Military records

Muster rolls, regiments, pensions and bounty land in service records. Free to print and share. Full explanations: dailyancestor.com/dictionary/military

1-A

Draft class: available for military service

1840 census of pensioners

1840 census list of living military pensioners

1973 fire

1973 blaze that destroyed most WWI and WWII Army files

4-F

Draft class: rejected as unfit for service

Absent without leave

Temporarily away from duty without permission

Act of 1818

1818 law pensioning needy Revolutionary veterans

Act of 1832

1832 law pensioning Revolutionary veterans of 6 months

Adjusted compensation

WWI veterans' bonus under the 1924 law

American Expeditionary Forces

U.S. Army forces in Europe in World War I

American Legion

Veterans' group founded in 1919 by WWI soldiers

Army serial number

Soldier's personal Army ID number, 1918 to 1969

Battalion

Unit of several companies, smaller than a regiment

Battery

Artillery unit equal to a company

Blue discharge

Army discharge neither honorable nor dishonorable

Bounty

Cash reward paid for enlisting

Bounty jumper

Enlisted for the bounty, deserted, enlisted again

Brevet

Honorary higher rank, usually without its pay

Bureau of Pensions

Federal office that handled military pensions to 1930

Carded medical record

Card copying a soldier's hospital admission

Certificate of disability

Paper discharging a soldier as unfit for duty

Commutation

$300 fee paid to escape a Civil War draft call

Compiled military service record

File of cards abstracting a Volunteer's service

Confederate pension

State pension for Confederate veterans or widows

Conscientious objector

Man who refused combat on grounds of conscience

Conscript

Man compelled into service by a draft

Consolidated lists

Civil War registers of men liable for the draft

Continental Line

States' regiments in the Revolutionary Continental Army

Court-martial

Military trial for breaking military law

Daughters of the American Revolution

Lineage society for female descendants of Patriots

Declaration

Applicant's sworn statement opening a pension claim

Deferment

Postponement of a man's draft call

Dependent parent's pension

Pension to a dead soldier's parent who relied on him

Dependent Pension Act of 1890

1890 law pensioning disabled Union veterans for any cause

Descriptive roll

Roll giving each soldier's looks, birthplace and age

Deserted

Left the service without leave, intending not to return

Discharge certificate

Paper proving a soldier had left the service

Dishonorable discharge

Punitive discharge after a general court-martial

Draft registration card

Card filled in when registering for a 20th-century draft

Enlisted

Signed up for a set term of military service

Enrolled

Listed as liable for militia duty or the draft

Final pension payment voucher

Record of the last pension payment, often after death

First sergeant

Senior sergeant of a company

Former widow

Soldier's widow who had remarried

Furlough

Authorized leave from military duty

Galvanized Yankee

Confederate prisoner who joined the Union army

Gold Star Pilgrimage

Paid 1930s trip for WWI dead's mothers and widows

Government headstone

Free federal grave marker for a veteran

Half pay

Pension equal to half of military pay

Home Guard

Local loyalist militia for defense near home

Honorable discharge

Release from service with a good record

Hospital steward

Army medical assistant in charge of hospital stores

Hundred Days Men

Union volunteers enlisted for 100 days in 1864

Individual Deceased Personnel File

Military file on a service member's death in service

Inducted

Drafted and taken into the armed forces

Invalid pension

Pension for a disability from military service

Killed in action

Killed by the enemy in combat

Landsman

Navy rating for a recruit with no sea experience

Local board

Draft board that registered and classified local men

Matross

Artillery private who assisted the gunners

Militia

State's citizen soldiers called out in emergencies

Minor's pension

Pension for a dead soldier's children under 16

Minuteman

Militiaman ready to march at a minute's notice

Morning report

Daily Army report of a unit's personnel changes

Muster roll

Periodic list of a company's men, present or absent

Mustered in

Formally taken into military service

Mustered out

Formally released from service at the end of a term

National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers

Federal network of homes for disabled Union veterans

Old man's draft

1942 draft registration of men aged 45 to 64

Old Wars pension

Pension for service injury or death, 1783 to 1861

Order number

WWI registrant's place in the call order, from a lottery

Paroled

Released on a pledge not to fight

Pension agent

Federal officer who paid out pensions in a district

Pension certificate

Approved pension and the number of its file

Pension file

Folder of papers from a military pension claim

Prisoner of war

Soldier captured and held by the enemy

Property schedule

Sworn inventory proving a Revolutionary pensioner's need

Provost marshal

Army officer who ran the draft and arrested deserters

Quartermaster sergeant

NCO who helped the quartermaster handle supplies

Regular Army

Permanent professional U.S. Army

Rejected pension claim

Pension application that was refused

Report of separation

Form summarizing service on leaving active duty

Selective Service Act of 1917

1917 law that created the World War I draft

Selective Training and Service Act

1940 law that began the first peacetime draft

Service pension

Pension earned by length of service alone

Service statement card

Card summarizing a WWI veteran's service for his state

Society of the Cincinnati

Hereditary society of Continental Army officers

Southern Cross of Honor

UDC medal and grave emblem for Confederate veterans

Substitute

Man who served in place of a drafted person

Surgeon's certificate

Doctor's exam report on a pension claimant's disability

Survivor's pension

Revolutionary veteran's own pension claim (S file)

United Confederate Veterans

Confederate veterans' association (U.C.V.)

United Daughters of the Confederacy

Hereditary society of Confederate soldiers' female kin

Veteran Reserve Corps

Union corps of partly disabled men on light duty

Veteran volunteer

Union soldier who reenlisted before his term ended

Veterans Administration

Federal veterans' agency formed in 1930

Veterans of Foreign Wars

Veterans' group for service in wars overseas

Volunteer

Wartime soldier in a state-raised unit, not a regular

Wagoner

Soldier in charge of a company's supply wagon

Widow's pension

Pension paid to a soldier's widow

Woman's Relief Corps

Women's auxiliary of the Union veterans' GAR

XC file

Later pension file number for a widow's or heir's claim