While the great body of the officer of the department have devoted themselves with fidelity to their duties, a few have proved unfaithful, and, when known, have been removed. The number, however, is small.

The corps contained at the date of the last return:

Major-generals (by brevet).................... 1

Brigadier-generals and quartermasters.......... 3

Brigadier-generals not on duty in the

Quartermaster's Department................... 3

Brigadier-generals by brevet.................. 2

Colonels...................................... 39

Lieutenants-colonels.......................... 13

Majors........................................ 18

Captains...................................... 554

Military store-keepers........................ 9

Regimental quartermaster (about).............1,500

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Total.........................................2,142

There are also a number of officers of the line assigned to duty as acting assistant quartermasters and performing the duties of post or brigade quartermasters in the absence of officers regularly commissioned for these duties.

The principal posts of the department, those requiring the greatest ability and imposing the heaviest responsibility and labor, are the charge of the great depots of purchase and supply, the duties of the chief quartermasters of the moving armies, and those of the chief quartermasters of departments. Some of these I proceed to notice; to refer to all would woo much extend this report.

Brigadier General Robert Allen, quartermaster, has acted as senior quartermaster in the Valley of the Mississippi during the fiscal year. In referring to the operations for the supply of the army in Georgia, I have reported the transfer of his headquarters from Saint Louis to Louisville when the latter point became the principal base of certain military operations in the West.

This officer has exercised a general supervision and control over the officers acting in the Western country, and has controlled the great operations for supply the armies on the Mississippi, in Missouri, in the Northwest, and in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia.

The uniform success of these operations, in providing ample supplies for armies at the most distant points, attests his ability, his zeal, and his desert. By the supervision which he has exercise over the accounts and vouchers made up by other officers in the West, great part of which have passed under his revision before final payment, he has effected the saving of very large sums. No more faithful or more able officer is in the service of the Government.

Brigadier General D. H. Rucker, quartermaster, has continued in charge of the depot at Washington. Through this depot passes the principal part of the supplies to the armies operating in Virginia. From the magnitude of these armies, the extent of d severity of their conflicts with the enemy, the waste and destruction of property have been very great, and the operations for providing and transporting to their advanced depots subsistence, forage, clothing, munitions, animals, and troops have been on the most extensive scale.

All these operations have been conducted with dispatch, order, and regularity, and the large force of men employed about the depot have been governed in such a manner that discontent and disorder have been prevented.

57 R R-SERIES III, VOL IV