{"value"=>"<p>Hospital Directory registers and indexes volumes for each office are located in the records of the appropriate sub-group. Washington, Philadelphia and New York hospital directory registers retain their original volume numbers; numbers have been corrected or supplied as noted.</p> <p>These three offices used a similar system to record patient names in their registers. (Louisville's system varies and is described in that sub-group.) At the volume level, they initially allocated a number of pages deemed sufficient for particular states and or regiments. However, as these pages were filled up according to circumstances (the actual number of patients from those regiments), it became necessary to carry over particular groups into the latter part of the volume, or across to new volumes. Miscellaneous and independent units are usually found at the end of a volume or series of volumes.</p> <p>To facilitate access to this pattern of data entry and to make it more visible, the present arrangement supplies approximate date spans of admission, and the first instance of state and other military units found within each volume. Due to the large number of units found within, the listing may not be inclusive. In addition, hospital locations have been identified by state or locale when possible.</p> <p>Some Washington registers pertain to hospital locations which were under the purview of the Louisville Hospital Directory.</p> <p>Individual names are primarily accessed through a soldier's regimental or other military unit identification. Washington Hospital Directory name indexes as well as a regimental index, which are not comprehensive for the entire series of registers, are found in Hospital Directory Indexes below. Many register volumes contain indexes for a state or unit's first listing by page number.</p> <p>In 1864, the USSC published a regimental \"Index to the Hospital Directory of the U.S. Sanitary Commission\" (Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow), which by its sub-title included Washington and New York directories. The index is incomplete; it does not identify the New York volumes and there is only partial representation of the Washington volumes.</p>"}