It is always wise when working in the early to mid 1800s to check military records, either for War of 1812 or Civil War soldiers. There are growing collections coming online all the time for these 2 groups of soldiers’ records. The first place I look to determine if a person I’m researching was involved in the Civil War is the National Parks Service’s Soldiers and Sailors Database. This is an index to all who served in the Civil War on either side of the conflict. A quick search for Dimick and Scroggins provided the following 2 results:

This told me that Sanders Scroggins enlisted during the Civil War. Sarah (his wife) had a brother named Franklin Dimick. No entry was found for him. Once I determined Sanders had enlisted, I began searching for more information about his service. One great online repository for military records is Fold3.com. There I found a copy of a Widow’s Pension from his widow (and third wife) Josephine Scroggins.

Further searching (at Internet Archive) revealed a copy of the Adjutant General’s report:

It appears that Sanders only served for about a month from August to September 1864. The AG report also gives some description of what the company was doing during that time:

Franklin Dimick was not to be left out, however. Searching at Fold3.com revealed that he performed an important role in his town:

Franklin Dimick was a Justice of the Peace in Hardin County! (This information leads to an interesting find that I will share in a future post.)