Massachusetts St 1899, c 475 (June 3, 1899) authorized the formation of a commission, consisting of the Massachusetts adjutant general, secretary, and auditor, to direct the compilation and publication of the records of the men who served in the military and naval services in the Civil War. The commission was charged with appointing and directing a compiler of war records with appropriate staff to prepare a publication to serve as a much more accurate and detailed record than the earlier Records of the Massachusetts Volunteers (published 1868-70). St 1912 c 211 (Mar. 9, 1912) transferred all powers and duties of the commission to the adjutant general, as sole commissioner, who continued oversight of the project. The compiler was tasked with procuring information from military and naval records, rolls, books, and reports at the Massachusetts Adjutant General's Office and from the war, navy, and other departments of the federal government at Washington, D.C., as well as from municipal officials and military and veteran organizations, to form a complete military service record for each soldier, sailor, and marine. Information regarding individual soldiers, sailors, and marines was recorded onto cards titled according to the source of the record, and arranged by unit, and within by last name. Resolves 1930, c 64 authorized the publication of the records in book form as: Massachusetts soldiers, sailors, and marines in the Civil War (1931-1937). --Records were compiled from casualty reports, company muster-in rolls, company muster-out rolls, descriptive rolls, deserters lists, discharge for disability by Surgeon General of Mass rolls, enlistment and descriptive rolls, field and staff muster-in rolls, final statements, hospital records, letters to and from the War Department, list of discharges, list of survivors of rebel prisons, miscellaneous reports, monthly reports, muster and descriptive rolls of detachments of recruits, orders from the Governor, original enlistment papers, special orders from War Department, and town reports. Corresponding original source records may be found in a variety of surviving series with similar titles. --Individual information may include name, residence at enlistment, date of enlistment, to what municipality assigned or on what quota service was rendered, date of muster-in, rank, promotion, wounds received, date of discharge, and muster-out. Only Massachusetts Volunteer Regiments are represented: cards pertaining to the U. S. Army, Navy Department, Colored Troops, and Veteran Reserve Corps are presumed to have been destroyed. During the 1990s the cards pertaining to the Massachusetts Volunteer Regiments were filmed onto microfilm reels and the originals presumably destroyed at that time. Collated 1899-ca. 1927. Transferred to Archives from Massachusetts National Guard Museum and Archives, Concord, Mass., Apr. 2019.

The adjutant general of the Commonwealth, as executive administrator of the state's Military Establishment, came to be responsible for preserving information about past military episodes and service relating to Massachusetts. This series comprises an index to Massachusetts residents killed in the service of the United States during World War II. Information includes name, rank, residence, and branch of service, and may include race, date of death of each soldier, next of kin, the circumstances of death (e.g., killed in action, died of wounds, died in hospital), and the war theater in which it occurred. An accompanying printed booklet with title: World War II honor list of dead and missing--State of Massachusetts contains corresponding data, although the information in the booklet is arranged by county, and is confined to the name, serial number, rank, and circumstances of the death of each soldier.