Sept. 30, 2009 - Entry 1: Choosing my officers' reports

Sept. 30, 2009

My group has chosen the Battle of Petersburg for our History Engine episode assignment. I did not have a chance to go to the library until today and due to a limited amount of time, I did not find the volume with all the officers’ names and their accompanying ranks. Therefore, I spent an incredible amount of time just trying to randomly research for records from officers of lower rank. I also wanted to find records pertaining to different time frames than that of my fellow group members; because I was the last to choose, I tried to pick a period within the 9-month Petersburg siege that did not correspond with the others. Already chosen by others in my group were the earliest days of the battle, the final days, and the events at the Battle of the Crater, among others. After mostly searching the digital version of the Official Records, as well as looking at the printed copies, I found reports from a Union chaplain and a South Carolina infantryman, and thought they would both bring a very different perspective than what had already been selected.

“The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies”; Series 1, Volume 42 (Part 1) –

Report of Chaplain Lorenzo Barber, Second U.S. Sharpshooters, of operations December 7-12, 1864 (pages 355-357)

Report of Col. James R. Hagood, First South Carolina Infantry, of operations August 14-December 10, 1864 (pages 937-939)