{"value"=>"<p>Historical note</p> <p>The Protective War Claim Association of the State of New York (PWCA) was established as an independent organization in New York City on January 19, 1863. Its mission was four-fold: to secure claims for soldiers, sailors, and their families without charge; to protect claimants from fraudulent agents; to prevent false claims from being made; and to offer advice and information to soldiers, sailors, and their families without charge. The Association became officially affiliated with the USSC’s Army and Navy Claim Agency (ANCA) in June, 1864, making a final transfer of its claim operations and records to ANCA in late 1866. The Association also established a Bureau of Employment for Disabled and Discharged Soldiers which functioned from late 1864 to early 1866.</p> <p>Prominent businessmen and philanthropists Howard Potter, William E. Dodge, Jr., and Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. served on the Executive Committee and were the the Association’s driving force; Potter chaired the committee and Robert B. Minturn served as the Association’s treasurer. Notable members of the Association’s board of directors included James W. Beekman, John Jacob Astor, Peter Cooper, George Bancroft, and USSC president Henry W. Bellows.</p> <p>The Association hired attorney Henry Greenfield as its agent and secretary and opened offices at 35 Chambers Street, in lower Manhattan, on March 16, 1863. Handbill, circulars, and cards to advertise the new office were distributed to local and regional papers, as well as to hospitals, camps, and barracks serving soldiers across New York State. In addition to Greenfield, PWCA hired a small staff of clerks to process incoming claim applications. Greenfield and his staff corresponded directly with federal government departments to prosecute claims for pensions, bounty, back pay, arrears of pay, and prize money on behalf of soldiers, sailors, widows, minor children, dependent mothers, and other family members of the deceased. The Association established a Trust Fund to make cash advances on pending claims to assist veterans and their relatives in immediate need of money.</p> <p>In April 1864, the Association’s Executive Committee wrote to the USSC’s Standing Committee to propose bringing PWCA under the aegis of the Sanitary Commission. The Standing Committee agreed, making its first appropriation of $200 to the Association for its monthly expenses in June, 1864. Thereafter, the Association received claim petitions from soldiers, sailors and their family members in their New York City office and forwarded them to ANCA in Washington, which handled interactions with the responsible federal government departments.</p> <p>In late 1864, the Association expanded the scope of its work by establishing a Bureau of Employment for Disabled and Discharged Soldiers and Sailors. The Bureau subsequently created a Soldiers Messenger Corps, which employed as couriers veterans who had suffered a permanent disability in the war, such as the loss of an arm or a leg.</p> <p>After the war’s end in April 1865, the USSC began to consolidate and wrap up its activities. In November 1865, ANCA announced that it would no longer accept new claim applications after December 31, 1865, and directed its local agents to close their offices and forward their records to Washington. PWCA, along with a handful of other major local agencies, continued to prosecute claims into 1866. It prosecuted claims directly with federal government departments for the first two months of 1866. In March 1866, the Association returned to working through ANCA. PWCA clerk Gilbert S. King (early March 1866) and, following, George B. Randlette (1866 Mar–Nov) served as PWCA’s “special agent” in ANCA’s central office, coordinating the prosecution of remaining New York claims, for which both ANCA and PWCA maintained records. Randlette had previously worked as an assistant in the USSC’s Special Relief Department office in Washington. King returned to New York later in March to serve as the Association’s secretary following Greenfield’s departure, remaining through November 1866. In May 1866, the Association relocated its offices from Chambers Street to 823 Broadway, formerly housing the USSC’s New York Office.</p> <p>On November 11, 1866, direct charge of the Association was transferred from its Executive Committee directly to ANCA. ANCA agents Charles W. Seaton (through December 15, 1866) and Milton P. Barry (through April 1867) served as acting secretaries as the Association wrapped up its final business. Sometime in the following months, the Association’s records, including those for all unsettled claims, were transferred to ANCA in Washington, where General Agents William F. Bascom and Seaton worked to complete unresolved claim prosecutions; they closed several PWCA claims as late as March 1869. Bascom and Seaton deposited the Association’s records, along with ANCA’s, with the USSC’s Historical Bureau in 1869.</p> <p>According to ANCA’s “Statement Concerning the Army and Navy Claim Agency of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, From September 1, 1861 to October 1, 1866” which includes a “condensed exhibit” of the Association’s work through November 1, 1866, the Association filed over 10,000 claim applications during its operations. Of these, about 7,000 were allowed, the majority for invalid veterans and the widows of deceased soldiers.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p>Scope and content note</p> <p>Records of the Protective War Claim Association of the State of New York (PWCA), 1861-1867, document the services it provided to soldiers, sailors and their families living in New York, especially the New York City area, as an independent claim agency and later as a USSC affiliate, under the direction of prominent New York City businessmen and philanthropists. Services are primarily the filing and prosecuting of service-related claims with the government on behalf of the public, free of charge, and its operation of a bureau of employment for disabled and discharged servicemen. The Association also responded to requests for information and other assistance.</p> <p>Records consist of incoming and outgoing correspondence with claimants, federal and other government departments and agencies regarding claims, and with the U.S. Sanitary Commission concerning claims and administrative matters; also, correspondence kept by its agent George B. Randlette at the Army and Navy Claim Agency (ANCA), and the claim correspondence of employee E.P. Brook dating from a previous government position. The bulk of the records comprise claim registers, over 2,000 files documenting individual applications; and documentation supporting the processing of claim applications, such as affidavits, interoffice briefs, receipts and vouchers, office claim reports, and an address book for officers of New York State regiments.</p> <p>Also present are records documenting the work of the Association’s Bureau of Employment for Disabled and Discharged Soldiers and Sailors. these consist of correspondence with soldiers, sailors, businessmen and others; registers listing unemployed men, most disabled, and businessmen offering employment; and documents relating to its Soldier Messenger Corps. These materials provide great insight into the condition, situation and skills of individual discharged soldiers and sailors hoping for employment, and the efforts of others to provide means of support for them. A small amount of Executive Board records, including minutes, shed light on the operations of the Association, particularly the Bureau of Employment.</p> <p>Additional claim files created by the Protective War Claim Association and handled by the Army and Navy Claim Agency can be found in the claim files of that sub-group. Those files generally follow the related ANCA file for the same soldier or sailor.</p> <p>The Association’s financial records are located in the Accounts and Vouchers record group.</p>"}