Category: Ship Focus
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Uncovering the Lives Behind a USS Wabash Guncrew
Last week the Civil War Bluejackets team at Northumbria were joined by aspiring historian Madeleine Egner, who came on board for a few days to find out more about the project and to undertake some historical research. Over the course of her short time with us, Madeleine carried out some really valuable work an insightful
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Bluejacket Community Discoveries: On the Trail of “Thirty Ordinary Seamen from the Yard,” Fort Pickens, Florida, 1861. Part 1
The Civil War Bluejackets Project has benefited greatly from the dedication and commitment of our two Zooniverse moderators, R. Roberts (@GROBSTER) and Robert Croke (@SandyCycler). Their efforts in guiding new users through the transcription process and their enthusiastic engagement with comments and queries on “Talk” are impressive enough, but both are also dedicated researchers of
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Bluejacket Community Discoveries: Mapping the Crew of USS Buckthorn
One of our Bluejacket Zooniverse Community members recently flagged a very interesting sheet with us from USS Buckthorn. The June 1864 muster is unusual for the level of detail it provides on the nativity of the small crew aboard, which extends not just to their state/country of birth, but also the specific locality they hailed
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Touring the Flagships of the Civil War U.S. Navy – In Letterheads…
Things have been a bit quiet on the Bluejackets blog of late as we were away in the Archives, seeking out historical detail to compliment the work being undertaken by our Citizen Science community over on Zooniverse. While there we uncovered lots of fantastic information that will help us add further context to what you
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Transcription Tuesday is Here! (And So Are Some New Vessels…)
The Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine Transcription Tuesday event has arrived! We are delighted to welcome today’s transcribers to our maritime community! To mark the occasion, we have added some new vessels to those currently available for transcription. Up to know, the ship’s musters we have been working on were all related to
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“My Shirt Took Fire Burning Me Terribly”: USS Juniata Sailors Recount their Fort Fisher Injuries
Service in the Civil War Navy brought with it a much reduced risk of injury or death when compared to the army- but it was far from safe. Sailors consistently faced risks such as disease, shipboard accidents and drowning during their time as Bluejackets. Inevitably, casualties also occurred in combat. For those who recovered, the
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Crew Correspondence: The Last Letter of Paymaster’s Steward Thomas Brown
One of the central aims of the Civil War Bluejackets Project is to facilitate the “linking” of Civil War sailor’s data across different record types. Perhaps the richest of all of those records are the pension files of naval dependents. They were claimed when a serving or pensioned sailor passed away. Within files relating to
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Sheets from the Fleet: USS Argosy
“Sheets from the Fleet” is a new occasional series we will be running to highlight some of the Muster Sheets we are working on and the potential we are hoping to unlock with the Civil War Bluejackets Project. Each post/thread will see us pick a random muster sheet from a random U.S. vessel and explore
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Memorial Day Stories 4: Robert Harwood, USS Tecumseh
For Memorial Day 2022 Civil War Bluejackets took to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to share the stories of some of the men who lost their lives aboard USS Tecumseh at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1864. Covering the vessel and four of her crew, the stories were presented as threads, and are replicated on the blog for
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Memorial Day Stories 3: William Churchill, USS Tecumseh
For Memorial Day 2022 Civil War Bluejackets took to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to share the stories of some of the men who lost their lives aboard USS Tecumseh at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1864. Covering the vessel and four of her crew, the stories were presented as threads, and are replicated on the blog for
The Civil War Bluejackets Project 