Re: Total number of Confederate soldiers from Arka

By:Bryan Howerton
Date: 12/13/2010, 7:50 pm

In Response To: Total number of Confederate soldiers from Arkansas (Mark Christ)

Mark, well the easy part is done -- the total number of records of men in my database with an Arkansas connection is 85,154. This includes Arkansans who served in Confederate and Union organizations in Arkansas and other states; men from other states who served in Arkansas Confederate and Union organizations; and Arkansans who served in other capacities not officially mustered into Confederate or United States service (home guards, militia, State troops, couriers, partisan rangers, scouts, etc., etc.) It had been quite a while since I tallied up the records in my database, and I was a little surprised at how many there were. And I'm still adding to it. For example, I'm currently entering the records of Maj. Thompson Bird's 1st Battalion Trans-Mississippi Cavalry from a microfilm transcription I had done years ago and forgotten about. One company of the battalion was recruited in southern Arkansas. I still have several staff rolls to enter as well -- engineer and signal troops, etc.
From this point, I'm going to have to figure out a workable way to break these numbers down into categories. You see, when I first started this database some 30 or more years ago, I was only interested in researching a handful of Arkansas companies, so I regretfully did not set things up with the kind of searchable fields that would help me now. I never expected the thing to grow into an 85,000+ monster.

Anyway, for now I hope the number of 85,154 (and growing) will be of some help, until I can figure out a painless way to get some numerical analysis for you.