{"value"=>"<p>The USSC established the Hospital Directory in 1862 to collect and record information concerning the location and condition of sick and wounded soldiers in U.S. Army general hospitals at the home front and in war zones, and to provide that information to the public. Its four offices in Washington, D.C., Louisville, Kentucky; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New York City also gathered information from other hospitals and locations, and searched for soldiers who had lost contact with family and friends. The activities of all four offices are documented in the Hospital Directory Archives, 1862-1866, containing registers of hospital patients; files on individual soldiers containing letters from soldiers’ relatives, friends, regimental officers and surgeons, and Hospital Directory staff; lists of deaths, burials, and prisoners of war; and administrative correspondence and record books.</p>"}