Burning records makes a lot of sense to me. The people here had just been involved in a rebellion against an established government. No one had any idea how vindictive the victors might be, especially since their president had just been assasinated. We should probably be more surprised at the amount of Confederate records that survived the War. I don't doubt but that there were some folks up North who wanted to round up all the Confederate officers and string them up. A record of one's great accomplishments for the Confederate war effort might not have been that great of an asset if Reconstruction had turned nasty (nastier?).