1. Summary
The Union Army data has information on the recruit's hospitalizations during wartime service. Hospital information comes from the Military, Pension, and Medical Records.
2. Variable Groups
Collection: Military, Pension and Medical Records
Hospital Information: Hospital name where recruit was treated, Place of Hospital, Admittance date, Release date
Result of Treatment: Returned to duty date, Returned to duty place, Desertion date, Action taken for desertion, Discharge from service date, Reason for discharge from service, Date sent to general hospital, Place sent to general hospital, Date of furlough, Place of furlough, Death date, Cause of death, Date of other result, Other reason, Results of illness or wound
Illness/Wound: Illness or wound designation, Illlness or wound description, Illness or wound severity
Body Wound: Body wound designation, Body wound location
Location/Date of Illness and Wound: Wound received in battle designation, Geographic location where wound was received, Date wound or illness was received, Recruit's age at time of injury
Missile: Missile wound designation, Missile type
Place and date variables are qualified by a set of codes that can be found in the Quality Codes User Guide.
3. Historical Background
3.1 Original Sources
Civil War pensions were available for veterans with disabilities as well as for deceased veterans' widows, minor children, dependent major children, and parents. Under the Act of July 14, 1862, the first pension legislation specific to the Civil War, the veterans were eligible only for disabilities (wounds or chronic illnesses) received during wartime. The Act of June 27, 1890 changed that requirement and expanded eligibility to include disabilities not directly related to wartime experience. As a result, the number of men on the pension rolls swelled. Laws passed after 1907 changed the pension from disability-based to age-based.
When a veteran wanted to receive a pension, he would, under his attorney's supervision, submit an application/declaration. This form was sent to the Pension Bureau in Washington D.C., which reviewed the application and collected further testimony in support of the veteran's application. The decision is recorded on a claim form, which is input alongside the pension application/declaration. Veterans could, and often did, apply for a pension under several laws or submit additional applications because of an increase in disability or a dissatisfaction with the Pension Bureau's decision, therefore, records usually contain more than one pension application and claim.
Information about each pension application/declaration and claim is recorded separately. The pension board required that the veteran appear before a Board of Examining Surgeons to determine his rate of disability. Once the board had the veteran's application and the surgeons' determination of disability, they would issue their ruling-granting the pension or rejecting the claim.
A veteran's application for a pension, includes supporting documentation regarding:
- birth
- residences
- family information
- occupation at enlistment
- employment after discharge from the service
- summary of military and medical wartime experience
- affidavits from comrades, neighbors, family members, and physicians.
There are several types of dependent pensions. These are: widow, minor, parent, dependent major, and sibling. Dependent pensions include information on:
- dependent's name
- including maiden, married, remarried names
- dependent's relationship to the veteran
- dependent's age
- dependent's residence
- veteran's death
- date, cause, and burial
- marriage
Information regarding the veteran's economic status is found in dependent pensions. For example, in order to receive a pension, a parent had to prove that her/his deceased son contributed to the support of the family in a substantial way. In such a situation, one might find an employer's affidavit testifying that the young man worked as a carpenter before enlisting and gave every nickel he earned to his mother for food. Also, to prove their economic dependency, parents might submit a letter or letters the veteran had sent home during the war which mentioned sending his army pay home for the family.
Important material is found in a variety of documents within the pension. An example is the veteran's religious affiliation. We find this type of information in several places, including the baptismal records, marriage certificates, and burial information. Nowhere in the official Pension Bureau forms is the veteran asked to state his religion. Another example is a veteran's residence. Rarely will a document in a pension state that the veteran lived at Constantia, Oswego County, NY from July 1, 1862 to May 10, 1894, but there may be an envelope in the file that gives that address on February 28, 1865. Lacking a "residences" document, we must peruse all documents, including envelopes, for addresses and dates, then piece together the veteran's residence patterns from disparate sources with accompanying quality codes. In the residence example above, the researcher would assign a quality code "9" to the date found on the envelope indicating that on the particular date recorded the recruit lived in Constantia, NY. The "9" is the code for "at present time."
Viewing the pension as a whole document allows us to roughly reconstruct a veteran's life. We do this by recording different places of residence, occupations, levels of labor force participation, health problems, family relations, and standards of living throughout the veteran's pensionable lifetime.
The CMSR of both volunteer officers and enlisted men serving in wartime show the soldier's rank, military organization, and term of service. They also include age at enlistment, place of enlistment, and place of birth, but provide no information about family. The CMSR for each recruit is an envelope consisting of cards with information about the recruit transcribed by War Department clerks. The clerks transcribed the information on the cards from muster rolls, descriptive books, returns (statistical reports submitted to the Adjutant General Office or the War Department by organizations such as hospitals or forts), hospital registers, prison records, and other records. Cards are arranged first by war, then by state, then by military unit, and finally alphabetically by the soldier's last name.
The transcription of a CMSR started soon after the Civil War when Fred C. Ainsworth assumed the duties of Adjutant General. His aim in having the military records transcribed was twofold: first, to preserve the information found on decaying original records, and second, to eliminate the serious backlog on pension applications and rulings by making claim checking easier. Initially, the cards contained the soldier's name, rank, company, regiment, and the page and volume number from which the information was obtained. This is all copied onto separate cards. Most CMSR today also include information that was added later, including POW records, casualty information, hospital register information, records of desertions, furloughs, AWOLs, and MIAs, copies of enlistment papers, and copies of surgeons' certificates of discharge for disability.
As information from the CMSR was entered into the collection screens, it was compared with information already collected. When the CMSR seriously conflicted with the pension information, we attempted to reconcile the previously entered pension data with the more straightforward CMSR. Military information that came from the CMSR was judged to be more accurate than conflicting information from the pension, which may have been retrospective and self-reported.
Carded medical records were compiled at the same time as the CMSR under the same circumstances and for the same reasons. Medical information from various sources was transcribed onto 3 1/4" x 8" cards which are known today as carded medical records. They consist of three main types; some soldiers have all three types, while many soldiers have no CMR at all. The first type of CMR is a hospital return which is a record of a patient's stay on given days. These records were taken mostly from regimental hospital records (a regimental hospital was a hospital set up by a regiment that moved with it and treated its members). For example, the card would be headed NY 5 RH and contain the phrase "Jan. 1, 1863 Piles." The second type of CMR is a casualty card stating that the recruit was wounded in action. This card contains little information other than the name of soldier, the word "wounded," the name of the battle in which the recruit was wounded, and the date of engagement.
Finally, the most complete and useful card filed as a CMR is a hospital card. Hospital cards were printed by major hospitals and contain information filled in by clerks about individual soldiers. One of these cards might have a soldier's name, rank, service, and diagnosis, as well as the name and location of the hospital where the recruit was being treated, his date of admission, and the result of the treatment.
The boxes of carded medical records are arranged by regiment and then in roughly alphabetical order so that all men whose last name begin with the same letter are found in the same section. The CMR has the most identification problems, including misspelled or partial names, lack of company designation, and discrepancy in military rank.
3.2 Variables
In collecting the military data, multiple variables relating to a unique hospitalization were input. Each instance of these variables must be linked together by numerical suffixes.
4. User Guide Table
| Variable Label | Variable Name | Data-Set | Source |
| hospnm01 - hospnm20 | Hospital name where recruit was treated | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card Death Form Inventory of Effects CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| hosppl01 - hosppl20 | Place of hospital where recruit was treated | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card Death Form Inventory of Effects CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| admtdt01 - admtdt20 | Admittance date | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| admtqc01 - admtqc20 | Quality code for admittance date | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| relsdt01 - relsdt20 | Release date | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| rtnddt01 - rtnddt20 | Returned to duty date | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| rtndqc01 - rtndqc20 | Quality code for returned to duty date | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| rtndpl01 - rtndpl20 | Returned to duty place | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| dsrtdt01 - dsrtdt20 | Desertion date | MIL | CMSR: Descriptive List of Deserters CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| dsrtqc01 - dsrtqc20 | Quality code for desertion date | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| dsrtac01 - dsrtac20 | Action taken for desertion | MIL | CMSR: Descriptive List of Deserters CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| dschdt01 - dschdt20 | Discharge from service date | MIL | PEN: Pension Application Pension Application Widow Pension Application Minor CMSR: Hospital Bed Card Company Muster-Out Card Individual Muster-Out Roll Certificate of Disability for Discharge CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| dschqc01 - dschqc20 | Quality code for discharge from service date | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| dschrn01 - dschrn20 | Reason for discharge from service | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card Company Muster-Out Card Individual Muster-Out Roll Certificate of Disability for Discharge CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| stghdt01 -stghdt20 | Date sent to general hospital | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| stghqc01 - stghac20 | Quality code for date sent to general hospital | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| stghpl01 - stghpl20 | Place sent to general hospital | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card Death Form Inventory of Effects CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| frlodt01 - frlodt20 | Date of furlough | MIL | CMSR:Hospital Bed Card Muster Roll CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| frloqc01 - frloqc20 | Quality code for date of furlough | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| frlopl01 - frlopl20 | Place of furlough | MIL | CMSR:Hospital Bed Card Muster Roll CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| dthdt01 - dthdt20 | Death date | MIL | PEN: Death Certificate Pension Drop Card Pension Application Widow Pension Application Minor Pension Application Parent CMR: Carded Medical Record CMSR: Company Descriptive Book Death Form Inventory of Effects Prisoner of War Record |
| dthqc01 - dthqc20 | Quality code for death date | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| dthcs01 - dthcs20 | Cause of death | MIL | PEN: Death Certificate Affidavit CMR: Carded Medical Record CMSR: Company Descriptive Book Death Form Inventory of Effects Prisoner of War Record |
| othrdt01 - othrdt20 | Date of other result | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| othrqc01 - othrqc20 | Quality code for date of other result | MIL | Military Quality Codes |
| othrrn01 - othrrn20 | Other reason | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card CMR: Carded Medical Record |
| result01 - result20 | Results of illness or wound | MIL | CMSR: Hospital Bed Card Casualty Sheet CMR: Carded Medical Record |