Climb aboard and help us uncover the hidden histories of the American Civil War's U.S. Sailors!
Learn moreIn Phase 1 of Civil War Bluejackets, we asked Citizen Scientists to transcribe different elements of the Civil War musters, a process which has both provided valuable information and allowed us to train our computer to "read" the 19th century handwriting. Now in Phase 2, we are asking you to check the computer's transcriptions, let us know if you think they are correct, and if not to let us know what you think the correct transcription should be.
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Message from the researcher
"The Civil War Bluejackets Project will be a terrific resource for researchers who study the experience of the common sailor in the Civil War because it will enable them to see the larger patterns of their lives and understand their experiences in the navy." - Professor Robert Gudmestad, Colorado State University
Civil War BluejacketsAbout Civil War Bluejackets
The Civil War Bluejackets Project is a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded initiative to explore the story of common U.S. sailors during the American Civil War. Bringing together historians, information scientists and Zooniverse citizen scientists, it aims to reveal new insights into the c. 118,000 men who donned the "Bluejacket" between 1861 and 1865.
With your help, the project will create a database containing the details of every sailor recorded on surviving Civil War muster rolls from U.S. vessels. Taken on every ship every few months during the war, these musters recorded each man's vital statistics- including their name, age, birthplace, physical description and former employment.
The transcribed information will be cross-linked with other Civil War Naval records to create a major resource for scholars, students, genealogists and the wider public. In turn this will facilitate a new history of common sailors during the war, concentrating specifically on themes such as race, ethnicity and class.
The muster rolls are preserved at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and were scanned by the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean & Ecosystem Studies (CICOES), who were behind the famous Zooniverse "Old Weather" Project.
The Civil War Bluejackets team is made up of historians and information scientists from Northumbria University and the University of Sheffield, and project partners CICOES and the United States Naval Academy Museum.