Military Court Martial file DEPOSIT

We're excited to announce that Court Martial records from the National Archives are now officially available to order on our site for the first time! The General Court Martial indexes are below. If you find your soldier in the index, the form to place an order for the records is also on this page. Note: The indexes only cover the years 1800 to 1876 Please read through the overview first so you know how the process works. Thanks! What Do I Need to Place an Order? Since not every soldier has a court martial file, the only way to determine if your soldier has a file is to find him in the index. If he's not in the index below, we CANNOT get the court martial file for you. Our index currently goes from 1800 to 1876. In the index, you'll need the Line Number. That's the number on the far left of the columns. It will have a letter, followed by a number. For example, B2590. What is a court martial file? A court-martial file is a set of papers from when a soldier was put on trial in the military. These records are kept at the National Archives and usually include the charges against the soldier, statements from witnesses, the decision that was made, and the sentence given. Click here to view an example of a court martial file. How large are these files? These can vary in size, but the typical length is around 20 pages or so. Some are only a few pages long, while others can be hundreds of pages. We have no way of knowing how large the file will be until we request it at the National Archives and see it for ourselves. Why is this considered a deposit? Because these files can vary so widely in size, the $35 is a deposit in order to secure your order. If the file is normal sized (roughly twenty pages or less), there will be no additional charge. If the file is larger, or if the documents are difficut to scan (some of these files are bundled like a scroll and don't lay flat), we will contact you to let you know what the cost will be. You can cancel the order if it's larger than expected. We will refund your deposit, minus a $10.00 processing fee. We don't know how large the file will be until we request it from the National Archives and see it for ourselves. I know my soldier was court martialed. Why don't I see him in the index? If you have reason to believe that your soldier was court martialed, but you don't see him in the index, it's possible it's not a General Court Martial. Instead, it may have been something handled at the regimental level. That's a different type of record. If that's the case, we unfortunately don't have access to those. We can only access the files that are in the indexes below. Note: In order to place an order, we'll need the line number (on the far left column), so be sure to make note of that! These are large indexes, so the pages might take a minute to load. You might see a blank page while it's loading, but that's normal. These are large indexes, so the pages might take a minute to load. You might see a blank page while it's loading, but that's normal.