"Mallory used some type of spreadsheet for his list in his book." 

I have been trying to learn something about a Krag I just found and I'm running up against a problem with the data Mallory could make available in his Serial Number Appendix. My guess is that he, too, found limitations with the process which may be due to the kind of spreadsheet that was available when he produced his book.  I haven't used a spreadsheet in 25 years, so I'm guessing that Excel is far better than old spreadsheets.  But I think what Mallory needed was a real DataBase that would allow more information per item, as needed, without creating blank spaces and confusing formats.  I don't have an answer at this point, but thought I'd mention the problem I had with Mallory recently.

The space Mallory had to allow, in order for his list to "work", was apparently limited, often enough for only a single event.  Most pieces experience at least 3 events, but only one was often enough for the list Mallory needed.  What I needed to find, was an issue event, a return event with action taken, and if necessary a final exit event.  Simplistically, a beginning, a middle and an end.

In my case, my Krag was unlisted, but in a long list of pieces with the same biographies apparently.  Mallory chose to only mention the middle event which actually only begged for more information. The middle was "071400 TRP F 2ND CAV (C&R AT SA).  There are literally dozens of numbers with the same entry, but no clues as to when issued, result of the C&R at SA - I'm not sure what that involved - and what finally happened to the piece.

There's so much information missing - because of spreadsheet space.  A true DataBase could address this.  Mallory used generic 96C, mine is dated 95.  103 numbers beyond mine is, apparently the first issue to the 1st US Vols  Do I assume that there were no earlier issues to the to them or that mine is one to the 2nd Cav or something else?  Is the answer at SA? … or…?