United States. War Records Office

By an act of Congress approved June 23, 1874, $15,000 was appropriated "to enable the Secretary of War to begin the publication of the official records of the war of the rebellion, both of the Union and Confederate armies," and the work was assigned to clerks detailed from the Offices of the Secretary of War and The Adjutant General. In December 1877, Capt. (later Lt. Col.) Robert N. Scott was placed in charge, and he served in this capacity until his death in 1887. His office was at first referred to as the "Publication Office, War Records," but later came to be known as the "War Records Office."

Reports of Union commanders that were not originally forwarded to the War Department were obtained through correspondence. The Confederate archives in the possession of the Federal government consisted at first mainly of the records that had been captured or surrendered at the close of the war. On July 1, 1878, Gen. Marcus J. Wright, a former Confederate officer, was appointed agent for the collection of Confederate records, and the original collection in the custody of the War Department was supplemented by the papers that he was able to obtain from other former Confederates. Some important additions were made by purchase but it was the policy of the War Department, whenever possible, to obtain material by gift or loan rather than by purchase.

In 1889 Congress passed an act providing that the work of publication should be carried on, under the direction of the Secretary of War, by a Board of Publication composed of three members, one of them an Army officer and the other two civilian experts. Maj. George B. Davis, later Judge Advocate of the Army, was appointed the officer member and served as President of the Board until 1895. Under the provisions of an act of Congress, the Board of Publication was dissolved on December 1, 1898, and by direction of the Secretary of War the continuance of the work devolved upon Brig. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, Chief of the Record and Pension Office. On July 1, 1899, by act of Congress approved February 24, 1899, the War Records Office was merged with the Record and Pension Office.

The first volume of THE WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES was published in 1880, and the last volume, the "General Index," was published in 1901. The series contains 130 volumes and an ATLAS TO ACCOMPANY THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES, 1861-1865 (1891-95).

The records of the War Records Office consist of two distinct groups: those created by the Office and those collected for publication and retained by the Office. Of the latter, some of the records are original documents withdrawn from the War Department files, some are copies of documents in the War Department files, and others are papers not originally forwarded to the War Department but sent in to the War Records Office at a later date. Some unpublished materials are scattered in these records, but they are routine in character. Apparently all papers of any importance were published.

It was evidently intended that all original records should be refiled in their former locations, for most of the originals in these records bear a notation "to be refiled." Many papers were so refiled, and many documents that were published in the OFFICIAL RECORDS are therefore not included in these files. The work of refiling, however, was never completed. There does not appear to have been any uniform policy as to cross-referencing when a document was not refiled. The records of The Adjutant General's Office usually contain a cross-reference sheet bearing the notation "withdrawn for publication" or "War Records Office" where a paper has not been refiled, but this is not true of other records, such as those of military commands. In the latter records, some papers were taken from the files and retained in the War Records Office without any notation, either in the registers or in the documents' original place in the files; other papers used by the War Records Office are stamped "printed" or "copied" or both, but this does not necessarily mean that they were published, as some have been found bearing either stamp that do not appear to have been published and some unstamped documents were published.

The Confederate records used for publication were not retained by the War Records Office. They are now in the War Department Collection of Confederate Records (Record Group 109) in the National Archives and are filed by series, chapter, and page number, in the order of publication. If a published document is in a bound volume there is a cross-reference to the volume and page number. Also filed as a separate group with these Confederate records are the records of the Archives Office of The Adjutant General's Office, which contain much of Gen. Marcus J. Wright's correspondence as agent for the collection of Confederate records.

From the description of Records of the War Records Office (a subgroup), 1875-1899. (National Archives Library). WorldCat record id: 122457899