It also receives all accounts of such officers for disbursements and receipts of funds, together with their vouchers and returns of provisions and commissary property. These accounts undergo a preliminary examination in this office, and are transmitted for adjustment to the Third Auditor of the Treasury.

170. This office also receives all claims presented under the act of July 4, 1864, (Stats. 13, p. 381,) for the value of subsistence stores received or seized by officers of the army from loyal citizens in the war of the rebellion of 1861, not residents of States in rebellion; also all claims under the joint resolution of Congress of July 25, 1866, and the act of March 2, 1867, (Stats. at Large, vol. 14, pp. 364, 422,) for commutation of rations to United States soldiers while prisoners of war during that rebellion; also ordinary and miscellaneous claims for subsistence, &c., furnished the army. These several classes of claims receive an administrative examination only in this office, whereupon they are transferred to the Third Auditor's office for adjustment.

V. THE OFFICE OF THE SURGEON-GENERAL.

171. This office is under the direction of the SurgeonGeneral of the Army. It has charge of matters of business connected with the expenditure of moneys, appropriated for the medical and hospital service of the army, for the relief of sick and discharged soldiers, for the purchase of appliances for disabled soldiers, for the support of the army Medical Museum, and for the publication of the med ical and surgical history of the war.

172. It receives and acts on requisitions of medical officers for medical supplies; also on the returns of officers of supplies received, issued, and remaining on hand; and on estimates of such officers as to supplies required.

It receives and acts upon calls of the Commissioner of Pensions and the Adjutant-General for information from the records as to the cause of death of deceased soldiers. It keeps a register of surgical data of the army, derived from the reports and returns of the medical officers, a list of the wounded, together with the details of the most important cases, and compiles the surgical statistics of the war of the rebellion of 1861, as well as of the present Indian hostilities.

VI. THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS.

173. This office is under the direction of the Chief of Engineers, a brigadier-general on the staff of the General of the Army. It has a supervision over the disbursement of moneys out of the various appropriations for public works, including fortifications, river and harbor works and improvements, surveys of military and wagon roads, and explorations, sea-coast and frontier defenses. It also receives accounts of engineer disbursing officers and property returns, and gives them administrative action, preliminary to adjustment by the Third Auditor of the Treasury.

174. These duties are distributed to three divisions of the office, viz.: to one division, those pertaining to fortifi cations, battalion and engineer depots, lands, armaments, personnel, &c.; to another, those relating to river and harbor improvements, &c.; to another, those concerning property accounts, estimates, funds, surveys of the lakes,. explorations, maps, instruments, &c.*

VII. THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF ORDNANCE.

175. This office is under charge of the Chief of Ordnance, who is a brigadier-general of the army and is on the staff of the General.

176. The duties of his office, as a bureau of the War

Department, have regard to the supply of ordnance and ordnance stores to the army. They embrace all matters of supervision over arsenals,-their examination, preservation, and repairs; over sites and buildings for magazines; over the manufacture and preservation of arms, ordnance, ordnance stores and material, and their distribution to the army or to organized bodies authorized to receive the same; also over the accounts of disbursing officers and the expenditure of moneys under appropriations made by Congress for this branch of the service; also over the sales of ordnance stores; also over miscellaneous receipts by ordnance officers, and the covering of the moneys into the Treasury.

VIII. THE OFFICE OF MILITARY JUSTICE.

177. This office is under charge of the Judge AdvocateGeneral of the Army. It receives and makes a record of all court-martial proceedings, consisting of the two classes of general courts-martial and garrison and regimental courts-martial. It furnishes abstracts of proceedings of trials, upon official application of the War and Treasury Departments; also supplies copies of records of such trials. to parties tried by a general court-martial, upon demand made by themselves or by others in their behalf, to which they are entitled in accordance with Article 114 of the Articles of War. It also furnishes special reports upon court-martial proceedings and on applications for remission of sentence; also upon miscellaneous questions of law subImitted by the War Department. The Judge AdvocateGeneral, besides being an officer of the army on the staff of the General thereof, occupies a position analogous in its duties to that of solicitor of a department. In this regard he is the law adviser of the Secretary of War. The duties of the office, as a bureau of the War Department, are to a

large extent made up of the consideration of questions of law arising in the administration of that department. As Judge Advocate-General he reviews court-martial proceedings for the action of the Executive in approval or disapproval of the findings and sentence, or in the exercise of his clemency to the offender. In these respects the head of this office is assisted by a corps of judge advocates of the army, or by such of them as may be detailed to bureau duty.

IX. THE OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR-GENERAL.

178. This office is in charge of an Inspector-General of the Army, and its duties, or the duties of the officer in charge, are confined to the supervision and direction of the affairs of the inspection service of the army.

These embrace investigations by the officers of this branch of the service as to personnel and material of the army; the inspection of military posts, barracks and quarters, buildings, depots, and troops; as to the discipline of the troops and their employment; as to the pay of the army, and the deposits made of moneys by enlisted men. They embrace also the inspection of recruiting stations and recruiting, and, in fact, a careful and searching inquiry into the manner in which all military affairs in camp are conducted. Under a special act of Congress of April 20, 1874, these officers scrutinize frequently the accounts of disbursing of ficers of the army, and make critical investigations as to the necessity and economy of the expenditures, as well as to the conformity of those officers to the laws appropriating the money.

5

CHAPTER V.

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY.

179. This department had its origin in the act of Congress of September 2, 1789, and is the third of the executive departments in the order of date. Numerous amendments and enactments have since added to its business and increased its proportions. Its present organization is derived from comparatively recent legislation, contained in an appropriation act of March 3, 1875. (Stats. 18, p. 396.)

180. The head of the department is the Secretary of the Treasury. There are also two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, whose relative rank and official duties are not prescribed by law, but are designated and assigned them by the head of the department.

Following these is the Chief Clerk. The further general organization of the department is made up of numerous bureaus, each having its head, who, while under the general supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury, has, nevertheless, certain well-defined duties and independent functions prescribed by statute.

181. The bureaus referred to are those of the First Comptroller of the Treasury.

Second Comptroller of the Treasury.

Commissioner of Customs.

First Auditor.

Second Auditor.

Third Auditor.

Fourth Auditor.

Fifth Auditor.

Auditor of the Treasury for the Post Office Department.