SOME OF THOSE WHO ENLISTED:
AMERICANS

Pensions were intially awarded to some 1,700 US veterans of this War in June 1 1813, but these were apparently only payable to those who had been disabled in service, or to the widows and children of those who had lost their lives, and no RIGGS are listed.

In 1818 Congress passed a law allowing survivors who had served 9 months or more in the Continental Army or Navy to become government pensioners. In 1832 Congress passed an Act granting pensions for all officers and soldiers, whether Continental, State or Militia who had served a period of two years in total over one or more terms. Every claimant had to apply to court indicating the time and place of his service, the names of units and officers, and engagements in which he participated.
 

The link on the right is to Ancestry's Revolutionary War Pension Index. This will open in a separate window, which you should close to return here. In most cases applicants told their stories to a court clerk or reporter; some presented their stories in open court; others related their experiences to lawyers and attested to their narratives in court, thus constituting one of the largest oral history projects ever undertaken.

Ancestry's Civil War Pension Index links to images of 2.5 million application for pension cards of Civil War veterans in the US who fought for the Union side, a search of which shows it contains details for 491 RIGGS. Ancestry's Civil War Service Records database contains over 5.3 million names of soldiers who fought on both sides of the Civil War. Union records were taken from National Archives Record Group 94 and Confederate records from National Archives Record Group 109. There are details for the names of 334 RIGGS veterans who fought for the Confederates and 657 whose allegiance was to the Union, a total of 991. Because each volunteer soldier had one Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) for each regiment in which he served, there will be a minor element of duplication.

 
The National Park Service website has an excellent section devoted to the Civil War which lists 6.3 million names of soldiers who took part, and the details can be viewed free of charge. That states there's a total of 1,033 RIGGS, but searching separately for Union and Confederate soldiers shows that 639 of these fought on the Union side and 384 fought for the Confederates, a total of 1,023.
 

Rather than repeat this extensive detail, I've provided a link on the right to the National Park Service's search page. This page will open in a separate window, which you should close to return here. By clicking on the name of a soldier in the results, you can view the detail from his index card.

Most World War I military records for the US Army and Air Force were burned in a fire at The National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973 which is why there are no records easily available to search.

Because volunteer enlistment into the US Army was modest, draft registration was called for and as a result of this approximately 24 million civilian men born between 1872 and 1900 provided information for draft registration cards. However, more than 80% of these received exemptions or deferrals and were never called for military service, and those already in the military were naturally not included in the draft. So these cannot be used to provide a list of those who served in World War One.
 

The sole list I've found for these draft registration card is Rootsweb's Civilian Draft Registration Database, and and this contains the details of all the registrants from only about 15% of U.S. counties. It contains 119 names of RIGGS (the 126 entries include 7 entries providing extra information for names already listed) and I've extracted their details on a separate page which you can access via the link on the right.