The names of the individuals on the Memorial were taken from the available individual military records in the National Archives. As was indicated, the names are associated with the military organizations comprised of African-Americans, which includes their white officers. Documentation in those records is insufficient and incomplete to allow in depth research on individual service.

I volunteered at the National Archives for two years on a project to prepare the Civil War Military Records for microfilming, so that precious original documents would not be removed and lost forever. These original documents have been available to the public since 1910.