Hello - Does anyone know of any on-line records of the City Point Hospital? I understand the records at the Nat'l. Archives are in shreds, but wonder if there could be another source for the information they contain..... thanks, Sally

Sally, I use Copernic Plus as my search engine as it combines so many individual search engines online when trying to find information. I tried finding any records online for City Point Hospital and I was unable to come up with anything. I'm hoping someone might have better luck than I did. Edward

No, Sally, there isn't. These records were never microfilmed by the National Archives. Unfortunately if they are in shreds, they are in shreds. Unless some diligent soul is willing to sort thru the shreds and see if any individual records can be salvaged. It's sad but 140 years or so can take a toll on paper. In my work at the National Archives, I'm amazed at the results of the passage of 140 or so years. Many elements at work: High acid paper; deferring qualities of ink--some as bright and bold as the day it was written; other so faded as to be illegible. Brown smudges in the creases where the paper was folded for all those years. Some paper as tough and firm as a manila folder--almost like linen paper; while others are so fragile they crumble just from being picked up. Alice J. Gayley Pennsylvania in the Civil War http://www.pa-roots.com/~pacw/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dutton Family" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 8:21 AM Subject: [CIVIL-WAR] City Point Hospital Records > Hello - Does anyone know of any on-line records of the City Point Hospital? I understand the records at the Nat'l. Archives are in shreds, but wonder if there could be another source for the information they contain..... thanks, Sally > > > ==== CIVIL-WAR Mailing List ==== > To search our list archives since 1996, go to > http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl > and enter Civil-War in the list name > >

Alice, You are so very right about the condition of so many valuable papers that are almost 150 years old. Even some of the "newer ones" are even brittle and hard to read. I guess the best example I know of are my GG Grandfather's memoirs which are now protected in the Special Manuscript Department at Joyner Library, East Carolina University, in Greenville, NC. Before his death in 1890, my GG Grandfather who was of English and German heritage wrote his life's memoirs. I have a copy of them that the library got for me so I could read them and also transcribe the portion about his service in the Confederate army. Besides the condition of the paper and ink, it's also sometimes pretty hard to read handwriting from back then due to the old way people used to write. I was lucky and pretty much got everything transcribed with the exception of where a page was torn or where the writing was way too light to be able to read. It's a shame more of these old original documents aren't bei! ng protected to keep them from deteriorating anymore than they already have over the years. If anyone is interested, there's a link online from Joyner Library giving a fair amount of information that's found in my GG Grandfather's memoirs. He was William H. von Eberstein. http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/0148/ Edward