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The mission of the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center is to preserve, interpret and disseminate the story, history and records of New York State’s military forces and veterans. The collection is divided into the museum and the library/archives holdings.

Begun in 1863 as the Bureau of Military Statistics under the office of the Adjutant General, the collection had not had a secure, permanent home until 2002 when it was moved into the historic armory in Saratoga Springs, New York which was renovated to house and exhibit the collection. The armory, designed by Isaac Perry and constructed in 1889, is a fine example of armory architecture that was popular in upstate New York in the late 1800’s.

The museum houses over 25,000 artifacts dating from the Revolutionary War to today that relate to New York State’s military forces, the state’s military history and the contributions of New York’s veterans. The artifacts include uniforms and accoutrements, weapons, battlefield souvenirs and fine art. A significant portion of the museum’s collection is from the Civil War. Notable artifacts from this conflict include the uniform of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth’s (the Union’s first martyr), the medical kit of Jubal Early’s surgeon, and the uniform and bugle of Gustav Schurmann (General Philip Kearny’s boy bugler). The collection also contains significant holdings relating to New York’s 27th Division in World War I and World War II and notable state military regiments such as the 7th (the Silk Stocking Regiment), 69th (the Fighting 69th), and the 369th (Harlem Hellfighters) Infantry.

The museum also owns the largest collection of state battle flags in the country and the largest collection of Civil War flags in the world. The flags date from the War of 1812 through the 1991 Gulf War, but of the over 1,800 flags in the collection, more than 60% are from the Civil War. The museum maintains an exhibit of its flag collection in the state capitol building in Albany where the museum collection was originally housed.

The library and archive holdings in the Veterans Research Center include a 12,000 volume library of military and New York State history, over 24,000 photographs, unit history files, broadsides, scrapbooks, letters and maps. Highlights of the library and archives material include over 2,300 Civil War photographs, a collection of Civil War era newspaper clippings arranged by New York units, and New York National Guard service cards and service records dating from the 1880’s to 1965.

The Veteran Research Center also contains nearly 2,500 oral histories of New York veterans from World War I through today, though the majority of the interviews are from World War II veterans.