also of the amount of rents paid for buildings used for the public service, may be prepared. It was proposed to obtain this information in part from the investigations of the officers recommended to examine the accounts of officers of this department at the Treasury.

The work connected with the consideration of claims and questions arising from the occupation of grounds and buildings for the purposes of the military service occupies the attention of my assistant, Bvt. Colonel J. B. Howard, U. S. Volunteers, and of four of the five clerks acting under my supervision. Since the organization of the Sixth Division 2,479 claims of this character have been presented, amounting to $1,587, 181,47, of which 751 have been referred to the Treasury or to officers of this department for settlement, amounting to $183,452.30; 1,054 have been rejected, amounting to $446,163.32 and claims (674) to the amount of $957,565.85 still await examination and final action.

Apart from the cost of construction and proceeds of sales of public building the operations of this division can hardly be tabulated. The correspondence incident to its operations is extensive and varied, and the want of office room only prevents me from applying for, or employing on my own report of persons, several additional clerks for the more speedy disposition of current business.

The examination of reports of officers of this department relative to payment of communication of fuel and quarters should, I think, be made in this division, as decisions on the validity of orders entitling officers to such allowance, together with the questions incident thereto, demand special investigation.

A statement of the number of interments registered during the wasloyal, so far as reports have been received at this office under General Orders, Numbers 40., Quartermaster General's Office 1865, is respectfully submitted herewith.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. J. DANA,

Colonel, Quartermaster's Department, U. S. Army.

GENERAL ORDERS,
QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 40.
Washington, D. C., July 3, 1865.

Office of the Quartermaster's Department on duty in charge of the several principal posts will report to this office without delay the number of interments during the war, white and black, loyal and disloyal, to be separately enumerated.

All officers of the Quartermaster's Department who have made interments on battle-fields during the war will report the number of the same giving the localities, dates of battles, and dates of interments.

M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General, Brevet Major-General.