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.

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.