George Tyler Moore Center For The Study of The Civil War - History

History

The idea to create a "Center for the Study of the Civil War" at Shepherd University came as a result of 1990 discussions between officials from the University and Antietam National Battlefield. The role of the Center was envisioned as a "keeper of the standards" for the National Park Service's (NPS) "Civil War Soldiers System" (CWSS) database that was to be developed. The CWSS consists of several fields of basic data taken from index cards that are keyed to a soldier's service records kept at the National Archives.

In August 1991 a Civil War Soldiers Database Planning Conference was held. Participants included Park Service personnel, Shepherd University staff and faculty, and noted Civil War scholars. The conference attendees concluded that Shepherd could enhance the NPS project by overseeing the academic integrity of database enhancements and assuring that proper data standards are maintained. It also was suggested that Shepherd could initiate its efforts by demonstrating how a database subset (to the NPS database), such as West Virginia's Union soldiers, might be enhanced by including data gleaned from census records, pension files, and other sources.

A second conference was held at Shepherd in March 1993. A Scholars' Advisory Board had been named, and all board members were in attendance. Other conference attendees included NPS personnel, Shepherd staff and faculty, local and state educators, and interested citizens. It was generally agreed that the NPS database would not be of much use to scholarly historians; Shepherd should include information from the soldiers' "Compiled Service Records" and "Pension Files" in the National Archives. It was debated whether data from the 1860 and later censuses should be included; the consensus was priority should be placed on the service records and pension files. Finally, most of the conference attendees agreed that the educational function of the center would be as important as the database itself. A scholarly question-and-answer period followed, which was broadcast on C-SPAN.