behind AotW

Frederick Phisterer's New York in the War of the Rebellion (3rd Edition, 6 volumes, Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1909-12) is probably the single best resource on New York military units and officers in the Civil War. It is two other things also, which are exciting to the likes of me: it’s beautifully displayed online by the Internet Archives (IA) folks, and is in the Public Domain – free of any copyright restrictions.

New York in the War comes neatly packaged in 5 volumes and an index. IA offers 4 versions of each volume:

• Read Online – a flip book display of all the page images. Very high image quality, and relatively fast loads (at least with my broadband connection). You can move about in the book here as you would in its paper cousin: click on the right page to turn ahead, the left to go back. You can also jump to a page by number or by link(s) in a set of search results.
• PDF – a view of the page images in an Adobe Acrobat file. This downloads to your desktop, and can take a while at 50MB or more per volume. The interface is the usual one for a pdf – and depends on your reader/browser combination.
• Full text – a somewhat jumbled simple text file of the entire volume displayed in your browser window, all in one pile. Searchable using your browser’s “Find” tool, but can be hard to use. Looks like an uncorrected product of OCR after scanning. It is probably the version used to support text searching in the flip-book display. If he text is mangled here, it doesn’t search well there. If you want to copy native text for use elsewhere, you’ll do that from this text view.
• DjVu – a cool viewer technology from Lizardtech which runs as an applet in your browser. Gorgeous high-resolution images of each page and a pretty viewer, but at the cost of large file sizes. This can mean very slow loading and paging. I haven’t used this much, so I expect there’s more here than meets the eye.

Plus a file transfer (ftp) repository for all versions and files, so you can grab a copy of any of their files for each volume.

My favorite version for reading online has been the two-page-at-a-time “flip book” view, but I thought it might be easier to navigate across the volumes if it had a hyperlinked table of contents (hyperTOC!). So I wrote a rudimentary one …

The Bombardment of Fort Sumter (by Alexander Oscar Levy, from Phisterer, Vol. 1, opposite pg. 316)

>> Volume 1 (pages 1 – 896) [ flip book (926 pgs) | pdf (96 MB) | full text (3 MB) | DjVu (31 MB) | ftp ]

– tinted photograph of the author and title page
– 1909 announcement of his career and death

Part I – In the State

– events: 1861 | 1862 | 1863 | 1864 | 1865
– men called for, drafts, etc
– statistics, demographics on the troops
– where obtained (by county, other states)
– listing of NY Organizations for US Service
– NY War costs
– records and relics (flags with history): cavalry | artillery/engineers | infantry

Part II – In the Field

– maps of battle locations: southeast states | Virginia
– battles, engagements, &etc: 1861 | 1862 | 1863 | 1864 | 1865
– war losses

Part III – Roll of Honor

– brevets: state | federal
– medals of honor: Army | Navy
– officer’s deaths in service (by unit): militia/cavalry | artillery | sharpshooters/engineers/infantry | US Vols | Navy

Part IV – Registers and Sketches of Organizations

Entries for each unit generally include organizing information, chronological service summary, casualty table, list of officers by company, and a brief piece on each officer’s service. Enlisted men usually shown only where they later obtained an officer’s commission, honorary rank by brevet, or medal of honor.

– Militia and National Guard: general and staff officers | artillery/cavalry | 2nd -11th regt’s | 12 – 20 | 21 – 39 | 47 – 64 | 65 – 79 | 84 – 102

– Volunteer organizations of the State (brigades)
– Volunteer organizations of the State (regiments, battalions, batteries, and companies):
– – cavalry: 1st – 5th | 6 – 8 (+ first page of 9th cavalry)

USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (by Alexander Oscar Levy, from Phisterer, Vol. 2, opposite title page)

>> Volume 2 – (pages 897 – 1808) [ flip book (942 pgs) | pdf (87MB) | full text (3.3MB) | DjVu (30MB) | ftp ]

– illustration of Battle of Antietam (opposite pg. 1040)
– illustration Cheering the General (opposite pg. 1264)

Part IV – Registers and Sketches of Organizations, cont.

– Volunteer organizations of the State (regiments, battalions, batteries, and companies), continued:
– – cavalry: 9th – 11th | 12 – 14 |15 – 17 | 18 – 20 | 21 – 23 | 24 – 26
– – mounted rifles: 1st | 2nd
– – dragoons: 1st
– – veteran cavalry: 1st | 2nd | Ind. Co.
– – provisional cavalry: 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th

– – artillery reg’ts: 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11 – 13 | 14th | 15th | 16th
– – marine artillery regt: 1st
– – artillery battalions: 1st – 7th | rocket/Willard’s
– – independent batteries, lt. artillery: 1st – 3rd | 4 – 6 | 7 – 9 | 10 – 12 | 13 – 15 | 16 – 18 | 19 – 22 | 23 – 26 | 27 – 30 | 31 – 36

– – engineer reg’ts: 1st – 2nd | 15th | 50th

– – sharpshooter battalion: 1st

– – infantry: 1st – 5th | 6 – 7

Pontoons across the Rapahannock, Fredericksburg (by Alexander Oscar Levy, from Phisterer, Vol. 3, opposite title page)

>> Volume 3 (pages 1809 – 2704 ) [ flip book (922 pgs) | pdf (82MB) | full text (3.3MB) | DjVu (27MB) | ftp ]

– illustration of Porter’s flotilla arriving below Vicksburg (opposite pg. 1872)
– illustration of the Battle of Gettysburg (opposite pg. 2088)

Part IV – Registers and Sketches of Organizations, cont.

– Volunteer organizations of the State (regiments, battalions, batteries, and companies), continued:
– – infantry: 7th – 10th | 11 – 15 | 16 – 20 | 21 – 25 | 26 – 30 | 31 – 35 | 36 – 40 | 41 – 45 | 46 – 50 | 51 – 55 | 56 – 60 | 61 – 65 | 66 – 69 (part)

Storming Missionary Ridge (by Alexander Oscar Levy, from Phisterer, Vol. 4, opposite title page)

>> Volume 4 (pages 2705 – 3616 ) [ flip book (940 pgs) | pdf (93MB) | full text (3.3MB) | DjVu (31MB) | ftp ]

– illustration of the Battle of Atlanta (opposite pg. 2896)

Part IV – Registers and Sketches of Organizations, cont.

– Volunteer organizations of the State (regiments, battalions, batteries, and companies), continued:
– – infantry: 69th (part) – 70th | 71 – 75 | 76 – 80 | 81 – 85 | 86 – 90 | 91 – 95 | 96 – 100 | 101 – 105 | 106 – 110 | 111 – 115 | 116 – 120 | 121 – 125 | 126 – 130 | 131 – 135 | 136 – 140 (part)

General Sheridan at Five Forks (by Alexander Oscar Levy, from Phisterer, Vol. 5, opposite title page)

>> Volume 5 (pages 3617 – 4499 ) [ flip book (916 pgs) | pdf (91MB) | full text (3.1MB) | DjVu (27MB) | ftp ]

– illustration of the surrender of General Lee (opposite pg. 3704)

Part IV – Registers and Sketches of Organizations, cont.

– Volunteer organizations of the State (regiments, battalions, batteries, and companies), continued:
– – infantry: 140th (part) | 141st – 145th | 146 – 150 | 151 – 155 | 156 – 160 | 161 – 165 | 166 – 170 | 171 – 175 | 176 – 180 | 181 – 185 | 186 – 190 | 191 – 194 | Ind Corps Lt Inf | Ind Companies | not accepted

– Officers of US Colored Troops from NY
– – Units: 1st – 5th Cavalry | 1st – 14th Artillery | 1st – 49th Infantry | 51 – 100 Infantry | 101 – 128 Infantry | 54 Mass/29 Conn Infantry
– – Officers’ service (by name): A-D | E-H | I-L | M-P | Q-T | U-Z

– Officers of the Veteran Reserve Corps from NY
– – units listed
– – Officers’ service (by name): A-H | J-P | Q-Z

– Officers of US Veteran Volunteers from NY
– – 1st – 9th Regiments
– – Officers’ service (by name)

– General and Staff Officers (USV) from NY
– – listed by specialty
– – Officers’ service (by name): A-H | I-P | Q-Z

– Officers of US Volunteer organizations from NY
– – listed by unit
– – Officers’ service (by name)

– Volunteer officers of the US Navy from NY
– – listed by rank
– – Officers’ service (by name): A-H | I-P | Q-Z

– Officers from NY who served in the Regular Army of the US
– – listed by department and unit
– – Officers’ service (by name): A-H | I-P | R-Z

– Officers of the Regular Army of the US (not from NY) in NY Vol units (by name)

– Officers from NY who served in the Regular Navy of the US
– – listed by rank
– – Officers’ service (by name): A-H | I-P | Q-Z

– Officers of the US Marine Corps (by name)

Appendices

– statistical exhibit of US Army deaths in the War

– comparative statement of men furnished and US Army deaths and statement of men called-for by the President and furnished by the States

The Battle of Antietam (by Alexander Oscar Levy, from Phisterer, Vol. 2, opposite page 1040)

>> Volume 6 – Indices [ flip book (388 pgs) | pdf (54MB) | full text (1.1MB) | DjVu (11MB) | ftp ]

Part I – Indices

– Index of Synonyms

– Index of Battles

– Index of Subjects

– Index of Names: A-B | C-D | E-F | G-H | I-J | K-L | M-N | O-P | Q-R | S-T | U-V | W-Z