04/08/2026
AI and Gettysburg Claims
I was asked to retrieve a copy of a claim for property damage that was filed by Peter Baker, a resident of Gettysburg at the time of the battle. The claim was filed with the Quartermaster General's office for $350 claiming that the Union Army had damaged or taken his fences, crops, and supplies of various kinds. The claim was denied on the grounds that there was no convincing evidence that the damage was done by the Union Army rather than the Confederate Army .
But there is another interesting side to this story. Most of the documents were written with a pencil on onion skin paper - so after nearly 150 years, they were so faded that they were practically unreadable. I made faithful copies of the originals but I couldn't read most of the original or the copy.
At this point, I did something that I had never done before. I gave it to an AI engine (grok.com) to transcribe. I was not optimistic because, as I said, most of the pages were all but indecipherable to the human eye.
The result was nothing short of amazing! AI was able to enhance and read most of the pages and produced a transcription of the original claim with its itemized damages. It also summarized the neighbors' witness statements and transcribed the Quartermaster General's recommendation for denial. (Thankfully, the latter was typed).
I audited the transcriptions and made a few corrections that I could see - but most of the work was done by AI.
You can see for yourself by downloading the scans of the original claim:
https://tinyurl.com/PeterBakerClaim
and the transcription:
https://tinyurl.com/PeterBakerClaimsTranscription
The current owner of the property in question lives in the original farmhouse. He now has a copy of these documents.
