Counties of Pennsylvania

I've been doing some research on some Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans. In the process, there is only ONE place to find any information on these guys and that is in Samuel Bates "History of Pennsylvania Volunteers"....THE place to find information on PA regiments. I found the information that I was looking for on my soldiers. But in the process, I found that it also tells you exactly what county in Pennsylvania each company was raised in.

I started making a list of these regiments and exactly what county they were raised in so that I have a master list....just in case I should need it. One thing I found interesting was that some regiments were raised in just one county (or city) but other regiments were different. Each company might have been raised in a different county....meaning that there were upwards of ten counties represented in the regiment. Then something else I noticed, some of the companies were from 2 or 3 different counties....meaning that a regiment could have 12 or 15 counties represented.

I know that when I drive around the battlefield, be it here in Gettysburg, or any other battlefield that I have visited in my life, I often wonder where these Pennsylvanians hailed from. Was it my town? Was it my county? Was I related to any of these guys? Bates' History is probably the best place to find out that information.

Now, if I could only remember exactly where on the web I found that book. I know that one of the major Universities has it on their website....and a few other places have it, but I can never find it. Although I have found another source for it, I need to find the actual book. The information that Bates' has is unparalleled in any other source that I have found and everyone that I talk to always tells me if I have any questions...go straight to Bates.

One of these days, I will have my master list going. Its going to take quite awhile because there are well over 200 PA regiments and at least 10 companies per regiment (I've found a few that had upwards of 15 companies). With over 2000 companies to go through, this may take QUITE a while but I'm plugging away at it. You never know what you might discover while doing something of this magnitude and that's what makes it fun....the unexpected.