ACCOUNTS FOR MONEY AND PROPERTY.

The assistant quartermaster-general has charge of the examination of the accounts of disbursing officers and of officers responsible for public property (other than property accounts of clothing, camp and garrison equipage, which latter accounts are examined in the division of clothing and equipage.)

The chief of the Ninth Division reports that there were received at this office in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1862, 7,094 accounts, all of which have been examined and transmitted to the Treasury for settlement.

In the year ending June 30, 1863, there were received 29,153, all of which have been examined and transmitted to the Treasury.

In the year ending June 30, 1864, there were received 67,857 accounts; of these there have been examined and transmitted to the Treasury 14,588. There remain to be examined 53,268.

In the year ending June 30, 1865, there were received 72,299 accounts; on these there have been examined and transmitted to the Treasury 12,424. There remain to be examined 59,875.

During the four years, July 1, 1861 to June 30, 1865, there were received in all 176,402 accounts; examined and sent to the treasury 63,259; remaining to be examined 113,143.

These are not single vouchers, but accounts, many of which contain hundreds, and some of them thousands, of single vouchers. They represent the expenditure of over one thousand millions of dollars in money, and the use and application of the property purchased there with. The delay in their final settlement is injurious alike to the officers and to the Government, and it is of great importance the their settlement be expedited by all the means in the power of the Government. It is from final examination and discussion of these accounts that the statistical information necessary to a proper under standing of the cost of the great war, now happily ended, is to be obtained. These accounts record the purchases of materials; the cost of movement by rail, river, and sea; the application of the materials purchased; the distance men and material were transported; the of the hospitals, barracks, store-house, and camps which have covered the country with buildings and canvas.

Reports made by officers are often imperfect; their accounts for purchases must be complete; and these accounts record the actual cost and the time of purchase of every article provided by the Quartermaster's Department during the war, from the ocean steamer of 2,500 tons to the saddler's or tent-maker's needle and thread.

In the last annual report of this department attention was called to the inadequate force provided by law for the prompt examination of officers" accounts, and a recommendation was made for the increase of that force by the addition of 170 clerks, classified as follows: 70 of class one, 60 of class two, 30 or class three, and 10 class four. Another year's experience makes more urgent the necessity of this increase, and I repeat the recommendation of the last annual report.

MILITARY ORGANIZATION OF EMPLOYES OF THE QUARTERMASTER'S DEPARTMENT.

In the last annual reports of this office I had the honor to report the service rendered in the field, as soldiers, at Nashville, at Johnsonville, and at Washington City, by the Quartermaster's Volunteers, a