There are LOTS of records of various types that never made it into the compiled military service records (CMSR). The biggest example I am aware and have personal experience of is the Samuel Hollingsworth Stout Papers that contain the records of the Hospital reports and registers, military reports and records, correspondence, order books, circulars, broadsides, literary productions, scrapbooks, and printed material of Stout, Confederate Medical Director of Hospitals, Army of Tennessee, relate to the records of the hospitals under Stout's command, including information about the patients, equipment and supplies, treatments, and hospital personnel, and to military and cultural affairs.

From the material that I have found on members of Cumming's Brigade and my ancestor that was in the 2nd (Ashby's) Tennessee Cavalry, this material IS NOT in the CMSRs. This is a huge amount of material and little or none of it has been touched by researchers. The material I looked at is related to the Fairground Hospitals, the LaGrange Hospitals, and the School for the Blind and Confederate Hospital in Macon. It fills in a lot of gaps in the absence of records from the Atlanta Campaign.

I agree with Alan in that we will not see the government provide any funding (ever) to do any work related to historical research relating to Confederate records. The government is broke and will be for the foreseeable future. It will take private funding if it happens at all. Remember that the only reason that the CMSRs were established anyway was the demand by the states to valid service for men who were making claims due to their Confederate service. It was not to establish the historical record like the "O.R." was intended to do.

I would like to catalog the hospital registers and reports in the Stout papers but it would take funding and at least a half dozen assistants at least a month with five day a week, six hours a day to do it. It is a project I am interested in doing once I retire within a year. I do not believe that the LDS has done anything with them. If you know someone with some loose change let me know and I will negotiate with them. ; )

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Respectfully,

Gerald D. Hodge, Jr.
M.A. Military History - Civil War Concentration
Research – Preservation
Historian: 39th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment
http://39thgavolinfrgt.homestead.com/39thHomepage.html