Typically, someone in the unit, usually a close friend, messmate, or one of the officers, would write the next of kin. Newspapers, particulalrly early in the war, printed casualty lists, but they might not appear for weeks. Sometimes, a soldier going home on wound furlough or furlough of indulgence would bring the sad news by word of mouth to the family. There was no organized casualty notification system such as exists today. Forf families cut off from the front by the fall of areas into Federal control, or in the Trans-Mississippi, after the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the wait could be agonizing.