It would be well to establish, at the cavalry depots, workshops for repairing the equipments worn in the service, as well as manufacturing horseshoes ready for use in the field. This could be usefully extended to the repair of the small-arms employed by the cavalry.

Under the volunteer system, it will be somewhat difficult to arrange a suitable detail for the depots from the different command. It may be well to commence with the regiments having the fewest number of men.

the number of men, that will be required will depend at first upon the facilities for providing horses and equipping them rapidly. Arrangements should be made by which the chief quartermaster of this corps and other staff officers can turn in their unserviceable property to the cavalry depots, with the least inconvenience to the service in the field.

The above measures will add to the efficiency of the service, and will supply those deficiencies which the want of such an establishment as a cavalry bureau has caused us to feel so sensibly.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, j

A. Pleasonton,

Major-general, Commanding.

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF QUARTERMASTER, Camp near Germantown, Va., August 18, 1863.

General M. C. Meigs,

Quartermaster-general, U. S. Army, Washington D. C.:

General: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of june 20, in, relation to los of animals by the Eleventh Corps, on the march from Falmouth.

Your letter was referred with the following indorsement, viz:

Respectfully referred to Lieutenant Colonel W. G. Le Duc, chief quartermaster Eleventh Corps, Through General Howard, the commanding general.

Colonel Le Duc will make a thorough examination of the matter referred to within, and will render his written report of the same to this office. This communication will be returned with it.

Inclosed herewith is Colonel Le Duc's reply. Investigation is always made by me when public property is reported lost of abandoned, and satisfactory explanations required of those officers who have it in charge. In most instances, these reports are groundless, being made by parties who state not what they personally know, but that which they have heard from others.

I am, genera, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Rufus Ingalls,

Brigadier General, and Chief Quartermaster Army of the Potomac.

[Inclosure.]

OFFICE CHIEF QUARTERMASTER ELEVENTH ARMY CORPS,

August 10, 1863.

Brigadier General R. Ingalls,

Chief quartermaster, Army of the Potomac:

General: In accordance with your instruction, I have made a thorough investigation of the charges contained in the accompanying