Missouri Military Records

Portal:United States Military Records>MIssouri

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

Soldiers’ Records: War of 1812 to World War I <http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers/> is available on the website of the Missouri State Archives. This database provides information from the service cards of more than 576,00 Missouri soldiers who served in conflicts from the War of 1812 to World War I.

St. Louis Public Library owns the NARA microfilm set, “Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914.”

Forts

Civil War Forts: Cape Girardeau, Curtis, Hovey, Davidson, Dette, Hamer, Insley,New Madrid, Thompson, Wyman

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 ([Kansas City, Missouri: Houts, 1966]; Family History Library

book 977.8 M2ha).

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

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 on Family History Library film 983163. 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.

 

Civil War (1861-1865)

Missouri soldiers served in both the Union and the Confederate armies. Indexes to the service records are available at the Family History Library. The federal service records are available at the National Archives. St. Louis Public Library owns a copy of the NARA indexes and compiled military service records for Missouri Union and Confederate soldiers.  SLPL also owns NARA's Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served With the United States Colored Troops, and provides lists of Missouri men who served in Illinois regiments and Missouri men who served in Kansas regiments on its website.

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 6082513.  Portions are also available [p://home.usmo.com/~momollus/MOVOLFED.HTM#HG. online]. Civil War Pensions - A free Internet index to pension applications of veterans who served in the US Army between 1861-1917 is available on FamilySearch Record Search. Each card gives the soldier’s name, application and certificate numbers, state of enlistment, and might include rank and death information. Other wars, of that time period, may be included.

The Adjutant General's office has state records of volunteers and state militia (Family History Library films 1021080-98), 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 films 338186-93. A published index to this census is available.

Pension records of Confederate veterans, both approved and disapproved, and soldier's home admission applications are alphabetized and available at the Family History Library (beginning with Family History Library film 1021101) and at the Missouri Adjutant General's office. The Family History Library has an index to the Union army pensions, but the actual files are only available at the National Archives.

African-American Service Records

St. Louis County Library has placed on the internet  An Index to Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863–1865 (NARA Microfilm Publication M1894 – 6 rolls)This index has 5,500+ entries and can be browsed either by recruits’ names or by slave owners’ names. The index provides the following information:
• Recruit’s last name
• Recruit’s first name
• Age
• Birth State
• County of Birth
• Slave Owner
• County of Residence
• State of Residence
• Roll
• Frame

The U.S. Congress allowed slave owners whose slaves were serving in the Military Service to request compensation for that slave.  The claim was based on the slave's military service.  Therefore The Index to Slave Compensation Claims found in the Compiled Service Records of U.S. Colored Troops, also provides information on the soldier.  These records were placed in the soldier's military file.

Provost Marshal Papers
The Missouri State Archives includes in their collection a group of papers called the Provost Marshal Papers. These are records from the Union Army War Department. Many of the records pertain to Confederate citizens and sympathizers. Some of them specifically deal with the confiscation and destruction of property in Missouri by Confederate forces in 1864. These records span 1861-1866 and an index to the Missouri portion of the records is available online.

Copies of the records can be obtained by contacting the Missouri State Archives. St. Louis Public Library owns the portion of the NARA microfilm set, Selected Records of the War Department Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861-1865, that includes prisoners at Alton and Camp Douglas in Illinois, and Myrtle and Gratiot Street Prisons in St. Louis. 

The Provost Marshal papers are also available on FHL films 1449483-1449494, 1527305-1527404, and 1534697-1534778.

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 films 1021099-100).  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.

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 1683089—.)
• 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 film 1498803.)

Additional Records

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

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers/abstract.asp

http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/library.htm

http://previous.slpl.org/libsrc/lisindex.htm

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/

http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/revolutionmf.php

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/military/revolutionary/

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers/

http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/English/exhibits/1812/index.html

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/provost/

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

http://www.genealogybranches.com/worldwaronedraftcards.html

References

Missouri Research Outline: Missouri.

NOTE: All of the information from the original research outline has been imported into this Wiki site and is being updated as time permits.

National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Family History Library (FHL); now called, FamilySearch Library (FSL)