Have you ever had a conversation with a friend that was totally unrelated to your genealogical research that caused you to go search your data for facts related to that discussion?

That happened to me when a friend described a trip she and her mother and sisters took to the Atlanta area. During the trip they visited the Kennesaw mountain battlefield. During their tour, they were told that the fighting stopped to allow both sides to bury the dead on the battlefield due to the stench. This battle fact was recorded in the first hand account written by Confederate Private Sam Watkins.

On the third morning the Yankees raised a white flag, asked an armistice to bury their dead, not for any respect either army had for the dead, but to get rid of the sickening stench.  I get sick now when I happen to think about it.  Long and deep trenches were dug, and hooks made from bayonets crooked for the purpose, and all the dead were dragged and thrown pell mell into these trenches.  Nothing was allowed to be taken off the dead, and finely dressed officers, with gold watch chains dangling over their vests, were thrown into the ditches.  During the whole day both armies were hard at work, burying the Federal dead….

Watkins, Sam. The Dead Angel. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/dead-angle

Discussing this battle, the comment was made that so many had died while fighting the civil war. Knowing that none of my second great-grandfathers who served were killed during their service. I was curious as to whether I have anyone in my file who died during military service in the civil war, I decided to investigate.

To begin my search, I created a marked group of those people who have a military fact with a date between 1860 and 1866.

That identified 76 individuals in my tree with military facts dated between 1860 and 1866. To narrow down the list to those who died during the civil war, I added a line to my search for a death date before 1866.

That left me with nine people who died while serving in the military during the civil war. Since I already had a custom report showing military information and date of death, I used that report.

This produced a report showing the military information for each of the nine along with their death date.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the cause of death for all nine of these civil war deaths. Thus, further research is needed to learn how all of these men died.

Now that I know how to pull this information from RootsMagic, I can create similar reports for other wars.