Hey George,

I am deeply involved in collecting all the names of one Mississippi company, the Westville Guards, later of Co B, 16th Miss. Vol. Inf. I have their rolls for militia, Volunteers State Service, and Confederate Service (not complete). I also have rolls from 1866 when Simpson County did a Confederate Census roll by regiment. I will branch out researching to surrounding counties because not all members lived in Simpson County. The other part of all of this is collecting photographs of each member, pre- post and military service images and so far I have gotten a good collection, discovering unknown photos in the bargain. On top of that, if I cannot find a photo of the soldier, I substitute with their headstones, and that really has been a discovery trip. I am getting a very good historical record of this company.

All of this work has forced me to dive into uncharted waters. To complete the list I have to add all the African Americans information as well. To do this, I use the MDAH online site for Confederate African American Pensioners in concert with the online Confederate Pension Applications for Veterans and Widows. Plus, the newspaper records, each year they published the new pension application awardees. I have discovered unknown facts, never published. For example, Private Franklin L. Riley, famous for his incomplete journal, served in the Confederate Army with his African American servant, Charles Riley. I had to go to Copiah County records to find this because Charles moved there. F. L. Riley was from Lawrence County. The Westville Guards are from Simpson County.

The Servant Pension applications give only one regiment served and also give the name of the master. This name has to be crossed referenced with other companies because, I am finding, nearly 30% changed companies and regiments. Some men served up to three different regiments! This means the servant did to. Not only did they serve in different regiments, many, and I mean many, changed from infantry to cavalry because they no longer could march due to injuries.

If you have not used this, I highly recommend it.

http://opac2.mdah.state.ms.us/queries/blackconfed.php?referer=http://zed.mdah.state.ms.us

I use the county search, which gives a list of pensioners. Here it gives, dates, whether they were wounded in combat (many were), units if possible, time served. These are only the Series 1201
applications for servants. I have found African Americans on the Soldiers applications too, but those are harder to research.