Records About Civil War Battle Sites

Of 10,500 armed conflicts in the military history of the Civil War, the file contains information on 384 conflicts that the Commission identified as the principal battles. Each record identifies the following information: state and county or counties of the historic site, the type of battle or event that occurred there, the theater of operations and the campaign to which the engagement relates, the dates of the battle or event, the current ownership of the site, and the assessment of three subject area experts of the military significance, physical integrity, historic preservation status, and interpretive potential of the site or event, and whether it should be a priority for protection of cultural property.

The records of the Counties file identify the county location(s) of each battlefield and are linked to the Events file by a common battlefield reference number. The records of the Campaign file include a code for each of 116 campaigns and provide its name, dates, and a ranking of the military importance of the campaign's battle events. The records of the Campaign file are linked by the campaign code to the records in the Events file.

The Theater file records identify five designated Civil War theaters of operation and are linked to the Events file by a theater code. This data comprises government records extracted from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). See the ARC catalog entry for this series for more information on this data and how to order it.