Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

The Connecticut Comptroller records are comprised of 69 letters to Leman W. Cutler, who was the state's comptroller from 1861-1865. Town officials corresponded with Cutler about bounty payments to families of soldiers serving in Connecticut regiments during the Civil War. Some items pertain to the taxation of insurance companies from other states and to other financial issues.

The Connecticut Comptroller records are comprised of 69 letters to Leman W. Cutler, who was the state comptroller from 1861-1865.

Town officials corresponded with Cutler about the bounty payments to the families of soldiers serving in Connecticut regiments during the Civil War. Some sought clarification of procedures regarding payments to soldiers' wives, children, and other dependents, and many provided details about individual soldiers and their dependents. Cases dealt with issues such as estranged couples, war widows, and deserters. Writers occasionally described economic hardships and stated their reasons for believing that a particular individual should receive a bounty. The letters also pertain to payments owed to the family of a prisoner of war (August 14, 1862), to the children of a soldier who had divorced his wife (December 5, 1862), and to the families of disabled veterans (February 24, 1863, and March 11, 1863). One correspondent from Concord, New Hampshire, questioned whether a 16-year-old boy's enlistment in a Connecticut regiment entitled his mother, then living in New Hampshire, to payments from the state of Connecticut (June 6, 1862). Some of the letters include Cutler's notes about his inquiries into the writers' complaints, which often required checking muster rolls and contacting military officers.

Some of Cutler's correspondence concerns other aspects of his duties as comptroller, such as a request that the Ladies Soldier's Aid Society of New Haven, Connecticut, be permitted to use rooms in the statehouse (January 15, 1863). Cutler also received 6 letters about the state's taxation of "foreign" insurance companies (those based in other states) and a letter about the Norwalk Horse Railway Company (February 15, 1863).