The Arkansas in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Desha County Battalion Arkansas Militia

The actual muster roll probably isn't avaiable. Maybe one day sites like Footnote.com will get to that but right now what you actually see is a Compliled Service Record which were developed about 30 years after the WBTS by clerks in the U.S. War Department. They basically went through all of the captured Condederated Muster Rolls and Pay documents and tried to reconstruct service records for individual soldiers. This process led to several paper organizations, that never really existed in the field during the war. Most of the muster rolls themselves have never been microfilmed. There are a few at the Arkansas History Commission, but the the Microfilm that your ansector is listed on belongs to the national archives and most of the true orgional muster rolls that the control have not been microfiled or scanned yet. There are some guys on this board who are very familiar with Footnote.com and they may know if this is ever going to be done.

As you will see on the Wikipedia site, there are scant documents for the militia organizations and even less for the home guard organizations. Like this one. The Home Guard units were susposed to be for those too old or young to be liable to be conscripted, but after 1863 the Home Guard basically took the place of the local militia units, at least in the northern half of the state.

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Desha County Battalion Arkansas Militia
Re: Desha County Battalion Arkansas Militia
Re: Desha County Battalion Arkansas Militia
Re: Desha County Battalion Arkansas Militia
Re: Desha County Battalion Arkansas Militia