National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers

Congress created it in March 1865 as the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers and renamed it in 1873. Three branches were planned, in the Northeast, north of the Ohio River and in the upper Midwest, and seven more were added by 1907. From 1884 veterans disabled by old age or disease could be admitted without proving a service-related disability.

Several branches had their own cemeteries, so an aging veteran missing from his family in later census years may have lived and died at a branch. The homes became part of the Veterans Administration in 1930.