United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938

The National Home (called Asylum up to 1873) for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was founded in 1865 to look after volunteer soldiers who had been injured or disabled during the American Civil War. Twelve homes were opened across the United States, beginning with the first home in Togus, Maine in 1866.[1]

Home	Location	Date Established
Eastern Branch	Togus, Maine	1866
Central Branch	Dayton, Ohio	1867
Northwestern Branch	Wood, Wisconsin	1867
Southern Branch	Hampton, Virginia	1870
Western Branch	Leavenworth, Kansas	1885
Pacific Branch	Sawtelle, California	1888
Marion Branch	Marion, Indiana	1888
Roseburg Branch	Roseburg, Oregon	1894
Danville Branch	Danville, Illinois	1898
Mountain Branch	Johnson City, Tennessee	1903
Battle Mountain Sanitarium	Hot Springs, South Dakota	1907
Tuskegee Home	Tuskegee, Alabama	1923
Bath Branch	Bath, New York	1929
St. Petersburg Home	St. Petersburg, Florida	1930

Table 1: Chronological year of opening of National Homes for Disables Volunteer Soldiers

Both Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org have the database United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938. It contains almost 400,000 records and the page for each veteran in the registers is divided into four parts: military history, domestic history, home history, and general remarks.  Just over 28,100 of the entries are for men who were born in Ireland. Of those, the Irish county or place of birth is recorded for almost 500 men.

County	No. of records
Dublin	124
Cork (inc. 2 Queenstown)	60
Galway	43
Limerick	32
Tipperary (incl. 1 Templemore)	28
Donegal (incl. Donnegal)	18
Derry/Londonderry	18
Mayo (incl. May & 1 Charlestown)	18
Tyrone	14
Sligo	14
Kilkenny	13
Roscommon (incl. Rosecommon)	12
Waterford	11
Kerry (incl. 1 Killarney)	11
Kildare	8
Cavan (incl. Caven)	6
Antrim	6
Clare	6
Armagh	5
Down	4
Offaly (incl. Kings)	4
Westmeath	4
Monaghan (incl. Monoghan)	3
Leitrim	3
Longford	3
Wexford	3
Wicklow	3
Fermanagh	2
Carlow	2
Laois (incl. Queens)	2
Meath (incl. 1 Navan)	2
Louth	1
Castle Borough, Ireland	1
Clashmore, Ireland	1
Rockville, Ireland	1
Drummond, Ireland	1
Barr, Ireland	1
Kilduff, Ireland	1
Kenmore, Ireland	1
Bangor, Ireland	1
County Carney, Ireland	1
Grey Abbey, Ireland	1
Ardmore, Ireland	1
Clifton, Ireland	1
TOTAL	495

Table 2: No. of records that give Irish county/place of birth

The questions asked on the pro-forma registers changed slightly over the years but a core of questions were asked throughout:[2] (i) military history - time and place of each enlistment, rank, company and regiment, time and place of discharge, cause of discharge, kind and degree of disability, when and where contracted; (ii) domestic history - where born (state or country and town or county), age, height, complexion, color of eyes, color of hair, read and write, religion, occupation, residence subsequent to discharge, marital status/social condition, name and address of nearest relative; (iii) home history - rate of pension, date of admission re-admission and transfer, condition of re-admission, date and discharge of transfer, cause of discharge, date of death, cause of death (iv) general remarks - papers, effects, location of grave and remarks.

Not every question is answered for each resident, especially in the records of those who were admitted to the first few national homes.  However, most questions were usually answered and this is a tremendous amount of detail about one individual, especially in the 19th century. It is also unusual to see a government document ask about the religion of a person.

Entry for Austin Connelly, born about 1810 Dublin, Ireland

To share one example, Austin Connelly entered the Central Branch home in Dayton, Ohio on 13 July 1875. He was born in Dublin, Ireland about 1810. In the United States, he worked as a shoemaker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He first enlisted in the 109th Pennsylvania volunteers on 22 February 1862 at Philadelphia. He was discharged in 1863 before re-enlisting in the 116th Pennsylvania volunteers in February 1864. A relative was named as John Finnell of Camden, New Jersey. Austin Connelly died on 4 May 1891.[3]

Access this database at Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org.

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[1] National Parks Service. History of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Date Unknown.  http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/veterans_affairs/History.html: accessed 28 November 2015.

[2] Questions with strikethrough were asked in later years

[3] "United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VZ39-D1Y : accessed 28 November 2015), Austin Connelly, 1875; citing p. 5403, Dayton, Ohio, United States, NARA microfilm publication M1749 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 32; FHL microfilm 1,547,614.

Catholic Cemetery, Norfolk, Virginia

The land for St Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia was purchased in 1854. Since that date, it has served as the resting place for Catholics from the Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach areas of the state. This is an area of the United States that did not see a lot of immigration of Catholic from Ireland. As a result, the few Catholic parishes and cemeteries that they helped to create are important resources for genealogical research.

The About section of the cemeteries' website has a link to a database of interments that is hosted on the US Gen Web Archive. The database is considerable, with burials from the 1850s to the 21st century included. What makes this such a useful resource is that the information provided for each person was drawn from a number of different sources including original cemetery records, parish records, local death records, headstone inscriptions, obituaries and other records.

Names, dates of burial, dates of death, estimated years of birth, actual dates of birth and a link to an image of the headstone are provided for those in the database. Significantly, place of origin in Ireland is also included for some of the deceased.

For example, John M. O' Connor died on 16 October 1908. He was born about 1866 in Galway. Even though he is buried in Norfolk, Virginia, he died in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] Patrick McCarrick was born in Ballina, County Mayo on 16 June 1821 and died 3 February 1888. He was a captain in the Confederate Navy.[2]

Note: It is important to remember that the information in this database is a secondary source and was derived from primary source documentation. It is possible that mistakes occurred in the creation of this database so the primary source should be obtained wherever possible in your research.

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[1] Alesia Raper, Tim Bonney, Robert B. Hitchings, Bill Inge, Colin Boklage, Marian Rudd, Emilie Hauser, Connie Kean & Candice Cheshire. St Mary's Cemetery Interment Database - O. Date Unknown. http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/norfolkcity/cemeteries/stmarys/sm-o.html : 10 October 2015

[2] Alesia Raper, Tim Bonney, Robert B. Hitchings, Bill Inge, Colin Boklage, Marian Rudd, Emilie Hauser, Connie Kean & Candice Cheshire. St Mary's Cemetery Interment Database - McC - McK. Date Unknown. http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/norfolkcity/cemeteries/stmarys/sm-mcc-mck.html : 10 October 2015

The 69th Head Off To War

This picture shows the 69^th Regiment, New York State Militia boarding the James Adger in 1861. It was originally published in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization.

The caption reads: “The 69^th (Irish) regiment embarking in the “James Adger” for the war, April 23, 1861.” Someone has written “May 11 1861” and “Brooklyn” above the caption. They are being cheered by a sizable crowd and one solider is holding a flag with what looks possibly like the emblem of a harp on it.

If you have an interest in the participation of the Irish in the Civil War then you should consult the excellent and aptly named website, Irish in the American Civil War.

Source: New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Note: Thanks to Harry Smeltzer of the Bull Running's blog for pointing out that this is a picture of  the 69^th Regiment, New York State Militia and not the 69th Infantry Regiment (New York).

Irishamericancivilwar.com

Irishamericancivilwar.com is a website maintained by Damien Shields, a conflict archaeologist based in Ireland. Many books have been written about the role of the Irish in the U.S. Civil War, but this website takes a holistic approach and has a number of aims: (1) to tell the stories of Irish men and women caught up in the Civil War; (2) provide information on different people, units and places; (4) provide resources for those interested in the Irish experience; (4) make some small contribution to raising awareness in Ireland of the Irish experience of the American Civil War.

There are a number of excellent articles on the website such as The Ages and Origins of the Union's Irish Soldiers and Information Wanted: The Irish Missing and Disappeared of the Civil War. If his research sources contain the information, then Damien's articles refer to the place of origin for the men and women that he writes about. There is also an exhaustive list of resources to aid any researcher. Overall, this a very good website and a worthy stop for anyone who has Irish ancestors that fought in the Civil War.