West Virginia Union Muster Rolls

[Diplogeek]

Howdy all. I recently started digging back into Ancestry.com after a hiatus, and I'm trying to get a little more information on James Frank Barr, an ancestor of mine who appears to have served with one of three possible West Virginia units during the war:

- 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry, Co. D
- 6th West Virginia Infantry, Co. B
- 1st West Virginia Light Artillery, Battery F

Looking at the NPS soldiers and sailors site, it ooks like the 6th West Virginia Infantry and the 1st West Virginia Light Artillery may be one and the same, because there's a notation on the 6th's page saying, "See also 1st West Virginia Light Artillery." So that narrows it down a bit, but I'd really like to figure out whether Mr. Barr served with the 11th West Virginia or the 6th (particularly since the 11th was at Cedar Creek, and I'm going to be at the 150th reenactment in a few weeks- it would be pretty cool to figure this out by then, if it turns out he was actually there).

James was born either on 7 May 1827 or 27 May 1828 in Harrison Co., Virginia (looking at the documentation, the 1828 date appears more accurate). He survived the war and later became the sheriff of Calhoun County. Courtesy of a distant relative on Ancestry who already did a lot of the legwork on this, there's actually quite a bit of information on him, but I'd love to tie up this loose end. The problem is that I'm in Germany and can't just drive over to West Virginia to check out muster rolls or anything. Does anyone know how to access that information from overseas (or has anyone here got access to the rolls to narrow things down)? And, more to the point, would the muster roll have something like his birthday listed that might eliminate one or more of these units?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

[Deleted member 8452]

All this info came off Fold 3,

The James Barr in the 1st West Virginia Light Artillery died of disease in the Autumn of 1863, so I don't think this is him, as you said above he survived. Was listed being about 38 years old, a bit older than the supposed birthdate you put up.

The James Barr listed in the 6th West Virginia Infantry has only a single sheet, and there is not much info on him.

The James Barr in the 11th West Virginia is list being about 32 years old, which goes along with your estimated birth date, but this Barr was killed in Action near Lynchburg.

 

[Diplogeek]

Thanks! That was really helpful. So maybe this guy was in the 6th, since clearly the 11th wouldn't make sense, as he presumably didn't get shot, rise from the dead and then go on to muster out. It's kind of funny that I've actually found it easier to get information on the ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War (courtesy of a number of applications for the Sons of the American Revolution) than on the Civil War vet.

 

[18thVirginia]

The Fold3 pages contain a lot of pension file records about James Barr, who died of disease in 1863. But there are also descriptions of minor children who would have been born after the ACW.

 

[Diplogeek]

The plot thickens. I just tracked down James' thirteen(!) brothers and sisters (it would seem there's not much to do in West Virginia besides plant stuff, and make babies). His younger brother Alfred, born in 1839, has a pension request, filed by his widow in 1915, presumably after his death. The unit listed is Company C, 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. It would make sense if he and his brother (and maybe one of the other brothers in between- I haven't checked them yet) headed off to war together, but in that case, how could the older brother be listed as killed in action at Lynchburg when he was clearly alive off in West Virginia well after the war?

I wonder if he decided he'd had enough and took off after Lynchburg and was presumed to be dead. Though you'd think that would have come up when he ran to be elected sheriff later on.

Incidentally, how did you guys get access to these rolls? I'd love to troll through them myself, if they're available online or for download or something. I'm a complete neophyte at this stuff.

 

[Deleted member 8452]

The plot thickens. I just tracked down James' thirteen(!) brothers and sisters (it would seem there's not much to do in West Virginia besides plant stuff, and make babies). His younger brother Alfred, born in 1839, has a pension request, filed by his widow in 1915, presumably after his death. The unit listed is Company C, 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry. It would make sense if he and his brother (and maybe one of the other brothers in between- I haven't checked them yet) headed off to war together, but in that case, how could the older brother be listed as killed in action at Lynchburg when he was clearly alive off in West Virginia well after the war?

I wonder if he decided he'd had enough and took off after Lynchburg and was presumed to be dead. Though you'd think that would have come up when he ran to be elected sheriff later on.

Incidentally, how did you guys get access to these rolls? I'd love to troll through them myself, if they're available online or for download or something. I'm a complete neophyte at this stuff.

Try to look for misspellings, its very possible that they name was spelled differently.

 

[18thVirginia]

The files are on Fold3.com, Diplogeek. There seem to be several different James Barrs.

In my gr gr-grandfather's family on the eastern West Virginia border, most of the family joined the same Virginia regiments--all of them with the same last name. But there is a distant cousin by the same name as my gr, gr grandfather.

There may have been cousins with the name of James Barr.

One of the pension files lists a Hugh Barr as the guardian of the minor children of James Barr. I think Hugh was in Ohio. You might find it helpful to look for the guardianship orders in the court records. Clerks of court wrote everything down, at length.

 

[Diplogeek]

So when I started looking into Alfred, there were a couple of different sources that listed him as having been left for dead at Winchester in 1863. He was picked up and nursed back to health by local women and ultimately shipped off to Libby Prison, where he was eventually exchanged and sent to a hospital in Annapolis where he finished out the war. Obviously in his case, his real fate was discovered when he was sent off to prison, but it does make me wonder if something similar could have happened to James, although that would make for a hell of a coincidence.