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Civil War

5/5/21 – A Confederate Descriptive Book

Descriptive Books are listings of the physical descriptions of all the men in a company. They are defined as “The following books are allowed to each company: one descriptive book, one clothing book, one order book, one morning report book, each one quire, sixteen inches by ten. One page of the descriptive book will be appropriated to the list of officers; two to the non-commissioned officers; two to the register of men transferred; four to the register of men discharged; two to the register of deaths; four to register of deserters – the rest to the company description list.”
A friend has an original Union descriptive book in his family collection. But until recently, I had not seen a Confederate Descriptive book. A few weeks ago, someone sent me some scans of an original Confederate Descriptive book and asked me if I could create one.
Examining the scans, I noticed very few differences in the pages, with exception being the letters U.S. were left out. Below are some scans of the original and pictures of my reproduction.