historical value." Colonel Scott systematized the work, and, upon his recommendation, the Secretary of War approved the following order of publication:

The first series will embrace the formal reports, both Union and Confederate, of the first seizures of United States property in the Southern States, and of all military operations in the field, with the correspondence, orders, and returns relating specially thereto, and, as proposed, is to be accompanied by an atlas.

In this series the reports will be arranged according to the campaigns and several theaters of operations (in the chronological order of events), and the Union reports of any event will, as a rule, be immediately followed by the Confederate accounts. The correspondence, etc., not embraced in the "reports" proper will follow (first Union and next Confederate) in chronological order.

The second series will contain the correspondence, orders, reports, and returns, Union and Confederate, relating to prisoners of war, and (so far as the military authorities were concerned) to State or political prisoners.

The third series will contain the correspondence, orders, reports, and returns of the Union authorities (embracing their correspondence with the Confederate officials) not relating specially to the subjects of the first and second series. It will set forth the annual and special reports of the Secretary of War, of the general in chief, and of the chiefs of the several staff corps and departments; the calls for troops, and the correspondence between the National and the several State authorities.

The fourth series will exhibit the correspondence, orders, reports, and returns of the Confederate authorities, similar to that indicated for the Union officials, as of the third series, but excluding the correspondence between the Union and Confederate authorities given in that series.

The first volume of the records was issued in the early fall of 1880. The act approved June 16, 1880, provided for the printing and binding of 10,000 copies of the work, and that 7,000 copies should be for the use of the House of Representatives, 2,000 copies for the use of the Senate, and 1,000 copies for the use of the Executive Departments. Under this act the first five volumes of the records were distributed. All subsequent volumes have been distributed under the act approved August 7, 1882, which provides as follows:

The volumes of the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion shall be distributed as follows: One thousand copies to the Executive Departments, as now provided by law. One thousand copies for distribution by the Secretary of War among officers of the Army and contributors to the work. Eight thousand three hundred copies shall be sent by the Secretary of War to such libraries, organizations, and individuals as may be designated by the Senators, Representatives, and Delegates of the Fortyseventh Congress. Each Senator shall designate not exceeding twenty-six, and each Representative and Delegate not exceeding twenty-one, of such addresses, and the volumes shall be sent thereto from time to time as they are published, until the publication is completed. Senators, Representatives, and Delegates shall inform the Secretary of War in each case how many volumes of those heretofore published they have forwarded to such addresses. The remaining copies of the eleven thousand to be published, and all sets that may not be ordered to be distributed as provided herein, shall be sold by the Secretary of War for cost of publication, with 10 per cent added thereto, and the proceeds of such sale shall be covered into the Treasury. If two or more sets of said volumes are ordered to the same address, the Secretary of War shall inform the Senators, Representatives, or Delegates who have designated the same, who thereupon may designate other libraries, organizations, or individuals.

Colonel Scott died on March 5, 1887, and was succeeded by Col. H. M. Lazelle, Twenty-third United States Infantry, who continued in charge of the work of publication about two years, when, by an act approved March 2, 1889, it was provided that the preparation and publication of the records should be conducted, under the direction of the Secretary of War, by a board of three persons, composed of an officer of the Army and two civilian experts, to be appointed by the Secretary of War.

Maj. George B. Davis, Judge-Advocate, United States Army, was appointed by the Secretary of War as the military member, and Leslie J. Perry, of Kansas, and Joseph W. Kirkley, of Maryland, as the civilian members of the board of publication. This board assumed direction of the publication in July, 1889. On July 1, 1895, Maj. George W. Davis, Eleventh United States Infantry (subsequently lieutenant-colonel Fourteenth United States Infantry and now a brigadier-general, United States Volunteers), relieved Maj. George B. Davis as the military member and president of the board of publication. Subsequently Col. (now Brig. Gen.) Fred C. Ainsworth, Chief of the Record and Pension Office, War Department, was appointed as the military member and president of the board, relieving Brig. Gen. George W. Davis June 1, 1898.

On December 1, 1898, under the provisions of the sundry civil act of July 1, 1898, the board of publication was dissolved, and, by direction of the Secretary of War, the work of publication was continued under the charge of the Chief of the Record and Pension Office.

By operation of law (act of February 24, 1899, "making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900"), the War Records Office, which had for many years been in charge of the work of compiling and publishing the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, was merged into the Record and Pension Office on July 1, 1899. On July 1, 1898, shortly after the work of publication had been assumed by the Chief of the Record and Pension Office, the force employed in the War Records Office was reduced to 22 employees, about one-third of its previous number. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1899, three volumes were compiled, and, together with six others, were put in type, involving the reading of over 30,000 pages of proof and revises; four volumes were printed and bound and four were distributed; 54,027 copies of volumes were received from the Public Printer, and 46,974 books and parts of plates of the atlas were sold or distributed. During the same period an "Index to Battles, Campaigns, etc.," was published.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1900, one volume was put in type and seven were indexed, involving the preparation of about 500 pages of index and the reading of over 4,500 pages of proof and revises; eleven volumes were printed, bound, and distributed, completing the publication, with the exception of the general index; 133,949 books were received, and 117,216 were sold or distributed. The "Additions and Corrections to the Rebellion Records" was compiled and put in type, and work was commenced upon the general index to the entire publication.

In former annual reports attention was invited to the accumulation of a large number of volumes of these records in the War Department, resulting from the death of individuals or the abandonment or suspension of organizations designated to receive them. Under the several acts providing for the distribution of the work, the volumes thus accumulated could not be disposed of without further legislation by Congress. In order to supply the demand for these records, it was recommended that Congress be asked for authority to reprint certain volumes and parts so as to make complete sets of the miscellaneous numbers on hand, and that these sets be apportioned among the members of the Fifty-sixth Congress for distribution. This recommendaWAR 1900-VOL 1, PT II- -69

tion met the approval of Congress, and a clause was included in the sundry civil act approved June 6, 1900, authorizing the Secretary of War to furnish each Senator, Representative, and Delegate of the Fifty-sixth Congress, who had not already become entitled by law to receive the work, with three sets, and all other Senators, Representatives, and Delegates of that Congress, who had already been supplied, with two sets. Under this law over 135,000 volumes of the work and about 1,040 sets of the atlas will be distributed. The work of distribution was commenced early in July, 1900, and will be continued as rapidly as possible.

It is proper to add that from 1874, when the first appropriation was made for the publication of the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, to June 30, 1898, 112 books and an atlas of 178 plates were published and $2,610,921 expended, and that during the two years in which the work has been under the control of the Chief of the Record and Pension Office 15 books and an "Index to Battles, Campaigns, etc.," have been published and $187,230.21 expended, making the total number of books published 127 and the expenditures $2,798,151.21 to June 30, 1900.

INDEX-RECORD CARD WORK.

Besides the transaction of the increased current business of the office and the prosecution of the work of the publication of the war records, such portion of the clerical force as has been available for the purpose has been actively engaged in the work of reproducing, by the indexrecord card system, the records of individual military service and medical and surgical treatment. This system has been fully described in previous annual reports.

At the date of the last annual report the work of carding the records of the Revolutionary war and subsequent wars down to the beginning of the war with Spain had been practically completed, and the carding of the records of the latter war had been begun.

At the close of the last fiscal year about 40 per cent of the military records of the Spanish war volunteers had been carded, and at the date of this report the work is well advanced, with the prospect that the carding of the military records will be completed during the present fiscal year.

The carding of the principal medical records of the war with Spain has been completed and work has been begun on the auxiliary medical records. These auxiliary records are of such a character that their reproduction by the index-record card system is necessarily slow, but they contain data that in many instances are necessary to supplement other records of medical and surgical treatment, and that it would be unsafe to omit from the record cards.

The index-record card work for the fiscal year included the preparation of 959,649 military cards and 120,479 medical cards, making, with the number prepared in previous years, a total of 41,616,088 of the former and 7,368,350 of the latter class, aggregating 48,984,438 indexrecord cards prepared up to and including June 30, 1900.

In addition to the index-record cards, 145,594 reference cards were made during the fiscal year from miscellaneous and fragmentary records of the war of 1812. These records are of such a character that they can not well be reproduced in the ordinary form of index-record

cards, but by the system adopted any name, however incidentally appearing thereon, can be readily referred to.

CLERICAL FORCE.

It was remarked in the last annual report that by the reproduction of the records of individual military service by the index-record card system, the application of that system to the current correspondence, and the adoption of other improved methods, the business of the office had been so expedited that it had been possible to materially reduce the clerical force. On the recommendation of the Chief of the Record and Pension Office a reduction of 32 was made in the clerical force of the office for the current fiscal year, representing a saving in salaries of $35,340 per annum. This added to the previous reduction of 300 in 1894, 50 in 1895, and 25 in 1897, makes a total reduction of force in the Record and Pension Office since its organization in 1892 of 407 clerks, representing an annual saving of over $460,000 in salaries alone, besides the reduction of 42 employees of the War Records Office previously mentioned. Adding to the savings in salaries in the Record and Pension Office alone the savings effected in contingent and other expenses, it is found that the cost of maintaining the office has been permanently reduced by at least $500,000 per annum.

In all of the reductions that have been made in the clerical force of the office the selections for discharge have been based strictly upon the efficiency records of the clerks, a liberal allowance being made in the ratings on account of honorable military or naval service.

Very respectfully,

F. C. AINSWORTH,

Brigadier-General, United States Army,
Chief, Record and Pension Office.

The SECRETARY OF WAR.