Owens HIST 390

Today in class we discussed the important and useful aspects to a system called Zotero. Zotero is a system that you can download and add to certain Internet browsers. After the application is installed you can use it to collect resources such as sources for research papers and projects. I have used the program before for one other class but it has been a while since that class and my exposure to the program. Therefore, Zotero has already been added to my computer on Firefox. I plan to use Zotero to collect the multiple sources I will collect for my Civil War soldier project. Zotero will be a great resource for this specific project because there are numerous amounts of sources that will need to be collected. Simply given the number of sources and information to keep track of, Zotero will be good for this project.

Also, in class, we discussed secondary sources and the characteristics and advantages that they can provide. Secondary sources in comparison to primary sources are inherently different. In my opinion and preference, I would prefer to mostly use primary sources due to there first hand accounts and validity. Still, these secondary sources will add valuable information to the process. In my use of Zotero I have collected a few for my soldier, Amos Phillips, and his unit the 44^th Infantry from New York. In class, we discussed the importance of looking for patterns and topics that connect. For example, if a unit stays with an unhealthy amount of other soldier in close spaces then one should intuitively look for subsequent medical records explaining transferred diseases. I know that for my soldier, Amos Phillips, a lot of his records are medical inspections and even his muster roll confirms that he was taken out of battle due to illness. These are just a few things that I continue to look forward to discovering.

Today, in class we further discussed how to find research on our Civil War soldier and interpret it. The subjects varied from discussing copyright laws to identifying primary sources. Both of which, I had little to no experience with beforehand so the information was quite helpful. For instance, I never knew that any information printed before 1923 cannot and does not have an up to date or valid copyright to it. This piece of information is quite beneficial to our research of our Civil War soldiers because it precedes the 1923 cutoff date.

Later in class we learned a very cool trick to better read and collect the data on our transcriptions for our soldier. Using Google it is possible, to a degree, to extract the words of a document and place them in word document like format. Since we have several transcriptions with tiny writing this practice will be quite helpful during the research process. I can now have each transcription be added to a list on my Google Drive that will contain every piece of information that is cable of this process. Now, this process is not perfect and has flaws. The translation is not always perfectly transferred correctly. For instance, on a pension form Google made the word “pension” to “pensicn.” However, I think it is acceptable and only right to expect some level of error to be made in this process by Google. All in all though, it will be very helpful in creating a profile for my soldier.

Lastly, near the end of class we met in groups that were divided by those of us who had soldiers from the same unit. So I met with three other students who also had a soldier from the 44^th Infantry from New York. Then, as a group, we researched for all of the websites and information on our unit that we could and compiled a list on a shared Google Drive. We learned some interesting things like the battles that were fought by our Unit. Also, the most interesting thing I found was that our unit actually has a memorial at one site. Things are progressing well and I can’t wait to learn more about Amos Phillips and the 44^th Infantry from New York.

We got our soldiers! Today in class we received the names of the soldiers that we will be researching for the duration of the semester. I find this assignment very different in a good and interesting way. I think it will be fascinating to collect and compile the history of a man who served and fought during the Civil War. The reason being, we are starting our research with just a name and a file of records that have been scanned. The final product is something I think I will always be proud of.

My soldier’s name is Amos Phillips. I hope to research, find, and understand as much of his past as I can. There were several copies of scanned information and sources that were in my file on Amos Phillips. I believe that during class I looked through easily over a hundred documents. The frustration in this research is honestly just trying to read and understand the handwriting. I have never been good at reading cursive but needless to say this project will help improve that weakness.

All of the records I received on Amos Phillips range from very important enlisting dates to hand written letters. In addition, there are medical records and muster calls throughout the file. I found it interesting in fact that several of the medical records were not fully completed or filled out. When I was trying to collect basic information like hair color, eye color, and physical traits of that nature those sections of the medical forms were left blank. This was very frustrating because now I will probably never be able to know the basic appearance of my soldier. Regardless, I hope to compile an accurate depiction of his time of service. I hope that I can do justice to the name of man who contributed to such an influential part of United States history.