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Francisco, California, June 30, 1857. fic, commanded by Brevet Brigadier General Newman S. Clarke, colonel

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I.

ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, November 28, 1857.

Statement showing the whole number of recruits enlisted in the army from the 1st of July, 1856, to the 30th of June, 1857.

I.-GENERAL RECRUITING SERVICE.

Major Albemarle Cady, 6th infantry, general superintendent.

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2d regiment of cavalry........

Regiment of mounted riflemen....

Total mounted troops..

1st regiment of artillery.... 2d regiment of artillery... 3d regiment of artillery. 4th regiment of artillery.

Total artillery......... 1st regiment of infantry... 2d regiment of infantry..... 3d regiment of infantry.. 4th regiment of infantry 5th regiment of infantry 6th regiment of infantry. 7th regiment of infantry 8th regiment of infantry 9th regiment of infantry. 10th regiment of infantry..

Total infantry.....

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29

26

231

63

18

2

16

477

Corps of sappers and miners..

12

33

Detachment at West Point...

Total number enlisted from the 1st July, 1856, to the 30th
June, 1857......

IV.-RECAPITULATION.

For the general service......

For mounted service.......

riflemen Artillery....

By regiments.-Dragoons, cavalry, and mounted

Infantry....

Sappers and miners and detachment at West Point......

V.-AMOUNT OF RECRUITING FUNDS.

Amount of recruiting funds in the hands of officers of
the army, June 30, 1856....
Amount of recruiting funds advanced to recruiting offi-
cers from the 1st July, 1856, to 30th June, 1857.....

Vol. ii-6

5,420

2,684

1,147

701

361

477

50

5,420

$30,817 02

96,828 31

127,645 33

Brought forward.......

Amount of funds accounted for from July 1, 1856, to

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Balance in the hands of recruiting officers June 30, 1857

$127,645 33

92,361 72

35,283 61

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SIR: I have the honor to submit, in compliance with your instructions, the following statement, showing the estimated difference of expense between the employment and maintenance of regular troops and of volunteers, embracing a period of about twenty-two years last past. This statement is made from the data furnished in the report of the paymaster general, dated March 6, 1838, (copy herewith,) as well as from such additional data as the records of this office have supplied.

First. Of the number of volunteers mustererd into the service of the United States during the war with Mexico, which was as follows:

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Of these foot volunteers, we may disregard the 95 three months' men. Of the six months' men, we find 1,103 to have died, been discharged, &c., before the date of muster out, all of whom had served some time, however; many of them four and five months; so that the government had already incurred, in their case, the principal part of the expense which they were likely to occasion it. In a calculation of that expense, therefore, we shall clearly be within bounds by throwing off 706; which leaves for the number of six months' men, 7,000. Throwing off, in the same way, from the number of twelve months' men, 3,031, we shall have left 16,000. Now, the expense of raising and keeping these 16,000 men during twelve months will be nearly equivalent to that of keeping 31,000 men during six months; we will set them down, accordingly, 31,000. Throwing off, in the same way, 5,412 from the number of war men, we then have left 23,000; and as their length of service varied from seven and eight to twenty and twenty-four months, but averaging, on the whole,

considerably over twelve months, we may count their cost as about the same with that of 45,000 six months' men. Adding up these three numbers, we shall have 83,000; and dividing this by 65, or the aggregate of a company of 50 privates, we will get 1,277 companies; which, multiplied by $2,625, or the difference between the cost of a regular infantry company and one of foot volunteers, for six months, according to the computation of the paymaster general, in 1838, (see House Document 271, 2d session, 25th Congress, table A,) we shall have $3,352,125 for the minimum amount expended upon these volunteers over what the same number of regular troops would have cost during the same time. Going through the same calculations with the mounted volunteers enumerated above, observing only that the difference of cost between mounted companies of volunteers and regular troops for six months is greater, amounting to $9,002, we shall get, in the same way, $3,744,832; which, added to the previous amount, leaves $7,096,957 as the clear amount which must have been saved during the Mexican war by the use of regular troops instead of volunteers; and, by making a fair allowance for the unnecessarily large mounted force of volunteers called out, this amount will even go up to $9,021,733. And should we further consider the comparative loss and destruction of military stores and public property by the two forces, referred to in the report of the paymaster general, we may safely assume that not much short of twenty millions might have been saved in the course of the Mexican war by the employment of regular troops in lieu of volunteers; and this is, undoubtedly, an under estimate.

If we go back, now, beyond the Mexican war, as far as the year 1835, we shall find that, in the intervening time, not less than 50,293 volunteers were mustered into the service of the United States for periods varying from one to twelve, but usually of three or six months; of whom much more than half, very nearly two-thirds, indeed, are found to have been mounted. We will, however, consider only one-half of them as mounted; but one-half of these, again, we will regard as having been unnecessarily so, and shall, therefore, compare their relative cost with that of regular infantry; so that the comparison will thus be of three-fourths of the whole number with regular infantry, and of one-fourth only with regular cavalry. How far we shall be under estimating in so doing will appear from a single illustration; for, of the above number of volunteers, we find that 15,112 were furnished by the State of Florida alone for service against the Seminole Indians, and of these 15,112, 12,774 were mounted.

We shall only treat them, too, as three months' volunteers; and then, by going through the same series of calculations, we shall obtain $4,550,864 as the clear amount of saving which would have resulted from the employment, in their stead, of the same number of regular troops.

Since the Mexican war, there have been in the service of the United States 7,382 volunteers, of whom all but 472 have been mounted, and the greater part of whom served six months. They were wholly furnished from the States of Florida and Texas and the Territory of New

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