TIP #138 - SOUTHERN CLAIMS COMMISSION & COMMISION RELATIVE TO CAPTURED AND ABANDONED PROPERTY. I had another post ready to go out today, but found this one too good to delay. This is courtesy of Bill Utterback who runs the Jackson-Purchase list and is an extremely knowledgeable researcher and historian. Thank you Bill, and I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! "Today, I want to visit with you about the Southern Claims Commission and the Commission Relative to captured & Abandoned Property. Those of you who have been researching your families for awhile may be aware of these two resources, but I would not be surprised if many of you have not heard before of these commissions. During the Civil War, it was common for Union soldiers to ride through the states of the Confederacy and take what they needed from the residents, by force if necessary, and usually in disregard for whether the people from whom they were taking these goods were loyal to the Union or not. Even in cases in which the citizen of a Confederate state had been given a letter of protection by a Union officer, which was supposed to serve to alert any other officers commanding troops which might be about to commandeer items from that citizen that he was to be left alone, there was no guarantee that the protection letter would be respected. As a result, when the War was concluded, those citizens of the Confederate states who were loyal to the Union felt that they should be compensated for their losses. In the 1870's, the federal government responded by creating the Southern Claims Commission for those states who were actually a part of the Confederacy. The Commission was charged with looking at the claims of these citizens and making restitution where justified for the damages incurred. There were some 20,000 claims which were ultimately filed with the Southern Claims Commission. The petitioner had to prove that he was loyal to the Union, and had to be able to put some reasonable value on the property which was looted or stolen. This caused the Commission to send out agents to interview neighbors, relatives, former slaves, and others who knew the petitioner to try to determine if his claim was justified. It was not uncommon for these claims to be drawn out over many years, sometimes over several generations of a family. When that occurred, the next generations had to prove their relationships to the original petitioner, and you can imagine the wealth of genealogical information that might be present in such a claim file. Some of these files have over a thousand pages in them -just for one claim. The depositions and other materials are intact and can be fascinating to read. If you have an ancestor or a family that lived in any of the Confederate states, but were loyal to the Union, and may have suffered losses at the hands of the Union forces, there is a chance they may have filed a claim with the Southern Claims Commission. Dr. Gary B. Mills has indexed the claims of the SCC by county and state and his book, "The Southern Claims Commission" is available in most good libraries as well as for sale from the Genealogical Publishing Company. But what about the people in Kentucky, since Kentucky was a border state and not a part of the Confederacy? In border states especially, citizens also suffered losses at the hands of Union forces, who, again, took what they needed, by force when necessary. These people, also, felt that they were entitled to reimbursement for their losses if they were loyal to the Union. As a result, the Commission Relative to Captured & Abandoned Property was set up with the same basic charge as the Southern Claims Commission. This entity is of prime interest to us, because there were instances of Union abuses in the JP in KY. An example might be drawn from my own family. In 1864, a troop of Union soldiers who were coming through Calloway County, fired some shots through an upstairs window of my gg-gf Samuel Meshach Skaggs' home, and they proceeded to burn one of his barns down. He later sought - and received - some restitution from the government for his loss, by way of the Commission. In his case, the file contains only six pages, but he was fortunate enough to actually get a written statement from the Union officer commanding the troops in which the officer said that they burned down a barn "by accident". These files can be gold mines of data, especially if the claim process was drawn out over more than one generation. I recommend this avenue of research for your consideration. These records are available via microfilm or by photocopy. An inquiry should be addressed to: Record Group 56 Legislative, Judicial & Fiscal Branch National Archives & Records Service 8th & Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20408 The search request should show either the Southern Claims Commission file or the Commission Relative to Captured & Abandoned Property file, the name of the possible claimant, the state, the county, and, if you have access to Dr. Mills book and your request concerns the SCC, the file number of the claimant from his index. As I said above, there are 20,000 claims in the SCC files, and over a half million pages in the CRCAP holdings. You may or may not find a claim for your ancestor, but it is worth the effort to check into it." © Copyright 7 April 1998, Sandra K. Gorin and Bill Utterback, All Rights Reserved. >>}}}0>> <<0{{{<< Sandi Gorin - 205 Clements Ave., Glasgow, KY 42141-3409 502-651-9114 - sgorin@glasgow-ky.com GORIN GEN PUB: http://members.tripod.com/~GorinS/index.html KYRESEARCH ON THE WEB: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~usgwqury/Ky/Tips/index.cgi PAST KYBIOS FROM MY E-MAIL LIST: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~usgwqury/Ky/Bios/index.cgi