Civil War Tax & Genealogy Information

An act of December 24, 1872, abolished the offices of assessors and assistant assessors.  On May 20, 1873, these offices were closed and the records relating to the Civil War taxes were shipped to the commissioner of internal revenue in Washington, D.C.  Following the 1895 Supreme Court decision that declared income taxes unconstitutional, Congress approved a joint resolution requiring that income tax returns be destroyed.  The secretary of the treasury appointed a committee to carry out the congressional instructions.  The commissioner of internal revenue delivered all of the individual tax returns and collectors' lists of income tax paid to the committee on May 5, 1896.  The records were then burned.  Because the assessors' lists contained information on business licenses and other taxes, they were retained.  Some of these original assessment lists survived and are now part of the holdings of the National Archives.

The records from 34 states and territories are currently available on microfilm.  Most of the publications reproduce the records for the period 1862 to 1866.  However, for some of the territories there were so few records that all of the assessment lists have been included.  The records for the Territory of Montana, for example, cover the period 1864-1872, and the records for the Territory of New Mexico date from 1862 to 1874, with a gap in the records in 1872.  The lists are not complete for all collection districts, and there may be significant gaps like the one in the New Mexico records.

The lists are bound into volumes, and they have been microfilmed in that order. The lists are generally arranged by collection district, there under by divisions within the districts, and there under chronologically whenever possible.  In order to make the lists easier to use, descriptive pamphlets have been prepared that list counties included in each collection district. The assessment lists are divided into three categories: annual, monthly, and special.  Entries in the annual and monthly lists are for taxes assessed and collected in those specific periods.  The special lists augment incomplete annual and monthly lists and include special taxes, such as a special income tax levied in October 1864.  In the descriptive pamphlets the three types of lists are identified by the symbols A (annual), M (monthly), and S (special).

The National Archives in Washington has records relating primarily to corporate and business taxes dating to 1910 and corporate assessment lists for 1909 to 1915.  The corporation assessment lists are available on microfilm as publication M667.

Post-Civil War income tax records, 1867-1873, are available in the National Archives field branches.  Several of the field branches have additional records relating to post-Civil War taxes.  The Denver Branch, for example, has original monthly assessment lists created by district collectors in what are now the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming as late as 1917.  Some of these records document miscellaneous and regular revenue taxes, mostly those imposed on the retail sale of liquor and the manufacture of tobacco products.

They also concern taxes on brewers, oleomargarine sales, and, after 1899, telephone messages.  Because the assessment lists include the reported net income of firms, they can be used to augment statistical studies of corporate profits and to compare the growth of companies engaged in like activities.  Many other field branches have similar records.

The Civil War income tax records are not only a valuable source of information for biographical, genealogical, and local history research but should also be considered when conducting regional and area studies of business and industry or quantitative studies of demographics during the 1860s.  They can be used in conjunction with census records, later tax records, and state and local records to document the growth of industries, shifting patterns of wealth, migration patterns, and even the incidence of women in the work force.

The Internal Revenue assessment lists, 1862-1874, for the following states and territories are currently available as microfilm publications:

M754, Alabama, 1865-1866, 6 rolls;

M755, Arkansas, 1865-1866, 2 rolls;

M756, California, 1862-1866, 3 rolls;

M757, Colorado, 1862-1866, 3 rolls;

M758, Connecticut, 1862-1866, 23 rolls;

M759, Delaware, 1862-1866, 8 rolls;

M760, District of Columbia, 1862-1866, 8 rolls;

M761, Florida, 1865-1866, 1 roll;

M762, Georgia, 1865-1866, 8 rolls;

M763, Idaho, 1865-1866, 1 roll;

M764, Illinois, 1862-1866, 63 rolls;

M765, Indiana, 1862-1866, 42 rolls;

M766, Iowa, 1862-1866, 16 rolls;

M767, Kansas, 1862-1866, 3 rolls;

M768, Kentucky, 1862-1866, 24 rolls;

M769, Louisiana, 1863-1866, 10 rolls;

M770, Maine, 1862-1866, 15 rolls;

M771, Maryland, 1862-1866, 21 rolls;

M773, Michigan, 1862-1866, 15 rolls;

M775, Mississippi, 1865-1866, 3 rolls;

M776, Missouri, 1862-66, 22 rolls;

M777, Montana, 1864-1872, 1 roll;

M779, Nevada, 1863-1866, 2 rolls;

M780, New Hampshire, 1862-1866, 10 rolls;

M603, New Jersey, 1862-1866, rolls 1-17 (with New York);

M782, New Mexico, 1862-1870, 1 roll;

M603, New York, 1862- 1866, rolls 18-218 (with New Jersey);

M784, North Carolina, 1864-1866, 2 rolls;

M787, Pennsylvania, 1864-1866, 107 rolls;

M788, Rhode Island, 1862-1866, 10 rolls;

M789, South Carolina, 1864-1866, 2 rolls;

M791, Texas, 1865- 1866, 2 rolls;

M792, Vermont, 1862-1866, 7 rolls;

M793, Virginia, 1862-1866, 6 rolls;

M795, West Virginia, 1862- 1866, 4 rolls.

There are two publications that are particularly useful. The first is Cost of Labor and Subsistence in the United States for 1869 as Compared with Previous Years, compiled by Edward Young and published in 1870. The second is entitled Special Report on Immigration, also compiled by Edward Young. This second report, published in 1871, was designed to provide cost-of-living information to newly arrived immigrants. It also includes information on the types of jobs available in the southern and western states.

For the original article in its entirety, click here: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1986/winter/civil-war-tax-records.html