Notes:

PLEASE ensure you follow the naming convention listed below. If you find after you created a project and added profiles/related projects/content to it that the name is incorrect, please see the discussion Project Naming to have the name corrected.
As we identify a way to control the sheer size of this project, we will update this main project. For now, please relate projects as listed below. If you find that a project is getting unmanageable, please ask for assistance via the My Project Needs Help! discussion and we will offer some things you can try.
This main project is not a holder for profiles...please tie your family member to a state, unit, or army project instead.
Please follow this main project so when news/discussions are added that impact the entire project you as a contributor are aware.
Thank you in advance for your input, your time and effort, and your willingness to help create a great Geni project!

.

NEW

- We recently created the Lost Soldiers project as a holding place for profiles of men and women known to have fought but it is not yet clear for what side. 6/22/2012

On the sesquicentennial of the United States of America's Civil War, we are starting a massive project. The goal is to create an individual project for each Battle, Army, Unit, Brigade, Department and Division that fought in the War Between the States.

An estimated 3 million men fought in the Civil War, often against family members, classmates, neighbors and friends. Over 620,000 of those brave men lost their lives in battle, from injuries sustained in battle, and from disease.

We would like this master project, and all sub-projects, to be used to tie the every day man (over 65% of the soldiers were farmers) and woman (an unknown number of women enlisted and fought throughout the war, on both sides) to a piece of American history. While each man's individual involvement may have been small, as a whole they helped shape the nation in to what it is today. The US would be a much different place if they had not taken up the battle flag and fought for their cause.

Research

This is a link to a list of all battles, sorted chronologically. Most include a link to a Wikipedia page devoted exclusively to that battle. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_the_American_Civil_War]

List of battles: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war-battles.htm

Due to two separate governments, there isn't one main source of information regarding troops. Confederate state records are available here: [http://www.carolyar.com/cwconfed.htm].

A link to all Union records is not readily available. However, the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas have all published what are called "the Brown Books"...the official Union Army Muster Out records. The states of New York, Delaware and Maryland did not consider these rolls important enough to publish. When accessible, these records contain a wealth of information: http://www.michiganinthewar.org/rosters.htm.

Format

When creating a Project for an individual Battle, please use the following as a guide: "The Battle of Gettysburg, PA July 1-3, 1863, US Civil War".

Projects should be created for individual Units, Brigades, etc. Please use the following as a guideline: "2nd Michigan Cavalry (USA), US Civil War".

If you would like to contribute to this page, please contact the Project Manager or one of the Project Collaborators. Click here for instructions about using Wiki markup language.

Related Projects

In an effort to make perusing and research using these projects more manageable, please use the following formats for each of your projects. With over 3 million soldiers engaging in over 10,000 engagements, the amount of data we are attempting to tie together is staggering. For that reason, please follow these guidelines for using the Related Projects option.

To tie individual projects together, select the Edit button under Related Projects and choose the related project (this should relate the two projects in both directions, but please double check).

Individual Profiles

Please add your family members to either the "US Civil War Notables" or the "Other People in the American Civil War" projects so all brave American's who fought in the War Between the States are tied to one of those two projects.

The Scope of the Civil War

A project for each year of the war to track not only battles but other important events.
1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865

The Armies

As you create projects for units, please relate them to the State Project (see the list below) and to the appropriate command unit (see the command structure for each side here).

The Navies

The Union Navy (USN) The Confederate Navy

The Battles

Please relate each Battle project to the year (above) and state it was fought in (below).

The States

'Confederate States:
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indian Territory, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia

Torn States (sent troops to both sides): Arizona Territory (CSA), Arizona Territory (USA), Arkansas (CSA), Arkansas (USA), Kentucky (CSA), Kentucky (USA), Maryland (CSA), Maryland (USA), Missouri (CSA), Missouri (USA),

Union States: California, Colorado Territory, Connecticut, Dakota Territory, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska Territory, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico Territory, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah Territory, Vermont, Washington Territory, West Virginia, Wisconsin