ROBERT B. BARKER

CIVIL WAR RESEARCH

Microfilmed by the C.M. McClung Historical Collection

They have kindly given permission to post this to our web page.

Abstracts by:  Joy Locke

The reason for doing this project was to give you a possible source of Civil War pensions of your ancestors, short of sending to the National Archives to find out if he might have a pension.  

I ask that you read the information concerning this collection.  When you finish reading the information go to the bottom of the page to get to the files, which are in alphabetical order.  I've divided them for easier loading.  You will have to slide the bottom bar on your browser to see the complete entry.  When you have a file open you may want to "find" or "search" (under "edit" on Internet Explorer) for surnames of wives or find entries for the survivors or casualties of the Sultana by typing "Sultana".   You'll need to do this on each file you open. 

"The Robert B. Barker collection of Civil War research consists of fourteen volumes and one section of loose material. Mr. Barker, (deceased 1980), a lawyer and an avid Civil War historian, placed the material in the C.M. McClung Historical Collection (Knoxville, Tenn.) in 1972. His special interests were Civil War soldiers from the Western Carolina and East Tenn. area and related frauds and bushwhackings. McClung had the material microfilmed in 1985." [Taken from the introduction to the microfilm.]

The following libraries have the microfilm that I know of: McClung Collection, Madisonville Public Library, Maryville Library, Cleveland Historical Library in Cleveland, Tn, and maybe the library in Murphy NC. Just contact the libraries in this area to find out if they have the film, or you can contact: Joyce for fees for making copies.

I have done a spreadsheet with some of the material he gathered from mostly Union pensions and other war pensions such as War of 1812, Rev. War, Indian Wars, and the Mexican War. Many of the soldiers might have served in several companies and many of them served in both Confederate and Union forces. There was so much more than what I have been able to relate to you. There are many that have the children listed along with birth dates. So many have some great information that I couldn’t list. Even if you can access the microfilm, which I do recommend you do, the actual pension would probably be worth ordering for some of you. In two cases of my own that he had transcribed pensions, he mixed up the two wives both named Elizabeth and also left out a wife on another when the pension clearly had that information. On the other hand Bob visited many gravesites and put in many census records and correlations that you won’t normally find in a pension.  I also may have misread or mistyped something as some of the print was hard to read.

I give you a word of caution on some of the marriage dates. Sometimes I looked up a date in sources I have. Sometimes the date might be off by 2 or 3 days, but many marriage records did not have returns on them to show actual marriage date. Many may have just forgotten the actual date. Where you can, you need to confirm the dates given.

The pensions that were a part of the Boyd frauds were difficult to do. In many cases I typed in wives’ names and dates only to find out that Boyd made it up. This too makes research difficult. It apparently got to where  if Boyd’s name showed up on a pension it was highly suspect.

The collection is huge and there’s so much more to it than what I’ve given you on the spreadsheet. If you want to know more about the Kirkland bushwhackers and the Boyd frauds, the microfilm is where to find it. There’s also a volume on Capt. Goldman Bryson’s Co.; Southern Claims Commission; James Taylor-Olmsted Lands; the McFalls case; and Prisoners of War, Cherokee Co. NC [Joy Locke]

Here are some of the Pension Number abbreviations:

SF- Survivor's file
SA- Survivors Application
SC- Survivors certificate
W - Widow
WF- Widows file
WA- Widows application
WC- Widows certificate
SO- Service original
C- certificate
DO- Dependants original
I- Invalid
IA- Invalids application
IC- Invalids certificate
IF- Invalids file
MA- Minors application
MC- Minors certificate
MF- Minors file
BL or BLW- Bound land warrant
PC -  ?
XC- ?

The "Old War" numbers you sometimes find are claims based on death or disability incurred in service between end of Revolutionary War 1783 and the outbreak of Civil War in 1861. These were Regular army, navy or marine corp. in War of 1812, Mexican War, Indian Wars and in some cases the Civil War.

Some of the abbreviations I used for counties or towns are:

An. Co. Tn - Anderson Co. Tn
Bl.or Blo. Co. Tn - Blount Co. Tn
Br. Co. Tn - Bradley Co. Tn
Bun. Co. NC - Buncombe Co. NC
Bur. Co. NC - Burke Co. NC
Ch. or Cher. Co. NC- Cherokee Co. NC
Gil. Co. Ga - Gilmer Co. Ga
Gr. Co. NC - Graham Co. NC
Haw. Co. Tn - Hawkins Co. Tn
Hayw. Co. NC - Haywood Co. NC
Kn. Co. Tn - Knox Co. Tn
Lo. Co. Tn - Loudon Co. Tn
Lum. Co. Ga - Lumpkin Co. Ga
Mac. Co. NC - Macon Co. NC
McM. Co. Tn - McMinn Co. Tn
Mon. Co. Tn - Monroe Co. Tn
Mur. NC - Murphy NC
Pen. Dist. SC - Pendleton Dist. SC
Po. Co. Tn - Polk Co. Tn
Ro. Co. Tn - Roane Co. Tn
Sev. Co. Tn - Sevier Co. Tn
Sweet. Tn - Sweetwater Tn
Un. Co. Ga - Union Co. Ga

To return to this page, please use your back-arrow on your browser.

NAMES

Aaron - Bryant

Bryson - Crane

Crisp - Forkner

Forrester - Hardin

Hare - Isbill

Jackson - McClellan

McClure - Parton

Patterson - Rush

Russell - Truelove

Tucker - Young

My thanks to Don Cook for helping to format these files!