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From: PHHGENE <>
Subject: [RHEA-L] Re: TIP#138 - Southern Claims Comm. Please do deleate if you live in the U.S.
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 17:30:22 EDT

TIP #138 - SOUTHERN CLAIMS COMMISSION & COMMISION RELATIVE TO CAPTURED AND
ABANDONED PROPERTY. this is from my friend Sandi Gorin- south central
Kentucky List. but it does not just apply to Kentucky

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.

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• [RHEA-L] Re: TIP#138 - Southern Claims Comm. Please do deleate if you live in the U.S. by PHHGENE <>