when you were here I asked you about the payment of clerks and extradite men; also as to the bills contracted by the hospital. I told you that I had then paid out $227, to which you replied as I understood you to say as we did Major Given that I should pay clerks 40 cents per day and laborers 25, and that I could pay what was due when you arranged for the camp savings. This I din in good faith, but if I have paid for the working of this department anything wrong I am willing rather than you should approve a wrong to pay any of the bills of labor I have incurred; or anything that I have done wrong in striving to serve my Government, with an average of 10,000 in my command since the 1st of September, 1862, with two officers to support me in the discharge of such arduous and responsible duties as such a disorganized and demoralized command as mine has been, with but little sympathy save from yourself.

The postmaster and mail carrier is a very important post, and thousands of letters and money pass through their hands. To get men of an honest character to take the responsibility is very hard. Hence the reason I paid one 40 cents per day and the other 25 is [that] they go three times to the city per day with heavy bags on their backs, a distance of two and one-half miles, in all weathers. When the camp was large our mail for the camp would go as high as 2,000 letters in one day. The express agent must be a man of great honesty, for he carries to and from the city thousand of dollars. All the money from the men which is sent home goes from this office, and last week we paid of and the men sent over $20,000 away to their families through this office, and I have never herd of anything going wrong. A good honest man to take such responsibilities ought to be paid at least 40 cents per day. If I allowed the men to go to town to express their money, &c., the country would be overrun with men. The commissary department may get along with the number specified in your letter at camp at present while the number is so low, but the moment an arrival of any amount comes it will be necessary to have men at the barracks at College Green and in the navy-yard to get out the goods, as the Government has no men for any of this work. I have to furnish everything in the form of laborers, teamsters, &c,; there is not a man in any of my departments that is paid by the Government anything extra save what they get here. For example, I have nine teamsters which I pay $7. 75 per month, and one wagon-master $12, in all $81,25, which if paid by the quartermaster of the post, as all teamsters in his service, it would cost the Government $250 per month. In this alone I have saved to the Government $178,25 per month. These wagons do the business for the quartermaster's and commissary departments less the bringing of wood to camp, which is done by the quartermaster of the post.

The reason there are no rolls from the quartermaster's department is because I would not pay so many laborers as were employed by the quartermaster, and they have stood since November; but if you refer to the schedule of bills unpaid you will find an account of my indebtedness to the quartermaster's department. A copy of the schedule I sent you I inclose* you now, showing the amount due, to whom and for what and what I have paid since I rendered you my statement. The business of the quartermaster is very large and will need quite a number of men, but if the quartermaster of the post has to furnish laborers for this department in Annapolis it will reduce the expenses very much, but it will cost the Government three times the amount paid by me. If you strike out the laborers on the rolls for December, Jan-

---------------

* Not found.

---------------