Tracing your Civil War ancestors

Cannonba!! - ... If you know the name(s) of your Civil War ancestor(s), you might want to start your research by running a query on the National Park Service's excellent Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System, which can help you identify possible matches from the rosters of most military units. For example, query the name "Aaron Barnhill," and my great-uncle will appear (he's the only soldier by that name in the entire Union army). Likely, the name you enter will come back with multiple entries. If the search comes back void, try a variant spelling (record keeping was not exact). Continued