CIVIL WAR VETERAN 
Theodore P. Stearns

T. P. Stearns’ foot stone records his birth year and his death year. It also tells us that he served with the 7th Vermont Volunteer Infantry, in Company E [the base line of the “E” has eroded and, after 114 years, it looks like an “F” on the foot stone].

photo: QHGS

Finding genealogical information about him—his actual dates of birth and death—posed some problems which will be explained below.

1. To establish the fact that T. P. Stearns served in the Union Army, and to find out his given name, we consulted the FamilySearch^® website’s United States Civil War Soldiers Index, 1861-1865 which cites NARA microfilm publication M557, roll 13. 

This source provided the following information: 

“Theodore P. Stearns served in the 7th Regiment, Vermont Infantry, in Company E. He entered the Union Army as a Private and left the service as a Private. His records were originally filed under the name ‘Theodore P. Stearnes’.”

2. To find out if “T. P.” was a Civil War pensioner, we looked for him in the National Archives and Records Administration. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. 

This source provided the following information:

“Theodore P. Stearns filed for a Civil War pension on 14 September 1883 as an Invalid, and his widow Mary filed for a widow’s pension on 28 January 1902.

3. We could not look for his date of death in the early California Death Index database because it covers only the years 1905 to 1939, and Theodore died in 1901. Therefore, we decided to see if Mary’s widow’s pension might provide more information. We looked in the United States Civil War and Later Pension Index, 1861-1917, from the Organization Index to Pension Files of Veterans Who Served Between 1861 and 1900 database at Fold3.com which cites NARA microfilm publication T289.

This source provided the following information:  

On the bottom line of the index card was a notation, “Died Dec. 21, 1901, at Long Beach, Cal.,” which furnished Theodore’s date of death. 

4. Even though we knew Theodore’s date of death, we could not look in the FamilySearch^® database California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994, for his death certificate to find more information about him, because Long Beach records begin in 1905. We had to find his date of birth another way. Entering his name on the FamilySearch^® “Search Historical Records” home page produced a real find: Theodore’s G.A.R. Personal War Sketch. The source, at Vermont, Enrolled Militia Records, 1861-1867, index and images, FamilySearch Cambridge, Lamoille County > 1861-1865, Personal War Sketches - GAR > image 98 of 123; county clerk offices, Vermont, described his experiences from the day he entered the war on 18 December 1861 at Cambridge, Vermont, to the day he was mustered out in Brownsville, Texas, in 1865.  

This document provided the following information: 

“Personal War Sketch of Comrade Theodore P. Stearns who was born the twenty-second day of August, A.D. 1830 in Cambridge, County of Lamoille, State of Vermont.”    

The four sources cited above create only the barest outline of Theodore P. Stearns’ life. To find out more about him—to make his story “come alive”—we can use U.S. Census records to trace his journey from Vermont to Iowa, and thence to Long Beach, California; and, we can examine marriage records to find out when and where he married Mary. To learn about the 7th Regiment Vermont Volunteer Cavalry, we can go to The Civil War Archive at http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unvttr2.htm#7thinf. We can also search Ancestry.com to see if there is information about him in public family trees.

photo: QHGS

RESEARCH TIP: The Carnegie Library website at http://www.carnegiecarnegie.org/espy-post/manuscript-collection/ describes G.A.R. Personal War Sketch Questionnaires as “a GAR post record that surfaced just before the turn of the century. As veterans gathered in their posts they delivered formally written narratives. The veteran either completed a pre-printed questionnaire or sat with the Post Historian and dictated his personal accounting of his participation in the war. Once completed these narratives were written in a ledger size leather-bound book. Many named friends in their company, provide details of wounds received, and the horrors of imprisonment.” If your ancestor served in the Civil War and belonged to the G.A.R., be sure to look for one of these records of service.