Civil War Bluejackets: Race, Class and Ethnicity in the United States Navy, 1861-1865

DGS and the Delaware African American Historical and Genealogical Society (DEAAHGS) partnered recently with the Bluejacket Project to research Civil War sailor records. The project is managed by historians from Northumbria University and the University of Sheffield and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. The US Naval Academy is also participating in the research.

DGS and the Delaware African American Historical and Genealogical Society (DEAAHGS) partnered recently with the Bluejacket Project to research Civil War sailor records. The project is managed by historians from Northumbria University and the University of Sheffield and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK. The US Naval Academy is also participating in the research.

The primary goal of the Bluejacket project is to transcribe and produce publicly available data on 118,000 currently digitized Civil War sailor records. The project seeks to link this primary digitized data to other records such as enlistment, pension, and other wartime data to create a Civil War Sailor Internet Resource. This new resource will enable further research on the experience of both African American and immigrant sailors and their interactions with native-born white servicemen.

Work is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2024. DGS and DAAHGS have focused on genealogical research of African American sailors who enlisted as native-born Delawareans.

DGS and DEAAHGS are privileged to be part of this important project. Learn more about it in this summary from Ken Finlayson, DGS president. Additional information is available at the Civil War Bluejackets website at https://civilwarbluejackets.com/ and the project’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarBluejackets/.