Lost And Found

As I was growing up, I heard stories about these mysterious Civil War papers that belonged to one of my paternal ancestors.  For someone who was obsessed with learning about the Civil War, it was very tantalizing.  My paternal aunt had them, but I had never seen them.  After she died, it was thought that they were lost forever.  But, after her husband died, I found them.  They were stored with some other papers that belonged to her.  What a find!  At first I was a little disappointed because they were copies of the actual papers, but once I started reading them, I was amazed at all of the information that they contained.

The papers belonged to my paternal third great-grandfather.  One announced his appointment to sergeant and the other was his discharge paper.  Where do I start?  I want to go line by line, fact by fact, and dig into every detail.  He was in Company I of the 215th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers and was promoted to Sergeant 12 days after the end of the Civil War.  He was discharged at Fort Delaware just over three months after that.  He was born in Omar, Ireland.  He was 30 years old when he was discharged from the army.  He stood five feet, seven inches tall.  He had a light complexion, blue eyes, and black hair.  He was a welder by trade.

And then the questions.  What role did he play in the Civil War?  How many battles did he fight, if any?  What did he do to get promoted to Sergeant?  Why was he discharged at Fort Delaware, an island that housed Confederate prisoners?  Why did he come to the United States from Ireland?  Where did he work as a welder?

It looks like I have a lot of digging to do.