everyone focuses on battles and tactics but there is so much more! We take for granted something as simple as surrender and parole but it is much more complex. She did an excellent job covering what most overlook.

 

[lupaglupa]

his additional papers reflect that he was wealthy which required additional steps to recover his property. I think there may be even approvals from higher levels.

I'm thinking this refers to the automatic amnesty which President Johnson issued. Individuals of a certain wealth level were not included and had to apply for amnesty to the president. If you guy falls under this you can read his amnesty application online. They are pretty fascinating.

I have a lot of people in my family who are listed as being paroled at Citronelle and at least half I'm sure weren't there at the time.

 

[dfostermem]

Yes, I was hoping Janney's book would have had a chapter on Citronelle. She at least refers to it. Her book does highlight the issues involved even if they were focused on Virginia. I think one comment she made is that you can't use the numbers surrendered as the number present. I guess many are focused on OOB and numbers associated with the battles. So her point was that there were many that were surrendered who were not present. Given the circumstances, I could see where the commanding officer would see the roll as a "get out of jail card" and want to include anybody and everybody (that he liked). This has all been extremely educational for me. So many times we see something in writing and assume it to be true without knowing the real basis behind it.

 

[dfostermem]

I'm thinking this refers to the automatic amnesty which President Johnson issued. Individuals of a certain wealth level were not included and had to apply for amnesty to the president. If you guy falls under this you can read his amnesty application online. They are pretty fascinating.

I have a lot of people in my family who are listed as being paroled at Citronelle and at least half I'm sure weren't there at the time.

Thanks. I went through the primary leadership (Cpl-Capt) and only found two amnesty applications- Thomas and Samuel. So they had some wealth. I think others may have come from wealthy families but were too young to claim it themselves. A part of me wonders if the Henderson's bank rolled some of the operations. Even the receipts I have found were submitted months after the fact. I don't know how confiscated property worked but that seems to be the driver for the Hendersons. They had to obtain the amnesty to have their property released to them. My guess is that if you were wealthy and had gold buried somewhere that the Federals didn't know about, you would not go through the process.

 

[lupaglupa]

Amnesty was crucial for almost everything an adult needed to do. It was really necessary for all aspects of business, much less voting and other citizenship rights. Most people got it approved after going through the process - unless Andrew Johnson had it in for you, as happened to a man in my family!

 

[TerryB]

Gates was captured in Marshall County. Miss., in the Spring of 1864 while watching Sherman's movements. He did prison time in Memphis and Alton, Ill.

Confederate Military History Extended Edition, Volume X, Tennessee. : Tennessee : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org

 

[Biscoitos]

I thought I would update this in case anyone is interested.

Henderson Scouts is buried in the unit Exchanged Battalion, CSA, O-Z AND Forrest's Scouts, CSA. There are 761 CMSRs associated with this unit . About 150 of these are associated with Henderson's Scout, another 200 are associated with the other Forrest Scout's companies, and the remainder are the Exchanged Battalion.

Many of the Henderson's Scouts CMSRs have some payment or muster type document associated with them which is helpful. I don't think I found any such documents with the individuals in the other Forrest Scout companies or the Exchanged Battalion.

I have gone through the CMSRs associated with Henderson's Scouts and found about 150 individuals who were listed in the surrender rolls for Henderson's Scouts. Of these, I have 9 who also have documentation of surrender at another place and time. I think there are more. I haven't gone through and looked up the 150 individually to locate CMSRs associated with other units that may have additional information. But this matches what everyone told me that the Roll of Prisoners of War at surrender is basically a list of who was thought to be in the unit at the time and it does not reflect an actual physical muster of the individual. I know in some cases the individuals were known to be elsewhere and the command was making sure that the paperwork was generated to cover for them (they were "scouts" in assigned locations who were later told to report to the nearest Provost Marshal. I have a suspicion that there might be a few cases of individuals who were not in the unit or never in the unit who were included to cover them. Hopefully with more work I'll be able to determine if that is the case.

To date I have a list of over 220 names that I have come across associated with the unit. So there are about 50 people that I'll be trying to determine why they didn't make it to the end. I know of three that were killed. Most probably transferred out or resigned. Some were probably taken prisoner and some deserters. There are also some who might have represented themselves as being in the unit who never were. So that is also a continuing effort.

Using the pay/muster rolls I found that I have about 90 of the 150 with some sort of record. Using them I have started trying to recreate a more detailed timeframe for their time in the unit. This is one area I could use help with. I have one record with no dates but it does mustered 2 months and amount paid with location it was turned in as Grenada, MS. I have rolls for the following periods: Nov-Dec 62, May-Jun 63, Jul-Aug 63, Sep-Oct 63, and Nov-Dec 63. So it is not during those periods. At first my assumption was Grenada would have been late in the war since it is deeper in Mississippi. I tried to look at what was happening then but only became confused with all the command changes in the Army of Mississippi. Thomas Henderson does talk about Van Dorn falling back to Holly Springs in Sep 1862, then falling back to Abbeville, and then falling back to Grenada. Given this, is it possible that the undated roll at Grenada is for Jan-Feb 63. In Belle Edmondson's Diary she says she met Thomas Henderson in Panola in Mar 1863 and Thomas Henderson sent her a letter in October 1862 from Abbeville. I've found references to Panola through Feb 64 and being in Oxford in Jun 1864.

Just so it's not lost in all the verbiage above: For someone familiar with operations in Mississippi, had the Confederate forces moved south in early 1863 that a "front of lines" unit would be in Grenada in Jan-Feb 1863?

If you ever get a chance to use the actual microfilm roll, it will much easier to find all the members of Henderson's scouts.
When NARA microfilmed the CMSRs of smaller units and put several units on one roll, they put all the members of each unit together.

When Fold3 digitized these multiple unit microfilm rolls they took the records of every soldier on that roll and threw all of them into a single alphabetical list. This means that to find all the soldiers in one of those units, say Henderson's scouts, a researcher has to look at the records of each and every soldier on that roll. This can be boring, tiresome and after a couple of hours, easy to overlook soldiers in "your" unit.

Again, if you can examine the actual microfilm roll, you will find all the men of Henderson's scouts together.

Why did Fold3 do this? It makes researching units very difficult. Perhaps it facilitates the general public's search for ancestors.

 

[dfostermem]

I have looked at it and found a few that were not together. So lesson learned is to review everything. I also found several where the names are not readable. So I know that there are some for which there won't be individual cards for. This microfilm is of a logbook. I would love to see whatever originals were used to generate the logbook. I tried using a professional researcher but they were not able to get anywhere with it at the Archives.

 

[dfostermem]

I want to add a new finding with regards to CMSRs. I have what I believe to be a list written by Thomas Henderson that he submitted as his first roll for pay. It was most likely submitted at end of Dec 1862 or early 1863. I believe it to be the source used to generate the undated Receipt Rolls in Fold3 that have a footnote:

"A letter attached to this roll dated Hd Qtrs Dept Miss & E La Jackson, 20 Feb 63, signed by order of Lt Gen. Pemberton, directs Maj. Banks to pay Capt. Henderson's Company from Nov 1 to Dec 31 62"

What is interesting is that the list I have has additional names on it. I don't think the cards located in Fold3 list everyone on the roll, only those who received pay. So for those who didn't want to be paid (there were some wealthy scouts) or were possibly "stationed" behind the lines, there would not be a card. I'm going to try to obtain original roll from NARA to confirm. If this is true, the absence of a pay card does not mean the individual was not in unit. If I'm successful in obtaining a copy of the original roll, I should be able to tell if it will be critical to obtain others to really build the unit roster as complete as possible,

 

[lupaglupa]

I have seen muster rolls that were a list of those present and don't seem to have been used for determining pay status. But I think either way you are right to suspect that some men served with the unit and were not on official rolls. Scouts units were much more informal.

 

[dfostermem]

For them the records are associated with payment for rations and fodder. I don't think Muster Rolls in general exist for them but in this case a list was provided authorizing a payment. So what we see is the accountant documenting a payment and receipt for an individual who was on a roll. If there wasn't a payment/receipt no "record" was created but the original list that was provided should exist and hopefully obtainable from NARA. That at least is my theory. I'll see what comes back from my request.