24

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR.

ment to its soldiers; and when the carefully-prepared estimates of the Department-based upon calculations that have been reduced, by a knowledge of the fluctuations of the strength of the Army, to an almost mathematical certainty-are materially cut down by Congress, grave embarrassments, such as have recently resulted from the large reduction of the appropriations asked for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, must necessarily occur. For the last month of that fiscal year the unexpended balance of appropriation for pay of the Army was only sufficient to give each officer and soldier about one-half of what they were entitled to for June, 1875, so that there remains due upon contract with the Government the amount necessary to give them the remaining one-half month's pay. The Paymaster-General has been instructed to submit a deficiency estimate to meet this want. Had the estimates submitted not been cut down several millions by Congress the appropriations would have sufficed to meet all legal demands upon them, and would have left but little, if any, surplus to be turned into the Treasury as unexpended balances.

By the act of July 15, 1870, the Secretary of War was authorized "to permit one or more trading establishments to be maintained at any military post on the frontier, not in the vicinity of any city or town, when he believes such an establishment is needed for the accommodation of emigrants, freighters, or other citizens. The persons to maintain such establishments shall be appointed by him, and shall be under protection and control as camp-followers." This changes the previous custom, under which the department commander had charge of the appointment of sutlers for military posts. I suggest that a law be passed giving the appointment of sutlers, as heretofore, to department commanders, including in its provisions authority, as it now exists, to the council of administration at each post to regulate the prices of the goods to be sold by the traders, and also authority to the proper military commander to limit the amount to which a soldier shall be trusted by the sutler, that amount to be collected from his monthly pay. A provision of this kind would, I think, be wise, as it would prevent that excess of expenditure which now occurs where there is no supervision exercised.

Good progress has been made during the year in the preparation of the official records of the war of the rebellion, both in the Federal and Confederate branches. I have placed the general supervision of the compilation of these records in the charge of the chief clerk of the Department, who, under my direction, has organized an efficient force of assistants, selected from those clerks who are best acquainted with the arrangement of the official papers on hand and who are well adapted to the work for the purpose by experienee with Department and Army records.

In order to facilitate the compilation and historical arrangement of the reports and correspondence, it was found necessary to copy and

print a few proof-sheets of each document, so that the services of more than one person could be made available upon this part of the work, and also in order that when authentic copies had been printed the danger of loss by accident or fire, &c., might be avoided.

The amount of research and investigation which are required before any perceptible progress appears is very great. Owing to the pressure of affairs during the war, the field-records were kept in a hurried and sometimes crude and careless manner, and when turned in to the Department were often in a chaotic condition, so that the labor of their arrangement, which is now undertaken, is naturally slow and tedious. It is hardly necessary to state that in the compilation no document in the possession of the War Department will be omitted which will throw light upon the events of the late war or be valuable to future history, and I may add, in respect to what shall be included and what not, the order is that it is better to embody too much than too little. I beg here to suggest that the War Department can furnish no more than its own records afford, and that for a complete history the records of almost every other Department will need to be consulted, and to this end the attention of Congress is invited to this part of the subject. From the immense mass of papers on hand the required documents are being selected, copied, compared, and put to press, at the Department; the proof being carefully read and compared with the original papers, and each document, letter, report, telegram, and paper is being printed separately. Accuracy is absolutely required before these printed copies are placed in the hands of the compiler, whose duty it then is to collate and group the various subjects in order of date and in accordance with their relation to each other. A large mass of material has been collected, copied, and a great portion of it printed, and, as far as practicable, the printing has been done from original documents, when the nature of the records admitted, without recourse to copying by hand. This matter has not yet received its final arrangement and classification, owing to the difficulty of selecting at the same time papers relating to contemporary subjects. The estimate for the continuation of the work for the next fiscal year is fifty thousand dollars.

By virtue of an appropriation of $25,000, made by Congress at its last session for the purchase of what is known as the Brady Collection of War Views, the Department has come into possession of a very large number of negative plates illustrating battle-fields, fortifications, camp scenes, military positions, the topography of sections of country. over which many of our most important military operations were conducted, and photographs of most of the Union and many of the confederate officers of prominence during the late war. For purposes of illustration, these, of course, are far more accurate than any map could be made, taken as they were upon the spot, very often immediately before, or subsequent to, the engagements, the scene of which they picture. As this valuable pictorial history of the war is recorded on glass

plates, liable to be utterly destroyed or defaced by accident, the Department has taken measures for securing permanent benefit to the Government from the expenditure of the money appropriated by Congress, by having a few proofs struck off from each plate of importance, and in that way producing a sufficient number of copies of these pictures to secure the views from distruction by any ordinary accident. The attention of Congress is invited to the consideration of the question whether it would not be eminently proper to provide for an edition of these pictures to illustrate the history of the rebellion, the preparation of which is now in progress in this Department. In the present advanced state of the arts a sufficient number of copies of each desirable view could be secured by the heliotype, or other similar process, at a very small cost, compared with the ordinary prices for litho. graphing. Such illustrations need not supersede, but would supplement, the maps necessary for illustration, and they could be prepared pari passu with the compilation of records now in progress.

Information has been received from different sources that many private individual have in their possession important official records, principally of the late confederate government, which they are willing to dispose of for a consideration, but for the purchase of which there are no funds available at the disposal of this Department. Of course these records are properly the property of the Government, but it seems impossible to obtain the information necessary to their recovery through the courts, or otherwise than by purchase. No doubt is entertained but that many of these papers contain data that would enable the Government to detect many fraudulent claims, which could only be proven to be such by the agency of these papers, and it is recommended that Congress, by appropriate legislation, place this Department in a position to recover such as properly belong to its files. As it now is, these confederate records are so incomplete that the result of their compilation will necessarily be very unsatisfactery to all concerned.

The estimates of the Superintendent of the Military Academy, which will be submitted to Congress, have been carefully revised by myself in the interest of economy, and make no demand for appropriations be yond those necessary for the maintenance of the military establishment at West Point save what is found to be necessary for the interests of the service.

The construction of the new cadet hospital has diligently progressed, and if the appropriation asked for it is granted and made available from the date of the passage of the act of appropriation, the hospital will be ready for use next winter.

The system of sewerage inaugurated at West Point has not hitherto been carried out as rapidly as desirable, the efforts in this direction being crippled by the small appropriation heretofore granted. A more

liberal policy in regard to this item would be beneficial to the public interests. These and other estimates are recommended to Congress.

My annual visit to the Military Academy confirmed previous impres sions as to the efficacy of the new academic regulations and the steady improvement in discipline of the corps of cadets. It was gratifying to hear the almost universal commendation bestowed upon the first class for proficiency in scholarship as well as in all those subjects necessary to the education of a soldier.

I renew the recommendations made in my last annual report for the establishment of a professorship of rhetoric and English literature. The experience of every year but serves to confirm the expediency of this measure, and to show that sooner or later such a chair will become of absolute necessity. In my opinion, the necessity for it now exists, and that impression is confirmed by the views of the last board of visitors, which has taken strong ground in its favor. The only objection that I can perceive to the establishment of such a branch is that the course of study at the academy, as now arranged, taxes to the utmost the energies and diligence of the cadets, and experience has shown that the plan now pursued is the best that can be devised. Still, I recommend that Congress take into consideration the expediency of uniting the professorships of French and Spanish into a professorship of modern languages, and it is believed that by doing this, and encroaching a little upon other branches, sufficient time for the study of rhetoric and English literature can be obtained without serious derangement of the course as at present arranged. Reference to my reports of previous years, and to those of the board of visitors, show the necessity for this action, and the subject is brought to the consideration of Congress.

During the past year strenuous exertions have been made to bring the corps up to its maximum strength, but the large number of candidates failing to pass the examinations has rendered this action of the Department nugatory. As it is generally conceded by those conversant with the subject that the standard of examination is not too high, it seems evident, from the large number of failures each year, that some defect exists in the elementary instruction of those appointed.

Attention is invited to the report of the board of visitors, hereto attached. The board was afforded every opportunity for investigating the affairs of the academy, was thorough in its examination, and its report contains many recommendations worthy of the consideration of Congress.

On the 24th of February, 1871, the Secretary of War communicated to the Senate of the United States a report made by Lieut. Gustavus C. Doane, Second Regiment of Cavalry, upon the so-called Yellowstone expedition of 1870. This report had been forwarded to the Adju tant-General of the Army by Major-General Hancock, then commanding the Department of Dakota, who deemed its contents worthy of

publication, and was submitted also by General Sherman, the General of the Army, with the recommendation that it be printed, as it contained much that was interesting to those who are studying the resources of our new Territories. I call attention to this expediton and report of Lieutenant Doane at this time for the reason that during the past summer, in company with him and several other officers of the Army, I traveled over a large portion of the region which he has described in this report, which region is embraced in what is now known as the "Yellowstone National Park."

On the 1st of March, 1872, after this report of Lieutenant Doane had been made, an act was passed by Congress dedicating and setting apart as a public park or pleasure-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, a large tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming lying along the headwaters of the Yellowstone. This includes and embraces that portion of the country alluded to above whose attractive localities and wonderful geysers were first discovered by Lieutenant Doane and the party which accompanied him in 1870.

Under the above-named act of Congress, this park is under the exclu sive control of the Secretary of the Interior, but it may not be out of place for me to state in this report that it is the wish and desire of this Department to unite with the Secretary of the Interior in doing what is possible to be done with the limited appropriation at hand for opening and surveying this region, so appropriately called "Wonder-land." At present it cannot be reached except by long and tiresome travel, off from the usual route; but when railroads are built in that direction, and when that region is opened to more prompt communication, it will doubtless be the resort each year of thousands of those who will seek to visit it.

The report of Lieutenant Doane, and the other reports which have since been made, are very full in their descriptions. I satisfied myself while there that with the expenditure of a moderate amount of money roads could be located so that travel through the park might be easy and unimpeded. Should an appropriation be made by Congress looking toward the surveying of interior roads, in order that the inaccessible localities of the park be opened to the public, the War Department could, through its Engineer Corps, with economy and at moderate expense, do much toward accomplishing what is desired, and the roads so made would be important for military uses.

The curiosities of the park are rapidly being destroyed. How they can be preserved is a problem, but they should be saved; and if authority were given to the War Department to make a survey of the routes alluded to, and to station one or two companies of troops in or near the park for the purpose of preventing spoliation, which will otherwise frequently occur, I have no doubt that the result would be satisfactory. Surely everything should be done that can be to protect all that is grand and beautiful in that remarkable region.