From 1889 through 1922, the US War Department published a set of 128 volumes titled The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies plus a set of 30 volumes titled Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Known simply as "OR-Army" and "OR-Navy," these two sets constitute the most comprehensive reference available on military operations during the Civil War. The OR contains the messages, notes and reports penned by the officers in the field to their fellow officers, subordinates and superiors. First-hand, eyewitness accounts of all campaigns and battles, strategies and results, the OR has long served family historians with fascinating insider details of their ancestors' military service during the Civil War.

But even if you didn't have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War, the OR can help paint a picture of America in the 1860s. These same messages, notes and reports include information about the residents and topography of thousands of neighborhoods; they mention numerous civilians by name; they describe farms, plantations and backcountry terrain, manufactories, villages, towns, railroad lines, roads and highways. In short, an enormous amount of local history is hidden within the OR. This treasure is now easier than ever to mine, as the OR-Army has been put online at www.ehistory.com/uscw/library/or, and the OR-Navy has been put online at cdl.library.cornell.edu, both with a search engine! Simply key in the name of a person or place and—voila!—up comes a listing of every page in the entire set where that name appears. Click on a link in the list, and you're there where your ancestors were.

Issaquena County, to take just one example, is situated in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, today a flat expanse of cotton and soybean fields and catfish farms stretching from horizon to horizon. But that's not what the delta looked like in the 1850s and 1860s when my ancestor George F. Ring resided on Deer Creek near Rolling Fork. Back then the delta was a network of rivers, creeks, bayous and cypress swamps, whose land was covered with dense forests rising out of a tangle of undergrowth. Only the shores of major waterways were cleared and planted; the backcountry was impenetrable. I found the most vivid evocation of the wilderness George knew in the OR.

Keying in the term Rolling Fork, Mississippi, led me to Steele's Bayou Expedition. Although I didn't encounter George himself, I did come across people and places this pioneer knew well. The OR allowed me to envision the rugged countryside and identify the plantations of George's neighbors. This was the land he would turn into his economic advantage after the war, and these were the planters with whom he would conduct business to advance his mercantile career.

A couple of excerpts from the OR hint at the wealth of Issaquena County information hidden in the reports of the Steele's Bayou Expedition. From Union officers:

Deer Creek is a narrow, sluggish stream, full of willow bushes and overhanging trees, through which nothing but keel boats have usually plied. Its banks are usually from 1 to 3 feet above water, and the road keeps upon the river bank a natural levee.

All the country along Steele's Bayou and Black Bayou is under water, but along Deer Creek are many fine plantations, well stocked with mules, cattle, sheep, hogs, corn, and cotton

From Confederate officers:

Colonel Ferguson had previously engaged the enemy and driven back his advance guard from Dr. Chaney's house, immediately in the fork of Rolling Fork and Deer Creek

Considered along with other sources, the OR suggests persuasively that George F. Ring spent the war years hidden deep in the swamps of Issaquena County raising cotton, corn, cattle, hogs and chickens for the Confederate commissary! You never know what you might discover about your Civil War-era ancestors until you read the OR. You may even get lucky and find that an ancestor is singled out, like Dr. Chaney, by name. The OR also sometimes names individual soldiers and sailors, detailing the services they performed. Whether any particular ancestor is mentioned, however, the OR still provides historical context for all of your ancestors who were there then.

John Philip Colletta is a faculty member of the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University in Birmingham, AL., and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy in Utah.