Sandy --

Sounds as if someone at the National Archives had cooked up a scheme to pay off the national debt. :-0

If a regiment was involved in anything significant, reports and itineraries will be in the Official Records. Recently published supplements to the Official Records include reports of company commnaders listing monthly activities of each one -- but nothing close to 6,000 pages!!

As a general rule, tghese are much closer to sixty pages.

Bear in mind that the first companies of this regiment to report for active duty did so in January 1864. That leaves us with about twenty months until this regiment disbanded. Most of the time companies were assigned to guard duty along the railways. How much could be reported about that from day to day? The regiment was stationed at Eastport MS from February 7 to May 11, 1865. Since no military activities are recorded for the area during that period, it strains my imagination as to what might be reported in such volumnious form.

Unless those 6,000 pages would represent episodes of conviscation of private property, destruction of homes, abuse of civilians who happened to live in the neighborhood of their camps, I cannot imagine what activities would be documented at the National Archives.

Did they give you any ideas as to what to expect? Before forking over that kind of cash, I'd certainly want to have details in hand.