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Perusing the notes section in articles about naval forces in the U.S. Civil War likely means you have seen the acronym ORN listed many times. These three letters represent the largest readily available resource for researchers and enthusiasts alike in examining the war’s naval operations and understanding what exactly the ORN is can help everyone better perceive how vital it is to researchers. The ORN are the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (the Introduction overview from Volume 1 is provided here) It is a 31-volume collection (27 volumes in the first series, three volumes in a second series, plus a general index) published between 1894 and 1922. Its collections were compiled by U.S. naval historians, archivists, and veterans, and include everything from daily official correspondence, diagrams and illustrations of warships, engineering documents, ship logs, newspaper clippings, rosters, battle reports, and messages between government leaders in the Navy Departments of both the United Sates and Confederacy to their squadrons and ships.

Such a large collection (28,329 pages!) can seem quite imposing, but the records are organized fairly well. Each volume covers a different element of the war. Volume 6, for example, covers the area of responsibility for the U.S. Navy’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from July 1861 to March 1862, collecting documents from among other things, the late 1861 to early 1862 naval campaigns involving the converted tug Fanny in North Carolina’s sounds and inlets. In just one small section of Volume 6 (pages 275 to 278) are four official reports of how Fanny was captured by Confederate forces; more documents and reports elsewhere highlight how it was used in conjunction with other improvised naval craft by Confederates in a failed attempt maintain control over North Carolina’s coastal waters and sounds in the war’s first year and how U.S. forces surveyed the scuttled tug afterwards.

When combined with its army counterpart, the OR—The War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Four series, 70 volumes, 138 individual books plus an atlas!), there forms a fairly detailed record of the military operations of the Civil War. By no means is the ORN a complete document, but it does represent the largest and most complete set of naval documents that is regularly and easily accessible to the general public. Hard copies of the ORN are available for purchase on used and new book websites, DVD versions are available for purchase on eBay and other locations, and digitized versions are available for viewing online by the Ohio State University, Cornell Library, and hathitrust.org. Anyone planning on doing their own research into the Civil War’s naval operations, or enthusiasts wishing to fact check the notes and research of those you do read, should become familiar with and utilize the ORN regularly.

To see how the ORN influence research, read Matthey Beazley’s article “Fanny: The Little Tug that Served Two Masters”—as well as its notes—in the Summer 2021 issue of Civil War Navy—The Magazine.

The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Photograph by Neil P. Chatelain.

Matthew T. Beazley’s article “Fanny: The Little Tug That Served Two Masters” in the Spring 2021 issue of Civil War Navy—The Magazine.