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104th meridian, and so much of Montana as lies contiguous to the new road from Fort Laramie to Virginia City, Montana. Headquarters at Omaha. Second regiment of cavalry, 10 companies; Third regiment of artillery, 1 light battery; Thirteenth regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Eighteenth regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Twenty-seventh regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Thirty-sixth regiment of infantry, 10 companies.

11. The Department of Dakota, Brigadier and Brevet Major General A. H. Terry to command, to embrace the State of Minnesota and all the Territories of Dakota and Montana not embraced in the Department of the Platte. Headquarters at Fort Snelling. Tenth regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Twenty-second regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Thirty-first regiment of infantry, 10 companies.

12. The Department of California, Brigadier and Brevet Major General Irvin McDowell to command, to embrace the States of California and Nevada, and the Territory of Arizona., Headquarters at San Francisco. First regiment of cavalry, 8 companies; Eighth regiment of cavalry, 12 companies; Second regiment of artillery, 2 light batteries and 6 companies; Ninth regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Fourteenth regiment of infantry, 10 companies; Thirtysecond regiment of infantry, 10 companies.

13. The Department of the Columbia, Major-General Frederick Steele to command, to embrace the State of Oregon and the Territories of Washington and Idaho. Headquarters at Portland. First regiment of cavalry, 4 companies; Second regiment of artillery, 4 companies; Twenty-third regiment of infantry, 10 companies.

The Departments of the Arkansas, the Missouri, the Platte, and Dakota constitute the Military Division of the Missouri, of which Lieutenant-General W. T. Sherman has command, with headquarters at St. Louis, Missouri. The Departments of California and the Columbia, constitute the Military Division of the Pacific, of which Major-General H. W. Halleck has command, with headquarters at San Francisco. The fifteen military bands provided for by the act of July 28, 1866, have been assigned as follows: West Point, New York; Fort Columbus, New York harbor; Fort Adams, Rhode Island; Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Louisville, Kentucky; Nashville, Tennessee; Jefferson Barracks, Missouri; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Little Rock, Arkansas; New Orleans, Louisiana; San Antonio, Texas; Harbor of San Francisco, California; Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory; Fort Monroe, Va.

The Thirty-ninth Congress passed an act reviving the grade of "General of the Army of the United States," to be filled, by appointment by the President, "from among those officers in the military service of the United States most distinguished for courage, skill, and ability." It was also provided that whenever,

after such appointment, the office should become vacant, the act should cease to be in force. The President nominated for General, Lieuten. ant-General Grant, and to fill the vacant lieutenant-generalship, Major-General W. T. Sherman. Both nominations were promptly confirmed by the Senate toward the close of the first session.

The principal movements of troops during the year have been in Texas, on the Mexican and Canadian frontiers, and in the Territories. General Grant, in his annual report, states that "it has been deemed necessary to keep a military force in all the lately rebellious States, to insure the execution of law, and to protect life and property against the acts of those who, as yet, will acknowledge no law but force. This class has proved to be much smaller than could have been expected after such a conflict. It has, however, been sufficiently formidable to justify the course which has been pursued." Military movements have also been directed with a view to the protection of emigrants, on their way to the more distant Territories, against attacks by hostile Indians, which have somewhat, dimin ished with the expiration of the rebellion. But with a frontier constantly extending and encroaching upon the hunting-grounds of the Indian, hostilities must frequently occur. To meet these, and to protect the emigrant on his way to the mountain Territories, General Grant reports that troops have been distributed over a wide area of the western frontier. places are occupied by more than two, and many by but a single company. During the summer of 1866, inspections were made by Generals Sherman, Pope, Ingalls, Sackett, and Babcock, with a view to determine the proper places to occupy for the protection of travel and settlements, and the most economical method of furnishing supplies. In the course of 1867 permanent buildings will have to be erected on these sites.

Few

The total estimate of the Secretary of War for military appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, is $25,205,669.60, which is less by $8,608,792.23 than the appropriation required for the previous year.

The disbursements of the Paymaster-General during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, were $259,374,317, of which $248,943,313 were paid to disbanded volunteers, and $10,431,004 to the Army and the Military Academy. In back and extra pay and in bounties the Department disbursed $7,662,736, and on Treasury certificates for arrears to dead soldiers, etc., $16,189.247. Among the charges entailed upon the Department were those growing out of an act passed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, giving three months' pay proper to all officers of volunteers who were in the service on March 3, 1865, and whose resignations were presented and accepted, or who were mustered out at their own request, or otherwise honorably discharged from the service after April 9, 1865. proper of a colonel of infantry is $95, of a

The pay

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Total......

.$205,272,324 00 30,250,010 00 7,662,736 00 16,189,247 00

.$259,874,317 00 The estimated appropriations of the pay department amount to $17,728,560 for pay of the Army for the next fiscal year.

Early in the first session of the last Congress a bill was introduced to pay a bounty to the volunteers of 1861 and 1862 equal to the highest bounty paid to the volunteers of 1863 and 1864, equalizing the bounty according to the time of service; to pay three-months men a bounty of $100, deducting from said bounty any sum heretofore paid; and to pay $33.33 to the one-year men, to complete the payment of the $100 promised them. As the sum required for this equalization of bounties would, at a moderate computation, considerably exceed $200,000,000, which, in the then embarrassed financial condition of the country, could be illspared from the national Treasury, the project was strenuously opposed, and failed to become a law in the shape in which it was originally proposed. Its friends succeeded, however, in engrafting it, in a very modified form, upon the Civil Appropriation Bill, in which connection it was passed by Congress on the last day of the session. The sections of the bill relating to bounties enact that every soldier who enlisted after the 19th of April, 1861, for a period not less than three years, and who, after having served his time of enlistment, has been honorably discharged, and who has received, or is entitled to receive, from the United States, under existing laws, a bounty of one hundred dollars, and no more; and every such soldier honorably discharged on account of wounds, and the widow, minor children, or parents of such soldiers who died in service, or from disease or wounds contracted in the service in the line of duty, shall be paid an additional bounty of one hundred dollars. The soldiers who enlisted

for two years, and who are entitled to a Government bounty of fifty dollars, under existing laws, are to get, under the like conditions, an additional bounty of fifty dollars. Although doubts were entertained whether, in consequence of defective wording of these sections, the legislation respecting the equalization of bounties was not inoperative, a board of officers was appointed by the War Department to prepare rules and regulations for the payment of the authorized bounties. But up to October 20, 1866, no payments of the extra bounty had been made. The Paymaster-General says that the muster and pay rolls, "already much worn and defaced, would be reduced to illegible shreds before a tithe of the cases arising under this law could be disposed of, if taken up separately." It is therefore proposed to classify the claims filed, by regiments and battalions. This plan, though imposing delay at the outset, will prove in the end the quickest and best. The payment, however, will not begin till the six months' limitation has passed. The disbursements will amount to nearly $80,000,000, about a third of the sum contemplated by the original bill, and will be divided among upward of a million persons. To the same board the subject of bounties to colored soldiers was also referred, with a view to provide additional checks against the demands of fraudulent assignees, to secure the bounty to the rightful claimants, and to protect the Treasury against frauds.

The grand aggregate of individuals on the pension-rolls of the United States was, on June 30, 1866, 126,722, of whom 123,577 were army invalids or their widows or other representatives. Nearly ninety per cent. of this number, comprising all classes of pensioners, have arisen out of the late war. The remainder now on the rolls, but rapidly dropping away, are from the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the various Indian wars. But one Revolutionary pensioner now remains, Samuel Downing, of Edinburgh, Saratoga County, N. Y., who was a native of, and enlisted from New Hampshire, and is now over a hundred years old. There are, however, still on the pension-rolls 931 widows of revolutionary soldiers, of whom only two were married previous to the termination of the War of Independence. The aggregate of annual pension money due for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, was $11,674,474.13. The Commissioner of Pensions says: "In view of the large number of applications which continues to be received, on account of casualties in the late war, it is manifest that the aggregate annual amount of pensions will continue to swell for some years to come." He also says that the $11,674,474.31 requisite to pay the 126,722 now on the rolls will, for the fiscal year, ending June 30, 1867, be increased to a sum exceeding $33,000,000. This is owing partly to the law of last session increasing the rate of pension. The estimated amount requisite to pay pensions the next fiscal year is more

than one-third of the entire sum paid for pensions from the beginning of the Government up to the fiscal year ending after the war began, which was $90,668,521.06. In that fiscal year the amount was $790,384.76. The number of bounty land warrants issued from time to time amounts to hundreds of thousands in number; but counting them at $1.25 per acre, the entire quantity of land so granted, the commissioner says, does not exceed $83,000,

000.

By the act of July 28, 1866, the Bureau of Military Justice is made to consist of one judgeadvocate-general and one assistant judge-advocate-general, with ten judge-advocates, to be selected from among those in office when the act was passed, and to discharge their appropriate duties until the Secretary of War shall decide that their services can be dispensed with. During the past year 8,148 records of courts-martial and military commissions were received, reviewed, and filed in this bureau, and 4,008 special reports made as to the regularity of judicial proceedings, the pardon of military offenders, etc., including letters of instruction upon military law and practice to judge-advocates and reviewing officers. The business of the bureau, which reached its minimum about the time of the adoption of the new Army act, has since very much increased. "The fact," says the Secretary of War, "that, in a large number of important cases commanders of departments and armies are not authorized to execute sentences in time of peace, and that such cases can no longer be summarily disposed of without a reference to the Executive, will also require from the bureau a very considerable number of reports which heretofore have not been called for. Its aggregate will, it is thought, not be reduced in proportion to the reduction of the military force." The new Army act provided for the discontinuance of the Provost-Marshal-General's Bureau on August 28, 1866. The records of its offices in the various States are to be transferred to the AdjutantGeneral's office in Washington, to which, also, the settlement of the undetermined questions and unfinished business pertaining to the bureau has been referred. From various causes arising out of the unsettled state of the Army, there was a large number of desertions at the close of the war. To check this evil, recruiting officers were instructed to apprehend and send to military posts for trial all deserters who could be found in the vicinity of their stations, and lists were sent from companies, with a description of deserters, to facilitate their arrest. The number apprehended under this system from February 1, 1866, to October 1, 1866, is 1,029. As an inducement to return to their duty, the President published an offer of pardon to all who would report themselves at a military post by the 15th of August, 1866. Three hundred and fourteen availed themselves of this act of clemency.

Under the new Army organization the quar

termaster's department of the Army consists of
one quartermaster-general, six assistant quarter-
masters-general, ten deputy quartermasters-
general, fifteen quartermasters, and forty-four
assistant-quartermasters. The duties formerly
devolving upon this department have been so
much curtailed since the conclusion of the war,
that no further appropriations for its support
are needed for the next fiscal year, the balances
now available and the sums received and to be
received from the sale of material being deemed
sufficient. Among the items realized by the
sale of material since May, 1865, may be enu-
merated the following:
Horses and mules..

Barracks, hospitals, and other buildings..
Clothing

Transports, steamers, and barges..
Railroad equipment, cash sales.

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credit sales...

$15,269,075

447,873

902,770

1,152,895

3,466,739

7,444,073

No change has been made by the act of July 28, 1866, in the organization of the subsistence department of the Army. A joint resolution of July 25, 1866, made it the duty of this department to pay commutation of rations to those United States soldiers who had been held as prisoners of war. The total amount disbursed by the department during the last fiscal year was $7,518,872.54, and the amount disbursed during the fiscal years of the war was: From July 1, 1861, to June 30, 1862.. $48,799,521 14 From July 1, 1862, to June 30, 1863.. From July 1, 1863, to June 30, 1864.. From July 1, 1864, to June 30, 1865.. From July 1, 1865, to June 30, 1866..

Total amount..

69,537,582 78 98,666,918 50 144,782,969 41 7,518,872.54

$369,305,864 37

From available balances and sums received from the sale of subsistence stores, the department is amply provided for the fiscal year, ending June 30, 1867, and will need no further appropriation.

The medical department under the new Army organization consists of one surgeon-general, one assistant surgeon-general, one chief medical purveyor, and four assistant medical purveyors, sixty surgeons, one hundred and fifty assistant surgeons, and five medical storekeepers. The funds at the disposal of the department during the fiscal year, ending June 30, 1866, were $5,386,064.24, of which $1,161,181.24 were the balance of unexpended appropriations for the preceding year, and $4,044,261.59 were derived from the sale of old or surplus medical and hospital property, leaving a balance in the treasury for the next fiscal year of $2,546,457.14. The reduction of the Army has enabled the department to dispense with the system of general hospitals, hospital transports and trains, ambulance corps, and also a number of purveying depots. There were, at the close of the year, one hundred and eighty-seven post hospitals in operation, with a capacity of ten thousand eight hundred and eighty-one beds. The contraction of the business of the department is forcibly illustrated by the fact that of 64,438 patients

remaining in general hospitals, June 30, 1865, and admitted during the year following, on the 30th of June, 1866, only ninety-seven remained under treatment. One hundred and seventeen surgeons and assistant surgeons of volunteers, and 1,733 acting assistant surgeons, have been mustered out during the year, and but 264 of the latter grade remained in July last; a corresponding diminution has been made of hospital stewards. Of the 98 applicants for positions in the army medical staff in September, 1865, only 19 passed.

An important part of the business of the year has been the selection and distribution of artificial limbs for maimed soldiers. Twenty-three models have been approved, and 6,410 limbs, of all kinds, have been given out. About one thousand are still to be supplied. In consequence of many instances of fraud, it is recommended that hereafter the applicant shall receive the established money value of the limb instead of, as at present, an order upon the manufacturer. During the past year the Government has paid great attention to soldiers' graves and cemeteries. The former have been carefully tended, and the occupant's name and rank put at the head of each grave as well as on the records of the cemetery. At first this was done on wooden head-boards; but Government, with a view to make the head-boards more lasting, has recently ordered them to be constructed of iron. Forty-one national military cemeteries have been established, and into these had already been gathered, on June 30, 1866, the remains of 104,526 Union soldiers. The sites for ten additional cemeteries have been selected, and the work upon them is now in course of vigorous prosecution. It is estimated that the national cemeteries will be required to receive the remains of 249,397 soldiers. The average cost of the removals and reinterments already accomplished is reported at $9.75, amounting in the aggregate to $1,144,791, and an additional expenditure of $1,609,294 will probably be needed. The alphabetical registers of the dead filed in the office of the Medical Department contain the names of 250,000 white soldiers, and 20,000 colored soldiers. The sanitary measures taken by the Medical Department in 1866 in anticipation of the cholera becoming epidemic in the United States, including a rigid military quarantine on the Southern Atlantic coast, proved exceedingly timely and beneficial, and the general health of the army was excellent. The average mean strength of the white soldiers for the year was 100,133, and the proportion of deaths from all causes to that of cases treated was one to every 52; the average mean strength of colored troops for the year was 53,541, and among them the proportion of cases taken sick was greater than with the white troops, and the deaths one in 29 of the cases treated. This result would seem to indicate a greater power of resistance to disease in white than in colored troops, though the data may not be sufficient to justify a gen

eral conclusion on the subject. The casualties in the regular and volunteer medical staff during the war, number 336; of these, 29 were killed in battle; 12 by accident; 10 died of wounds; 4 in Confederate prisons; 7 of yellow fever; 3 of cholera; 271 of other diseases. During the war, also, 35 medical officers were wounded in battle. The Surgeon-General announces in his annual report that the first volume of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War" is nearly ready for publication. In connection with this work is a large and valuable pathological museum, which is to be classified and suitably arranged in a building in Washington specially appropriated for its reception.

Under the new organization the Engineer Corps consists of one chief of engineers, six colonels, twelve lieutenant-colonels, twenty-four majors, thirty captains, and twenty-six first and ten second lieutenants: and the five companies of engineer soldiers previously prescribed by law now constitute a battalion, officered by officers of suitable rank detailed from the corps of engineers. The greater part of the corps during the last year were engaged in the supervision of the defensive works in progress throughout the country, the remainder being employed on detached duty, as commanders of departments, staff officers, etc. At Willett's Point, N. Y., and Jefferson Barracks, Mo., two principal depots of engineer supplies have been established, where the most valuable material remaining over from the war has been collected for future emergencies.

The new Army bill makes no change in the number of officers and enlisted men in the Ordnance Department. The officers are one brigadier-general, three colonels, four lieutenantcolonels, ten majors, twenty captains, sixteen first and ten second lieutenants, besides thirteen ordnance storekeepers. The operations of the department at arsenals are now limited to the construction of wrought-iron sea-coast gun-carriages, and such ordnance supplies as are needed for immediate use; the preservation of serviceable stores left on hand at the close of the war, and the completion of new buildings. Fireproof workshops have been completed at Watervliet, Frankfort, and Alleghany Arsenals, and powder magazines at St. Louis, Washington, and Benicia, and others are to be commenced in the spring of 1867. All the Southern arsenals have been reoccupied by the department, except the Harper's Ferry armory, and the arsenals in North Carolina, Florida, and Arkansas. The Chief of Ordnance is of the opinion that it is not advisable to rebuild the armory at Harper's Ferry or the North Carolina arsenal, both of which were destroyed by fire, and the sale of both is recommended. The construction of the armory at Rock Island, Ill., is to be commenced as soon as good titles to the property have been acquired. From January 1, 1861, to June 30, 1866, the Ordnance Department provided 7,892 cannon, 11,787 ar tillery carriages, 4,022,130 small-arms, 2,862,546

complete sets of accoutrements for infantry and cavalry, 539,544 complete sets of cavalry-horse equipments, 28,164 sets of horse-artillery harness, 1,022,176,474 cartridges for small-arms, 1,220,555,435 percussion caps, 2,862,177 rounds of fixed artillery ammunition, 14,507,682 cannon primers and fuses, 12,875,294 pounds of artillery projectiles, 26,440,054 pounds of gunpowder, 6,395,152 pounds of nitre, and 90,416,295 pounds of lead. In addition to these, there were immense quantities of parts provided for repairing and making good articles damaged, lost, or destroyed in the service. The fiscal resources of the Ordnance Bureau for the year amounted to $35,301,062.56, and the expenditures to $16,551,677.58, leaving a balance of $18,749,385.18, of which $18,043,804.28 were undrawn balances in the Treasury, and $705,580.90 were to the credit of disbursing officers in the Government depositories on June 30, 1866. The estimated appropriation required by the Ordnance Office, including only such objects as require early attention, is $1,593,242.

The experience acquired in the late war with respect to the most available pattern of smallarms, applicable for general use in the Army, was wholly in favor of breech-loading arms, as opposed to the old muzzle-loaders; and carly in 1866 a board of officers was appointed to examine the following questions, and make recommendations thereon:

1. What form and calibre of breech-loading arm should be adopted as a model for future construction of muskets for infantry?

2. What form and calibre should be adopted as a model for future construction of carbines for cavalry?

3. What form of breech-loading arm should be adopted as a model for changes of muskets already constructed to breech-loading muskets?

The board met on March 10th, and, during the next two months and a half, carefully tested over sixty different rifles and muskets, no one of which, it was decided, ought to be recommended for adoption by the Government. This conclusion was arrived at chiefly in view of the large number of excellent muzzle-loading muskets already in store, and of the comparatively slight changes necessary to transform these into effective breech-loaders. The plan of alteration submitted by Colonel H. Berdan was therefore recommended. This gives the stable breechpin, secures the piece against premature discharge, and involves only a slight change of our present pattern of arms. The change of machinery necessary to make new arms on this plan is also so slight, that the board is of opinion that there can be no justification of an entire change of model, and the great expense thereby entailed, until some further improvement shall be devised, producing more decided advantages than any of the arms yet presented. They also find that the 45-inch-calibre ball has given the best results as to accuracy, penetration, and range, and recommend that all riflemuskets and single-loading carbines used, in military service, be fitted for the same cartridge.

The board is disposed to arm the cavalry with the magazine carbine; but as this arm is doubtless capable of further improvements, delay is recommended in adopting definitively any pattern for future construction. Should new carbines be previously needed, it is recommended that the Spencer carbine be used. General Dyer, Chief of Ordnance, through whom the report of the board was directed to be made, objected to the use of the 45-inch-calibre balls, on the ground that they had not been proved superior to those of 50-inch calibre, and that the Army is already furnished with a large number of the latter. He also recommended that the different plans for the alteration of the Springfield mus ket should first be tried in the hands of troops. In forwarding the report to the War Department, General Grant indorsed his first recommendation, but not his second. The conversion of the old Springfield muskets into breech-loaders, proposed by the board, was approved by the Department, and orders were at once given for the preparation of the necessary machinery. The work proceeded so rapidly, that at the close of the year enough breech-loaders were on hand to supply the cavalry and mounted and light infantry. As an offensive arm, this altered musket is much better in all respects than, the much-vaunted Prussian needle-gun, whose achievements have inaugurated so remarkable a change in modern warfare. In the Springfield armory two sets of workmen, alternating day and night, as during the war, are now employed in altering the old muskets to breechloaders.

During 1866, the power and endurance of the 8-inch and 12-inch cast-iron rifle-cannon have also been subjected to practical tests, and the experiments will be continued. The ordnance returns for three consecutive years, including a period of active service and ordinary repairs, show an average duration of five years for cavalry carbines, of four years for cavalry pistols, sabres, and accoutrements, of seven years for infantry muskets, and of six years for infantry accoutrements.

During the last five years considerable changes have been made and are still making in the armament of the permanent defensive works of the country, by substituting cannon of larger calibre and wrought-iron carriages for the lighter guns and wooden gun-carriages formerly in use. Construction has been suspended upon some of the unfinished works, pending the completion of experiments having in view the use of iron shields or armor for the protection of guns and gunners.

Finally, in view of any possible emergency, the Secretary of War reports that the "stock of clothing, equipage, quartermaster, subsistence, hospital, and ordnance stores, arms, ammunition, and field artillery is sufficient for the immediate equipment of large armies. The disbanded troops stand ready to respond to the national call, and, with our vast means of transportation and rapid organization developed dur

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