Transcribing a Black Regiment's Civil War Records: A Remote Everglades Internship

Officers of the 82nd Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. NPS photo of a record at the National Archives (Records of the Adjutant General's Office, RG 94)

Katey Ryan, a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) studying history and accounting, spent two summers working remotely for the South Florida Collections Management Center (SFCMC) at Everglades National Park.

2020: Civil War records

As a volunteer in 2020, she transcribed 19th-century documents from the Civil War and Reconstruction eras — regimental books from the National Archives, including records of the 82nd Regiment, United States Colored Infantry:

• a descriptive book listing officers' names, ranks and appointment dates;
• an order book of General Orders;
• morning reports kept by Captain David R. Smith in October 1864.

In one log book she found speeches that commanding officers gave to this Black Union regiment, stationed in Louisiana and at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Working on them during the Black Lives Matter movement, she felt the records illuminated centuries of history behind the demonstrations of her own time.

The regiment's order book. NPS photo of a National Archives record

Morning reports by Captain David R. Smith, October 1864. NPS photo of a National Archives record

2021: Oral histories

As an intern in summer 2021, she wrote abstracts of oral history interviews from the five National Park Service units in South Florida, which trace how the parks developed into today's heavily visited places. She had never worked with oral histories before; reading each person's experience showed her how much these shared places mean.

What she took away

Isolated at home by COVID-19, she could still help bring historical narratives back to the public. The work gave her a range of history skills and confidence as an aspiring historian, and confirmed her plans to keep working with the Park Service and pursue a graduate degree in history. She credited her supervisor at Everglades, Dr. Jim Williams, and her FGCU mentor, Dr. Rowan Steineker, with smoothing the move from volunteer to intern.

Sources

Based on "Volunteer and Internship Report: Transcription of Documents and Oral Histories," by Katey Ryan (December 2021), National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The intern's account is summarized; rewritten in hubnx's own words.