Hi Dennis – There’s no need for an apology. I’m like most people, too, as far as learning new things all of the time. I was just trying to share with you and anyone else reading these posts the different types of documents I’ve found to be available at the National Archives.

I forgot exactly how and when I found out about the original records being there. In the past, in order to view any of these types of original documents, there had to be something illegible on the microfilmed version of the document, which also had to be verified by an archivist. After this a form had to be filled out by the archivist in order to have the file the documents were in pulled for viewing in room 203. The beauty of this was that the entire file was pulled for viewing, not just the illegible document, so the entire contents of the file could be copied or photographed. Maybe now they can just be requested to be seen without actually having anything illegible about them. The particular CMSR I viewed in December did have an illegible document or two in it though.

The pages in the Cobb’s Legion muster rolls were physically too large to be placed on the copier to make copies of and when I saw them was before the age of digital cameras (as we know them today) and I don’t believe any type of camera was allowed in room 203 then either. I don’t believe the Legion cavalry and infantry muster rolls were together like the CMSRs are. If I remember correctly, I may have viewed the muster rolls for only the company of the Legion cavalry I was interested in viewing at the time. I had to speak to someone higher up the chain of command in order to be able to see these muster rolls, but I don’t remember what their position was.

You keep up the great work, too! Hopefully we will run into each other at the Archives someday, but like you stated – not over scheduling times for the camera stations (ha-ha)!